The Innocence of Ruth
About The Innocence of Ruth
Richard Travers, wiped out on the market by the speculator Mortimer Reynolds, asks the young millionaire Jimmy Carter to look after his daughter Ruth and then dies. Ruth moves into Jimmy's house. He treats her as a ward and keeps his distance. At a charity ball Reynolds watches her dance, and he is already tired of his mistress Edna Morris. Angry with Jimmy, Ruth goes to Reynolds's house. He tries to rape her. Edna steps in, and he throws Edna out. Jimmy, warned by a bank that Reynolds has forged his name on bonds, arrives and is knocked out with a vase. Police come for Reynolds. He shoots it out with them and is killed. Ruth goes back to Jimmy, and the two of them see that they love each other.
Cast & crew
More about The Innocence of Ruth
John H. Collins directed. William Addison Lathrop wrote the story and the scenario. Viola Dana plays Ruth Travers, Edward Earle plays Jimmy Carter, and Augustus Phillips plays Mortimer Reynolds. Moving Picture World reported on December 4, 1915, that Dana was filming at the Edison studio on Decatur Avenue and Olive Place in the Bronx. Edison copyrighted the picture on January 18, 1916, as LP7461. Kleine-Edison Feature Service released it on January 26, 1916. It is five reels, 4,839 feet.
Themes
Making
Collins shoots the charity-ball dance as the moment Reynolds fixes on Ruth, then moves the last reel to his house: the assault, the vase, and the gunfight with the police.
Preservation
The Library of Congress holds 16mm prints from the George Kleine collection. A digital copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Lena Davril plays Edna Morris. T. Tamamoto plays Togo, Carter's butler. Brad Sutton plays Ruth's father. Nellie Grant plays the housekeeper. Robert Brower plays a stockbroker.
- The AFI catalog times it at 59 minutes. A Wikipedia infobox says 50 minutes. A digital copy runs about 59 minutes.
- Prints from the George Kleine collection are at the Library of Congress, including 16mm reduction positives.
Scenes
- Travers, cleaned out by Reynolds, gives Ruth into Jimmy Carter's care from his deathbed.
- Ruth dances at the charity ball and Reynolds decides to pursue her.
- Reynolds knocks Jimmy out with a vase, then dies in a shootout with the police.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (The Innocence of Ruth (1916) by John H. Collins.webm)
