THE BLOT
Starring Claire Windsor and Louis Calhern
THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD
August, 27, 1921
Or "Do Schoolteachers Eat?" Apparently not, according to Lois Weber, who here pictures a starving professor, his wife and daughter, Claire Windsor, in a series of pathetic episodes. Luckily the rich young college lad, Louis Calhern, appears just in time with roast chicken and a wedding ring. Typical Weber exaggeration and rather tiresome. Censor proof.
THE BLOT
Starring Claire Windsor and Louis Calhern
THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD
August, 27, 1921
In "The Blot" Lois Weber champions the cause of the underpaid college professor and the struggling minister whose salary is insufficient for his needs. The story she has written has a strong human theme, but she has smothered it under a mass of plausible but unnecessary detail. In a four-hundred page novel where time is no object and the book may be picked up and read in sections, such a method in constructing a story is permissible. By using a dozen or so minor characters and introducing frequent bits of local color that do not advance the story, the author-director has weakened the vital points in the picture and deprived the theme of half its punch. Building a scenario is a question of elimination, as well as of selection. It may be quite within reason that a pretty girl should inspire love in the hearts of a wealthy college boy and a poor minister, and also in the breast of the young fellow next door, but when the action halts while the brothers and sisters and chums of the last named suitor drive the head of the house out of his own parlor and start a jazz party, the piece of business becomes a distraction and not an asset. Miss Weber's character drawing is seldom at fault, but she uses so many characters that they frequently get into one another's light.
A piece of business that is in rather poor taste is the close proximity of scenes showing the Olsen family at dinner and the Griggs' cat foraging in the Olsen garbage-can. Heroic cutting would leave a well-balanced and entertaining picture.
The cast, headed by Louis Calhern and Claire Windsor, is excellent. The details of production relative to location, lighting and settings are all high grade.
THE BLOT
Starring Claire Windsor and Louis Calhern
VARIETY
August 19, 1921
This Lois Weber picture, the first release by he newly formed distributing concern, the F.B. Warner Corp., should clean up a tidy sum of money. It touches the heart. It is sensibly and intelligently put together, points a worth while moral without offensive preaching and is on a live topic. In addition, its technical qualities are high in standard. The cast, headed by Claire Windsor, who can act in a delicate and appealing fashion and is a great beauty besides, is adequate throughout, and the story, direction, photography and lighting please.
Miss Weber, who shares direction honors with Phillips Smalley, gives us a story that is familiar to the average audience in all its details. The other kind of story, dealing with princes and lands beyond the sea, also succeeds, but this isn't one of them. The theme is the way university professors and teachers generally are underpaid. The author represents the professor's family as miserably underfed, perhaps an exaggeration, but not so great a one as to ruin the story. Next door lives the family of a shoemaker who prospers at a trade.
The professor's salvation is worked out when the son of a wealthy trustee falls in love with his daughter and makes all his pals take lessons from the old teacher. A very human touch is the bringing together of the two families who have misunderstood each other. The climax and final fade-out is a gem. It ends on the disappointed lover, the young clergyman who bravely walks away. This is as it should be. The audience would wonder about him, not about the two who were happy.
Seven reels long and a good market bet.
For more information, see "The Blot" as our "Feature of the Month"