The Matrimaniac
(1916)
46 or 58 mins | Comedy | 16 December 1916
Director:
Paul PowellWriters:
Octavus Roy Cohen, J. U. GiesyProduction Company:
Fine Arts Film Co.Douglas Fairbanks had just begun working on The Matrimaniacs, the 28 October 1916 Moving Picture World announced. A month later, the 25 November 1916 Motion Picture News noted that The Matrimaniac was nearing completion. During filming, according to the 9 December 1916 Moving Picture World, Charlie Chaplin, who was filming a tramp comedy nearby and in full costume, visited the street location where his good friend Fairbanks was working and joined the scene. The cameraman kept cranking, but none of the footage of the two biggest stars of silent film cutting capers together could be used, except as a private clip for their personal collections.
The Matrimaniac was prolific magazine writer, novelist and screenwriter Octavus Roy Cohen's first feature film, and bears some resemblance to his first short film, The Honeymoon Baby, from a year earlier. The 9 December 1916 Motography mentioned that The Matrimaniac was "adapted from [Cohen's] novel of the same name," but no such novel could be found. According to Anita Loos' autobiography, A Girl Like I, she and John Emerson collaborated on the scenario, born out by reviewer Peter Milne, in the 16 December 1916 Motion Picture News, who noted, "We suppose [the subtitles] were written by Miss Loos; at any rate they read like hers." Another reviewer, George W. Graves, added, "Then there are the Anita Loos subtitles, which add more than their mite to the success of the picture," in that week's Motography.
Wid's cited a length of 58 minutes, but the copy viewed by AFI ...
Douglas Fairbanks had just begun working on The Matrimaniacs, the 28 October 1916 Moving Picture World announced. A month later, the 25 November 1916 Motion Picture News noted that The Matrimaniac was nearing completion. During filming, according to the 9 December 1916 Moving Picture World, Charlie Chaplin, who was filming a tramp comedy nearby and in full costume, visited the street location where his good friend Fairbanks was working and joined the scene. The cameraman kept cranking, but none of the footage of the two biggest stars of silent film cutting capers together could be used, except as a private clip for their personal collections.
The Matrimaniac was prolific magazine writer, novelist and screenwriter Octavus Roy Cohen's first feature film, and bears some resemblance to his first short film, The Honeymoon Baby, from a year earlier. The 9 December 1916 Motography mentioned that The Matrimaniac was "adapted from [Cohen's] novel of the same name," but no such novel could be found. According to Anita Loos' autobiography, A Girl Like I, she and John Emerson collaborated on the scenario, born out by reviewer Peter Milne, in the 16 December 1916 Motion Picture News, who noted, "We suppose [the subtitles] were written by Miss Loos; at any rate they read like hers." Another reviewer, George W. Graves, added, "Then there are the Anita Loos subtitles, which add more than their mite to the success of the picture," in that week's Motography.
Wid's cited a length of 58 minutes, but the copy viewed by AFI Catalog was only 46 minutes. Wid's called the film "nothing more or less than the old-time hokum-chase comedy, where the young man elopes with daughter and is pursued by father. Keystone has done it six hundred and eighty-six times."
The film opened the week of 3 December at the Rialto Theater on New York City's Broadway, according to the 16 December 1916 Moving Picture World.
According to the Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Database, this film is extant. It is widely available, and was screened at the Kansas Silent Film Festival in Topeka, KA, on 27 February 2010.
When Marna Lewis elopes with Jimmie Conroy, Wally Henderson, whom Marna's father wants her to marry, follows the couple onto their train and wires Marna's father to begin legal action to prevent the secret wedding. Jimmie is separated from the train at the first stop, Wiseburn, when he tries to bring a disheveled and hapless Reverend Tubbs to perform the marriage, and so he is forced to drag Tubbs by various means, including a mule, to the town of Jazboro to meet Marna. There, however, Marna has been sequestered with Wally in a hotel by her father and the police, Tubbs is jailed on vagrancy charges, and Jimmie, branded as an escaped lunatic, is chased all over town by the local authorities, winding up stuck atop a telephone pole. Although old-fashioned small town justice has separated the bride, the groom, and the reverend, modern technology brings them together, as Tubbs performs the ceremony from jail and has Marna and Jimmy take their vows over the ...
When Marna Lewis elopes with Jimmie Conroy, Wally Henderson, whom Marna's father wants her to marry, follows the couple onto their train and wires Marna's father to begin legal action to prevent the secret wedding. Jimmie is separated from the train at the first stop, Wiseburn, when he tries to bring a disheveled and hapless Reverend Tubbs to perform the marriage, and so he is forced to drag Tubbs by various means, including a mule, to the town of Jazboro to meet Marna. There, however, Marna has been sequestered with Wally in a hotel by her father and the police, Tubbs is jailed on vagrancy charges, and Jimmie, branded as an escaped lunatic, is chased all over town by the local authorities, winding up stuck atop a telephone pole. Although old-fashioned small town justice has separated the bride, the groom, and the reverend, modern technology brings them together, as Tubbs performs the ceremony from jail and has Marna and Jimmy take their vows over the telephone.
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