The Stroke Oar

Edmund Steel, the author of this picture of college life, furnished what might have been made into a masterpiece. The picture's story works up to a closely contested three-cornered race between eight-oared shells. It tells how the stroke oar got into trouble with the college authorities, how he was forbidden to row in the coming race, and how he did row nevertheless, and was forgiven because his boat won. The picture was conducted to give a farcical atmosphere, and in our opinion this weakened it. Perhaps the producer feared to make his college president a sensible man, since he had to make him act like a martinet, but he seems too clownish. The president is played by William Orlemund; his daughter by Dorothy Mortimer, and the stroke oar by Charles Compton. Also in the cast are John Holmes, Ned Steel, K.C. Travers and Cy Morgan, who plays the coach. - The Moving Picture World, December 14, 1912