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The Ocean Waif
(1916) United States of America
B&W : Five reels
Directed by Alice Blaché (Alice Guy Blaché)
Cast: Carlyle Blackwell [Ronald Roberts], Doris Kenyon [Millie Jessop], Edgar Norton [Hawkins, Ronald’s valet], Fraunie Fraunholz [Sem], William Morris [Hy Jessop, Millie’s foster father]; [?] Lyn Donelson, Lyn Donaldson or Dyne Donaldson? [?] [Beatrice or Ruth Hart]?, Augusta Burmeister [Ruth’s mother]
International Film Service Company, Incorporated, production; distributed by International Film Service Company, Incorporated [A Golden Eagle Feature]. / Produced by Herbert Blaché. From a screen story by Frederick Chapin. Cinematography by John G. Haas. Presented by International Film Service Company, Incorporated. / © 1 November 1916 by International Film Service Company, Incorporated [LP10284]. Released 2 November 1916. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / This was the third International Film Service release.
Comedy-Drama.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? Millie Jessop, is an ocean waif, who was washed up by the waves and deposited at the door of Hy Jessop, a disreputable, drunken fisherman on the Atlantic Coast. Millie grew into beautiful womanhood as the drudge of Hy with no knowledge of her parentage and loved and protected only by Sem, a hunchback neighbor boy. To her island home comes Ronald Roberts, in a big splendid yacht. He is an author seeking solitude to complete a novel. He rents a deserted mansion, supposed to be haunted, and takes possession of it the day after Millie leaves the hut of Jessop, following a beating he had administered. She hides in the attic of the supposedly haunted house and furnished delightful comedy by assuming the role of the ghost. Then Ronald discovers her and promptly falls in love with her and she with him. But a cloud appears when Ronald’s fiancée and a party of friends come to visit him. Millie realizes her position, discards the fine raiment in which she has arrayed herself and goes back to her rags and the fisherman’s hut. Jessop attempts to beat her upon her return and Sem shoots through an open window and kills him. Ronald arrives soon after in hunt of his sweetheart and is found bending over the prostrate form of Hy and is accused of the murder. He is tried and there is a wonderful court scene. While the jury is out, and just as he is about to be convicted, Sem appears and confesses and then escapes. Beatrice, Ronald’s fiancée, had deserted him in his hour of need. As he is freed he takes Millie back to New York with him as his bride, while Sem is left behind to face the consequences of his crime, a martyr to his love for “The Ocean Waif.”
Survival status: Prints exist in the Library of Congress film archive (American Film Institute/Marion Davies collection) [35mm acetate duplicate negative, 35mm acetate master positive, 16mm acetate duplicate reduction negative].
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Keywords: Abuse - Crime: Murder - Death: Murder, Suicide - Rodents: Rats - Writers: Novelists
Listing updated: 19 February 2024.
References: Film credits, film viewing : AFI-F1 n. F1.3203; Lahue-Gentlemen p. 38 : Website-AFI; Website-ASFFDb; Website-IMDb.
Home video: Blu-ray Disc, DVD.
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