User Reviews

This is a most worthy film; story, acting and portraiture being of the very highest order. To merit the appreciation it most justly deserves it is very necessary that the subject be thoroughly understood or the great value of the picture is lost. "My Old Dutch" is the familiar yet kindly sobriquet given by the South of England costermonger to his wife, who is also very often his partner in his peddling business. While often of a very ordinary type of people, sometimes distinctly common, the characters in this instance are of those of that class of respectable traders who command respect; and of whom Albert Chevallier wrote, and upon whose poem this story is here reproduced. The costermonger and his wife, Bill and Mary Hawkins, are a kindly, good-looking, thrifty old couple who have taken in their well-kept home a young artist, Clive Huntley. Probably through lack of success and through privation, the artist is taken seriously ill and is tenderly nursed by the old couple, who treat him as a son. Never before have a series of more beautiful and interesting pictures of an elderly couple been seen; without doubt, the bedroom pictures are masterpieces, one or two scenes especially being worthy of depicting on canvas, so excellent are the groupings and effect, with likenesses that are perfect. Mr. Van Dyke Brooke and Mrs. Mary Maurice are most perfectly at home, both in personal attributes and histrionic ability, in the characters they here assume. Mr. Maurice Costello's portrayal of Clive Huntley is in harmony with his versatile adaptability. The varied changes of life under which the poor artist, through the death of a rich uncle, becomes not only a man of wealth, but also a man of title, lends a charm to the subject in that these changes enhance the nobility of his manhood. Suddenly visiting the old couple who had befriended him he finds them about to be despoiled of their home, having lost all their worldly possessions through the alluring schemes of cunning wild-cat mining agents. The truth of the old saying that "bread cast upon the waters returns after many days" is here beautifully exemplified. Huntley, now "Sir Clive," redeems the property of the old people and from the abundance of his wealth is able amply to repay their former kindness. The story is a charming one, well told and well portrayed, producing the wish that all who see this film may be acquainted with its origin and purpose, lest they lose its full value. It is also another proof that there are upon the bookshelves of our libraries not only sufficient, but better subjects than are being produced in the name of more recent scenarios. "My Old Dutch" is Vitagraph's complement of "Auld Robin Gray"; there are still others of a similar noble character. - The Moving Picture World, August 19, 1911