[Having had the good fortune to pick up for a mere song (or, to be
more accurate, for a few notes) several thousand miles of discarded
cinema films from a bankrupt company, _Mr. Punch_ is gumming the
best bits together and presenting them during the holiday season on
the piers of many of our fashionable watering-places, such as
Bayswater, Hackney Marshes and Ponder's End. The films comprise the
well-known "Baresark Basil, the Pride of the Ranch" (two miles
long), "The Foiler Foiled" (one mile, three furlongs, two rods,
poles or perches), "The Blood-stained Vest" (fragment--eighteen
inches), "A Maniac's Revenge" (5,000 feet), "The Life of the Common
Mosquito" (six legs), and so forth. An accomplished writer has been
chosen to weave a connected story round the selected parts of the
films, and his scenario of _Mr. Punch's_ great picture play, when
finally gummed together, is given below. The illustrations depict a
few representative incidents in the story--taken from the
sketch-book of an artist who was present when the films were first
being prepared.]
Twenty-five years before our film opens, Andrew Bellingham, a young man
just about to enter his father's business, was spending a holiday in a
little fishing village in Cornwall. The daughter of the sheep-farmer
with whom he lodged was a girl of singular beauty, and Andrew's youthful
blood was quickly stirred to admiration. Carried away by his passion for
her, he--
[MANAGER OF PUNCH FILM COMPANY. _Just a reminder that MR. REDFORD
has to pass this before it can be produced._]
--he married her--
[MANAGER. _Oh, I beg pardon._]
--and for some weeks they lived happily together. One day he informed
Jessie that he would have to go back to his work in London, and that it
might be a year or more before he could acknowledge her openly as his
wife to his rich and proud parents. Jessie was prostrated with grief;
and late that afternoon her hat and fringe-net were discovered by the
edge of the waters. Realising at once that she must have drowned herself
in her distress, Andrew took an affecting farewell of her father and the
sheep, and returned to London. A year later he married a distant cousin,
and soon rose to a condition of prosperity. At the time our film begins
to unwind, he was respected by everybody in the City, a widower, and the
father of a beautiful girl of eighteen, called Hyacinth.
[MANAGER. _Now we're off. What do we start with?_]