A college lad’s skills playing a chambermaid on the stage come in handy when he is forbidden from seeing his love by her controlling mother.
Home Media Availability: Stream courtesy of EYE.
Lights Out
When I reviewed Cutey and the Chorus Girls, I found the character of Cutey, played by Wally Van, to be, well, not particularly appealing. However, the Cutey series persisted at Vitagraph for years alongside the Bunnyfinches and the Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew comedies, which I do like. Motion Picture Magazine described the Cutey pictures as “gems of refined comedy.” Was it all a matter of taste or did I just happen to pick a Cutey dud for my introduction? I decided that I would give Cutey another chance.
This time around, Cutey is a college boy who wows the audience in his role as a chambermaid in the school’s play. His friends introduce him to Alys Trevor (Zena Keefe) and they are mutually smitten. Alys introduces Cutey to her mother (Louise Beaudet) but she has other plans for her daughter. The very important Lord Goodbluff (Courtenay Foote) has come to call and Mrs. Trevor has dreams of a noble title for her daughter.
Alys doesn’t fancy the idea at all but when Cutey tries to stop Lord Goodbluff from flirting with her, Mrs. Trevor throws him out of the house. For good measure, she sends a letter telling Cutey that he is not allowed to court Alys.
Cutey spots Lord Goodbluff out and about and follows him. He seems to be meeting with a rather suspicious character (Tom Powers) and is generally up to no good. Cutey doesn’t have a plan but inspiration strikes when he sees that the Trevors have advertised for a maid. He borrows his own maid’s references, dresses in his theatrical getup and applies for the job. Soon, he and Alys are reunited and scheming to get back together.
At a party, Lord Goodbluff and his pal reveal their plan: they will steal a valuable necklace under cover of darkness when the pal turns off the electric light. Cutey catches on, calls the police and turns the lights back on mid-robbery, foiling the scheme and saving the day. Even Mrs. Trevor has to admit that he is a useful woman– no, man to have around.
Cutey Plays Detective is a much stronger entry than Cutey and the Chorus Girls. In the latter film, Wally Van’s character was decidedly unlikable, constantly picking on the clueless Flora Finch before she gets her revenge. I am all for Finch’s victory but this is supposed to be the Cutey series and unless the theme was Cutey Gets What’s Coming to Him, which it wasn’t, it doesn’t present the character in a very good light.
Cutey Plays Detective is more in the style that I associate with Vitagraph: woes of the affluent and the zany ways they go about fixing these problems. Admittedly, Van was thirty-two at the time of production, a full decade too old for his college boy character, but he does well in his undercover detective role.
I particularly liked Zena Keefe as the leading lady. She has a very modern look and style of acting, playing things a bit broad because of the nature of this comedy but never overdoing it. It’s a shame that her career never took off into the stratosphere but perhaps she was a bit too understated for the glitzy era of feature films. In any case, I am glad to have been introduced to her in this picture.
There’s nothing particularly new about the plot of Cutey Plays Detective— the “new suitor is a crook” and “trying to impress the parents” tropes still regularly crop up in entertainment– but the old story components are done well. Kudos to Vitagraph regular Laurence Trimble as director of the picture.
On a side note, the synopsis furnished to the trade magazines by Vitagraph describes a considerably different ending compared to the one we see onscreen:
“Mrs. Trevor gives a ball, to which many guests are invited, including a Miss Whitehouse and her admirer. Cutey, who is watching in the conservatory from behind the portieres, sees Goodbluff steal a pearl necklace from Miss Whitehouse, who is sitting behind the palms with her beau, and then sees him hand the necklace to a confederate. Drawing a revolver from under his skirts, he holds up the two men and exposes the thief.“
In the film, Cutey overhears the men scheming and calls the police. It is Alys who wears the pearl necklace and the plan was for Goodbluff to tear it from her neck and then pass it to his confederate under the cover of dark but Cutey turns on the lights just after the handover takes place. He holds onto them, no revolver needed, until the police enter and find the necklace.
I am not sure why this change was made but I have theories. Certainly, it makes more sense for Alys to be the target of the robbery attempt as she was the primary target of Goodbluff’s interest. Also, this is a little one-reel short, it seems unnecessary to introduce an entirely new character (and her boyfriend!) into the mix in the final few minutes of the thing. Moviegoers of the era laughed at how revolvers were seemingly hidden in every drawer for convenience and Cutey holding onto the thieves while unarmed is more heroic anyway. And he had no idea what Goodbluff was up to beyond annoying Alys with marriage proposals. Arming himself in advance would have seemed like overkill. Whatever the reason for the changes within Vitagraph, it looks like they were an overall improvement.
(The synopsis would have been sent out to the trade magazines once the film was scheduled for release, showing that last minute recuts are not a modern phenomenon.)
All in all, Cutey Plays Detective is a stronger entry in the Cutey series than Cutey and the Chorus Girls and gives modern audiences a better sense of why the character and Wally Van were so popular. And now I am going to see if I can find more Zena Keefe pictures to watch!
Where can I see it?
Stream for free courtesy of EYE. This is a Dutch release print with Dutch intertitles but the plot is easy enough to follow. By the way, Lord Goodbluff is called Lord Nergenshuizen, which is apparently the Dutch equivalent of “Anytown, USA.”
☙❦❧
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