User Reviews

Moving picture audiences do not trouble their heads much about the originality of the pictures that are presented to them. If they did, they would have very little enjoyment. The story of "The Widow," one of the recent Essanay successes is not, from our own knowledge, strictly original. We have read it before in other form. But it is always good, it is always fresh, and when presented to a strictly popular audience, it never fails to attract and amuse. A friend in the country sends a town friend an invitation and incidentally mentions that "the widow" is in good form. Away goes the town man and of course he leaves his guest's invitation behind for his suspicious wife to read. Then the fun begins. Wifey and her mother lead the husband a terrible racket. They haul him up before the magistrate, they jail him. Finally, at the trial for wife desertion, the situation is cleared up by the husband producing the friend's invitation and pointing out that "the widow" is the name of a horse. Of course this is all delightful fooling, it is wildly improbable, but on the other hand it is frankly farce, well and cleverly acted, and on the afternoon we saw the picture it came as a positive relief in an otherwise dull programme. It was the only thing that the audience heartily laughed at. The acting of the piece as well as the photography are good. The film shows the consistently progressive policy of the Essanay Company in the realms of comedy and drama. - The Moving Picture World, November 6, 1909