The Evidence of the Film (1913)

• 62%
• 1913
• Crime
• Lawrence Marston
• Edwin Thanhouser
• William Garwood
• Marie Eline
• Florence La Badie

A girl who worked in the joining room of a motion picture factory had a little brother, of whom she was very fond. He visited the plant one day, and saw from "the inside" how pictures were made. The youngster was a messenger boy, and later was summoned to the office of a broker, and given a package which he was to deliver to a rich woman up town. The woman received the package herself, opened it in his presence, but found only bits of blank paper, instead of the bonds she had expected. At first she suspected the broker, but he clearly proved that, in the presence of two witnesses, he had placed the bonds in an envelope, and carefully sealed them up. The messenger boy protested his innocence, but the woman and the broker both insisted the he be prosecuted, and the weeping child was locked in a cell. His sister pleaded with his accuser, but in vain, and for several days the case against the boy was dark. One morning while joining film the girl happened to glance with extra care at one scene. She thought she recognized her brother, and close examination under a microscope proved to her she was correct. With a cry of joy she rushed to the police station and told the officers in charge she had important evidence. Two detectives accompanied her back to the plant, and saw a scene of a play thrown upon the screen. It revealed the messenger boy, a package in his hand, coming around the corner, whistling merrily. A man close behind him ran into and upset the child, deftly substituted a package he held, for the one the boy had dropped, and then walking down the street, so rapidly that he did not notice the camera. "Don't you know that man?" screamed the girl. "He is the broker who had my brother sent to prison." The broker was arrested, and when the evidence of the film was displayed to him, he broke down and confessed. He had hoped by throwing the blame upon the boy to keep the bonds for himself. A long term in prison was his punishment, while the plucky girl was warmly complimented for the shrewd way in which she cleared her little brother.