The Saintly Sinner (1917) User Reviews

Plausibility suffers several times

[deickemeyer · 7 February 2015]

There can be no doubt that "The Saintly Sinner," a five-reel Bluebird melodrama, to be released on February 26, will make a wide appeal, because the story material and plot fabric used in the picture's making has never yet failed in its appeal. The production is old-fashioned melodrama which sacrifices almost everything in the interests of the "punch." Plausibility suffers several times during the running of the five reels, especially so when the girl is about to be executed in the electric chair; the switch is thrown on, but a subtitle informs us that a fuse has blown out. This gives just enough time to inform the prison authorities of a pardon, and prevent the execution of an innocent girl. There are to be seen in the picture quite a number of familiar characters doing familiar things, but in this particular production the familiar things are done in a more convincing manner than usual. Good direction by Raymond Wells, and good photography aid the production. Ruth Stonehouse plays the leading role, that of a girl around whose delegability, in the eyes of the villain, revolves acts of the latter which result first in the suicide of the girl's once wealthy father, later in the girl's incarceration in jail on the villain's false charge, and still later to two murders. Henry Devries capably carries the role of the villain. Jack Mulhall is seen as the dissipated youth who reforms, and whose path crosses that of the girl. Mr. Mulhall takes advantage of the scant opportunities offered him. The remainder of the cast, which is an adequate one, is composed of Raymond Whittaker, Alida Hayman, Frederick Montague and Dorothy Drake. The situation from which the picture takes its title arises when the girl and an artist conspire to ruin the villain who is the cause of all their troubles. She has about accomplished her object when she justifiably kills the artist. Circumstantial evidence leads her to the electric chair, but she is rescued by the hero, who rushes in from the West just in time to get a pardon from his father, the Governor. The story was written by L. H. Hutton and prepared for the screen by Eugene Lewis. – The Moving Picture World, February 24, 1917