When the Tables Turned

When her soon-to-visit niece writes her that Texas cowboys are no longer wild and woolly, Eleanor Blanchard sends her hands to kidnap her as a joke. By mistake, they abduct vacationing Broadway actress Edith Storey...who soon realizes what's going on.

The first few minutes of this Gaston-Melies-produced short are missing, but a few titles at the beginning deal with the issues of the set-up, and it's an amusing, if simple story. Francis Ford played one of the cowboys. For those of us who are used to thinking of him John Ford's brother, playing bit parts like the ancient who rises from his deathbed to witness the big fight at the end of THE QUIET MAN, it's quite a turn to realize he was a major star in the 1910s, appeared in almost 300 shorts, more than 200 features, directed more than a hundred movies and got his kid brother a job on the Universal lot. It's quite a thought, that John Ford, John Wayne and dozens of other better remembered stars might never have had careers if Georges Melies had not sent his brother to Texas to shoot westerns.

This film has all the qualities that make a successful picture. If punchers take umbrage at a letter from a young lady who has merely read of cowboys, they are more sensitive than they should be. We can sympathize, however, with their making up a plan to surprise the young lady. The picture from this point on, when they capture the great actress who, to fool them, first plays that she is mad and then holds them up for all the queer tricks and foolish stunts they have in them, hopping, skipping, playing they are a brass band, and all, is simply rich. That doesn't exhaust what comedy is in the situation either, for when the other young lady arrives and the boys come to the pink tea, there is more fun. It took a true comedian to put a cup of tea in his pocket from embarrassment. - The Moving Picture World, July 1, 1911