The Villain Still Pursued Her

The Villain Still Pursued Her is a 1940 film directed by Edward F. Cline and starring Billy Gilbert and Buster Keaton. It was a parody of old stage melodramas, but based primarily on The Drunkard, a 19th-century prohibitionist play by William H. Smith of Boston. That play had also been lampooned in other productions, most notably in the 1934 W. C. Fields comedy The Old Fashioned Way.

The Villain Still Pursued Her
Directed byEdward F. Cline
Produced byHarold B. Franklin
StarringRichard Cromwell
Alan Mowbray
Buster Keaton
Anita Louise
Production
company
Franklin-Black Productions
Distributed byRKO Radio Pictures
Release date
  • October 11, 1940 (1940-10-11)[1]
Running time
66 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$96,000[2]

The overall format is that of a stage play, with much speaking to camera.

Buster Keaton is notable, in a speaking but minor supporting role, as Dalton, a family friend.

Plot

Mary Wilson lives with her mother in a cottage but cannot pay the mortgage.

The moustachioed villain with cloak and cane (Mr Cribbs) knocks on the door and spells out their financial position, suggesting that Mary should work in New York.

Cribbs hides whilst waiting for Mary to pass, but she also hides. A young fop (Middleton) stops to pick up an injured bird and Cribbs questions him. Mary intervenes and instantly falls in love with Middleton.

Mary marries Hamilton and when the minister says "you may kiss the bride" Middleton kisses Mary on the forehead and extols the virtues of an alcohol-free life.

Cribbs tricks him into drinking a lot of rum. Mary smells it on his breath.

We jump eight years. Hamilton is a drunkard. He has hidden bottles of whiskey and is able to down a whole bottle in ten seconds. He returns home to Mary and their ringletted daughter and chops down the cherry tree which his father planted.

Action jumps to New York in 1850. Middleton is living as a drunkard on the street. Cribbs tries to trick him into deeper crime. Meanwhile Mary lives alone in poverty with her daughter, her mother has died. Cribbs tries to press himself on Mary and she is saved by Dalton.

Back in New York Middleton is about to be arrested for drunkenness but is saved by a comic pie fight. Middleton then encounters the philanthropist Frederick Healy who makes him sign a pledge of sobriety.

Cribbs has got Middleton to forge the signature of Healy on a cheque for $5000. He sends a boy to the Mechanics Bank to cash it. Dalton exposes the crime. His sister Hazel arrives.

Ultimately Cribbs is exposed for various crimes and Middleton receives a Certificate of Sobriety.

The credits roll to the tune of Auld Lang Syne.

Cast

See also

References
  1. "The Villain Still Pursued Her". imdb.com. Retrieved April 13, 2014.
  2. Richard Jewell & Vernon Harbin, The RKO Story. New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House, 1982. p152


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