User Reviews

I have problems with the way Thanhouser's stories are constructed. In this one, Granny comes visiting mommy, daddy, the twins and Shep, but Granny is, by modern standards anyway, seriously bipolar. She loves one of the identical twins but hates the other. So she takes one away, leaving behind the despised one and mommy seems to think nothing odd about this -- one wonders if twins run in this family and, if so, what happened to her sister -- although daddy offers her lots of hugs.

Anyway, after a sequence showing how much the twins miss each other, we are abruptly in a race situation as daddy, the remaining twin and Shep hare after what appears to be an empty open coach. Shep stops the coach and there the other twin is, rescued. We learn nothing about Granny's fate. Perhaps the old lady jumped off a cliff. In any case, the family goes home, happy to be reunited.

The whole point of this operation, of course, is to spotlight Shep the Thanhouser Collie. Dog movies had been popular for a decade, ever since Hepworth's RESCUED BY ROVER and over at Vitagraph, Jean was starring in pictures of her own. The whole genre would reach its peak of ballyhoo a decade later with Rin-Tin-Tin.

As for Shep, he, or perhaps she is a nice dog, plenty of energy and with a number of cute tricks. Watch for the one that finishes off the movie, even if it is a long wait to get there.

The mother-in-law's appearance temporarily wrecks the home of the girl twins, the mother and father separating, each taking a child. The events which bring the family together again are very stirring and full of anxious suspense. The big dog, Shep, pulls the runaway horse off the railroad track, where it had stopped, thus saving the life of one twin. This is well-pictured and very entertaining. - The Moving Picture World, November 14, 1914