|
The Tattooed Arm
Also known as {The Tatooed Arm}
(1910) United States of America
B&W : One reel / 876 feet
Directed by (unknown)
Cast: (unknown)
Lubin Manufacturing Company production. / Released 6 January 1910. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Comedy.
Synopsis: [The Film Index, 8 January 1910, page ?, and The Moving Picture World, 15 January 1910, page ?] Jack Trevor’s father in a generous mood gives him a dollar, and Jack hurries over to Evelyn Bradford’s house to show his prize. Evelyn has been Jack’s little sweetheart through all of her short life, and what is his is hers as well. The children start out to spend the money and wander down on the waterfront to see the ships. In one chandler’s shop where an old seaman has set up his tattooing instruments, Jack decides to have his initials on his arm. He likes the effect so much that he persuades Evelyn to have her arm decorated with her initials and his own, and with childish solemnity they plight their troth. Jack’s father is a manufacturer, and a discharged workman, to be revenged for his fancied wrongs, abducts the boy. Evelyn valiantly fights for her little comrade, but in vain, and in attempting to beat off the abductor her knee is sprained. As the police inquiry slowly draws the net about the workman, he disguises Jack as a girl and takes him aboard a ship bound for Australia. The man pays the captain to take the lad as cabin boy, and all trace of Jack is lost to the detectives. Evelyn becomes a trained nurse, and though a young interne makes ardent love to her, she remains true for the time to the betrothal of baby days. But no word has come from Jack in fifteen years, for he was cast away on the African coast and captured by savages. Evelyn eventually yields to the young surgeon’s plea, but even as she accepts [his] love, they are interrupted by an accident case. A sailor has been assaulted by footpads, and his arm and head have been injured. The surgeon dresses the wound in the head while the nurse prepares to bandage the arm. She starts back as the tattoo marks are disclosed and she realizes that it is Jack come back at last. The old love floods back into her heart, and the surgeon, appreciating the situation, takes back the ring he gave her to mark their engagement and hands it to Jack to replace upon the tiny finger as the sign of his own happiness.
Reviews: [Variety, 15 January 1910, page ?] Lubin has been rather successful with this dramatic release. Two children (boy and girl) are playmates. The boy happens to have a little spending money. Indignantly declining to play with his companion’s dolls, he leads her to the shop of an old seaman, who makes a business of tatooing [sic]. Each of the children has the initials of the other tatooed [sic] on the arm. A workman, discharged by the boy’s wealthy father, kidnaps the youngster, but when the police get on his trail, he ships the lad to China as cabin boy on a tramp steamer. Fifteen years expire (by the simple process of announcing as much on the illuminated screen), and the boy returns (to Philadelphia, presumably) as a sailor. Meanwhile, the little girl has grown up to be a hospital nurse. A doctor makes love to her, is at first refused in deference to the girl’s childish pledges to her companion, and later accepted. Just about this time the returned sailor is set upon in the street and blackjacked by robbers. A policeman finds him and has him sent to the self-same hospital where, of course, the tattoo marks are discovered by the nurse. The doctor is thrown over and the kidnapped boy wins her hand. The scenic settings and acting are convincing. // [The Moving Picture World, 22 January 1910, page ?] A story of how the tattooing of the initials of a boy and girl on the arm of each resulted in recognition after years of separation, renewing the childish pledges of love and a happy wedding to close the picture. Some thrills are included, too. An abduction, a shipwreck, life among savages and similar occurrences serve to hold the interest unbroken from beginning to end. The interpretation in the hands of Lubin’s capable company is sufficiently graphic to be thoroughly satisfactory. The picture, as a whole, is one of the most interesting Lubin has offered recently and should please wherever it is shown. Plenty of action of this character is what the public likes, and in this instance the players perform their parts with an energy which adds materially to the attractions of the picture.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 5 April 2024.
References: MovPicWorld-19100108 p. 32 : Website-AFI.
|
