Better Days (1913) User Reviews

At no time descends to the commonplace

[deickemeyer · 4 November 2017]

In this short reel there is more real drama, in the opinion of this reviewer, than has been contained in any picture of the three days of the week. This is due to the work of Van Dyke Brooke, who not only directs the picture, but plays the lead. Mr. Brooks so interests little Sidney Cummings that the child sees only the tramp and forgets the camera, to which obviously he was little accustomed. There is deep pathos and a bit of delightful comedy as well; it is the laugh with a suspicion of a choke, in the scene where the tramp is taken by the child into the nursery, puts on with the little fellow the boxing gloves and rides the hobby horse. Rosemary Theby and Leo Delaney acceptably play the father and mother of the child. A.F. Darke is the author of a story that at no time descends to the commonplace; the identity of the originals of the two photographs carried by the tramp remains unrevealed; the woman and child are not miraculously restored to the outcast. - The Moving Picture World, September 6, 1913