The Kidnapped Bride

The Kidnapped Bride
The Kidnapped Bride
Directed by	Frank Griffin
Written by	Frank Griffin
Produced by	Arthur Hotaling
Starring	Eva Bell; Raymond McKee ; Frank Griffin ; Oliver Hardy
Release date	July 4, 1914;
Running time	6-7 minutes (c. 500 feet)
Country	United States
Languages	Silent film; English intertitles

Last updated December 21, 2023

The Kidnapped Bride is a lost 1914 American silent comedy film produced by the Lubin Manufacturing Company, starring Eva Bell, Raymond McKee, Frank Griffin, and Oliver Hardy. It is a sequel to A Brewerytown Romance , released earlier the same year.

Plot

(The story picks up where A Brewerytown Romance ends.)

Lena and Cassidy, escorted by Cassidy's fellow cops, head to the church to be married. Emil and Heinz, after they are fished out of the river, plot to kidnap Lena. They start a fight as a diversion and then steal the wedding carriage, pushing Cassidy out but driving off with Lena, as Cassidy and the other cops give chase. When they arrive at the church, Emil and Heinz fight over who is to marry Lena. Emil knocks Heinz out, but is himself knocked out by Lena. The rescue party arrives and Lena collapses in the arms of Cassidy as the cops cheer.^[1]^[2]

Cast

Eva Bell as Lena Krautheimer
Raymond McKee as Emil Schweitzer
Frank Griffin as Tango Heinz
Oliver Hardy as Daniel Cassidy (credited as Babe Hardy)

Production and reception

The Kidnapped Bridge was filmed in Jacksonville, Florida, at the Jacksonville unit of the Lubin Manufacturing Company, under the supervision of Arthur Hotaling. It was a short split-reel comedy, lasting approximately 7 minutes, and sharing a single reel of film with a second, unrelated comedy, It's a Shame. The films were released by the General Film Company on July 4, 1914.^[2]

The film was written and directed by Frank Griffin, who went on to direct several other short comedies for Lubin. It was a sequel to A Brewerytown Romance, which featured the same cast and characters, and was released a month earlier, on June 2, 1914. Film historian Rob Stone has suggested that both parts were filmed at the same time as a one-reel comedy, which was then cut into two and combined with two other films for split-reel release.^[2] Like A Brewerytown Romance, The Kidnapped Bride is notable for an early screen appearance by Oliver Hardy (credited by his nickname, Babe Hardy), who played supporting and occasionally starring roles in many of the Lubin comedies produced by the Jacksonville unit in 1914 and 1915.^[2]

The Kidnapped Bride was described by Moving Picture World as "burlesque in the broadest sense",^[3] but it received more positive reviews in the trade papers than A Brewerytown Romance. Motion Picture News called it "a laugh throughout",^[4] and the New York Dramatic Mirror wrote "Rapid fire comedy presented in a sure manner and a hard-working cast characterize this short farce offering".^[2]

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References

↑ Moving Picture World, vol. 20, no. 13 (June 27, 1914), p. 1868
1 2 3 4 5 Rob Stone, Laurel or Hardy: The Solo Films of Stan Laurel and Oliver "Babe" Hardy (Temecula, CA: Split Reel Books, 1996), pp. 11–12, 18–19.
↑ Moving Picture World, vol. 21, no. 3 (July 18, 1914), p. 432
↑ Motion Picture News, vol. 10, no. 2 (July 18, 1914), p. 60