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The Run on the Bank
(1912) United States of America
B&W : One reel
Directed by [?] Thomas H. Ince?
Cast: Francis Ford [Jim]
New York Motion Picture Company [Bison] production; distributed by Motion Picture Distributing & Sales Company. / Released 19 January 1912. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Drama: Western.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? After serving five years in the penitentiary for forgery, Jim goes into the world resolved to live honestly in the future. Few businessmen care to harbor an ex-convict, however, and he is almost driven back to crime by the rebuffs he receives. Penniless, disheartened and shabby, he rides the bumpers of a freight to a western town and is given employment through the intervention of the pretty daughter of a ranchman. Several months elapse, and by hard work Jim is promoted to the position of foreman. The boss goes away and directs Jim to deliver a check to a neighboring ranchman as commission on a cattle sale. The neighbor refuses to accept the check, stating there is a run on the bank. Jim verifies this, and gallops home, and finds from the account and checkbooks that the loss has nearly $10,000, his entire fortune, in the tottering institution. A wild idea seizes him, and a tremendous conflict of emotion is depicted, including a dissolving scene of Jim in convict’s garb, manacled in his cell. The sight of the tearful girl whom he loves decides him, and he forges a check for the entire amount of the deposit. By hard riding, he gets to the bank at five minutes to three. The mad mob, fighting for preference, tries to keep him out but he tears through them with the fury of a maniac, gets to the paying teller’s window, forces payment of the check and goes to the ranch, where he secretes the money on the mantel. With breaking heart he writes a farewell letter to the ranchman, telling him the story and that he must know no one but an expert forger could have turned the trick. A pathetic scene takes place as the rancher returns, believing himself bankrupt, and is met by his daughter. The film closes with a magnificent scenic view at break of day showing clearly the rising sun illuminating the sparkling water and castings its warm rays upon Jim’s bent figure as he moodily plods along seeking a place of abode to which the curse of his past career will not follow.
Reviews: [The Moving Picture World, 3 February 1912, page ?] This picture, telling a Western story, has some sensibly posed scenes. It was only a week or so ago that the Imp Company released a picture, “At the Hour of Three,” using the same idea. The rancher’s ex-convict, but honest employee, forges his employer’s name to save his fortune on deposit at a bank on which there is a run. He gets the money and delivers it at the former’s office, then goes away. The last scene is a sunset by the ocean, a bit more convincing ending to the story. There is more excitement and vim in this picture than in the former. It will be a fair filler despite the fact, noticed above, that its theme is still fresh in moving pictures.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 27 November 2022.
References: ClasIm-226 p. 55 : Website-IMDb.
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