When the Studio Burned (1913)
** (out of 4)
The Thanhouser studio burned to the ground in January of 1913 and they lost pretty much everything. The news made it around the country but the company decided to rebuild and this movie was "inspired" by the events. The story is pretty simple as a movie studio catches fire and we see various people's reaction to it including a young child who believes her mother was trapped in the fire.
WHEN THE STUDIO BURNED is a fairly interesting movie that film buffs would want to watch after hearing the story for which it is based. Sadly the actual movie is pretty much a major disappointment and even at just 13 minutes the thing is rather boring. One would have wished a better story had been written around the events because what's here just isn't very interesting. Actors James Cruze, Helen Badgley, Marie Eline and Marguerite Snow all play themselves here, which is an interesting thing to see but in the end it adds very little and especially the ending, which just tries way too hard to be cute and it just comes across as corny.