User reviews

The six-part production made by the Creative Film Corporation, "The Girl Who Didn't Think," does a considerable amount of credit to Director Haddock, and gives added proof of the fine dramatic ability of Jane Gail, the star of the play. In reviewing a production of this sort one is strongly alive to the fact that an individual opinion is scarcely capable of balancing the sum total of the opinions of the masses, or that it may be unwise to venture a decided opinion on whether or not the moral intended to be transmitted will be transmitted in the manner intended. In the past year or two the market has presented a number of pictures based, as is this one, on the question of the pitfalls which beset the youthful feminine, suggesting reasons why she is so ill-equipped to combat them. And while the reviewer grows weary and is prone to lose sight of all but the possible pecuniary motives behind these preachful melodramas, it may be best to accept without question the fact that by means of these very pictures the multitude is often moved to graver thoughts on questions that may seem trivial to many of us. Getting down to an analysis of the production in question, the impression left with the reviewer is that had the arrangement of subtitles been arranged with less obvious intent to sermonize, the good effect from a dramatic or professional standpoint would have been heightened. In fact many of the subtitles could have been dispensed with, and in one or two instances it was noticed that a subtitle repeated the intention of the one preceding. The scenes in the restaurant giving close-ups of various cabaret performers, among them some girls in tights, seem unnecessary, but with these exceptions there is little to criticize in the manner in which the production has been presented. In any picture of this kind a refined handling of the principal role has much to do with the general aspect of the production, and in this particular Jane Gail has left nothing to be desired. With the exception of the father and mother and the unfortunate girl the other characters of the story are not ones to be admired. Members of the supporting cast are Stanley Walpole, Agnes Nielson, William Mandeville, Mary Simon, Helen Milholland and William Butler. – The Moving Picture World, February 10. 1917