The Argyle Case (1917) User Reviews

Wisely eliminating all the comic relief

[deickemeyer · 7 February 2015]

The O'Higgen-Ford detective drama, "The Argyle Case," which Wm. J. Burns supervised and pronounced good, has been given a screen production by the Selznick company, with Robert Warwick in the character of Asche Kayton. The version is in seven reels, and Director Ralph Ince has speeded up the action and cut the story down to the essentials so cleverly that the seven reels seems no more than five. Wisely eliminating all the comic relief furnished by the colored auntie in the spoken drama, Frederick Chapin, who made the scenario, confined himself to the clearing up of the mysterious murder that forms the subject of the play. The combined efforts of the director and the scenarist have resulted in an intense, firmly woven melodrama that never insults one's intelligence by the impossibility of its plot nor the miraculous skill of its detective hero. "The Argyle Case" was first produced when the dictagraph had just come into use and its introduction into the drama was one of the features of the performance. It still remains an important asset when used in the screen version, and we have Detective Burns' word for it that it is highly prized by the professional "flycop." The story of the play is shrewdly calculated to hold the attention and to win sympathy for its heroine, who is accused of killing her foster father. There is also the added interest of speculating who it was that committed the crime. The secret is well kept and its unraveling is confined, except for a brief period, to the forward march of events. Everything that could be achieved by mature judgment and a desire to make the production a notable one, has been done for "The Argyle Case." The cast is especially strong. Robert Warwick, who makes his bow in this picture as the featured player of a Selznick-Warwick Company, does the best work of his screen career. His acting is facile, full of mental vigor and without a touch of over coloring or unnecessary effort. Elaine Hammerstein is an attractive heroine, having the youth, good looks and requisite amount of brains to render her worthy any young fellow's devotion. Arthur Albertson, Frank McGlyn and H. Cooper Cliffe are high spots in a support of general excellence, and Charles Hines should be mentioned for his deft performance of Joe Manning, and Mary Alden for a moving impersonation of Mellie Marsh. Frank Evans, J. B. Fleming, Robert Vivian and Gazelle Marche complete the list. – The Moving Picture World, February 24, 1917