His Mother's Boy (1917)

Director:

Victor Schertzinger

Writers:

Rupert Hughes (story), Ella Stuart Carson (scenario)

Stars:

Charles Ray, Doris May, William Elmer

Cast

Cast overview:
Charles Ray	...	Matthew Denton
Doris May	...	Mabel Glenny
William Elmer	...	Banty Jones
Josef Swickard	...	Tom Glenny (as Joseph Swickard)
Jerome Storm	...	Jimmie Noonan
Gertrude Claire	...	Mrs. Denton
Lydia Knott	...	Mrs. Glenny

Storyline

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Plot Keywords:

cowardice | oil field | impersonation | texas | swindler

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

USA

Release Date:

24 December 1917 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Thomas H. Ince Corporation

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Silent

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

User Reviews

Charles Ray the Roustabout

Under producer Thomas Ince, star Charles Ray's series incarnated a specific kind of role, as I outline in my Ince biography. A typical sample is HIS MOTHER'S BOY (1917), in which Ray is a young man, in a town outside of Boston. Avoiding women, his "natural manhood stands in grave danger of being mothered out of him."

But righteous anger soon leads him to a new path. Townspeople who invested in an oil well promoted by his late father ostracize the characters of Ray and his mother. This even occurs in church where "narrow minds that twist divine words to meet their own petty ways."

When the town's leading citizens demand restitution from his widowed mother, he heads west to Texas, to check on the well first-hand. There he gradually adjusts to the rough-and-tumble, becoming a roustabout, ultimately saving a girl whose father has been coerced into diverting the oil from the well.

The awkwardness of Ray's hero is symbolized by wearing a hat during the picnic on which he asks the girl to marry him. By the end he is a new man, shooting (but not killing) his enemy in self-defense, and giving his fiancée instructions to always wear her ring henceforth.