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The Children in the House: Directed by Chester M. Franklin, Sidney Franklin. With Norma Talmadge, Alice Wilson, Jewel Carmen, William Hinckley. Roy Somerville has turned out an interesting story that will hold the interest of the majority of audiences as produced by the Triangle-Fine Arts Company.
- (602)
- Drama
- Chester M. Franklin, Sidney Franklin
- 1916-04-30
- Housekeeping: Housekeeping generally is the chores of maintaining a house by performing tasks which contributes to cleanliness and habitability of the house.
- Duty to Take Care of Siblings: Children has this responsibility of taking care of their siblings, especially the younger ones. This is the level at which children learn the act of humanity in their relations with other people in the society, and of course fosters love and peaceful coexistence amongst the family.
- Duty to Protect and Uphold the Family Image. It is the role of the children to protect and uphold the image of the family. This is quite a sensitive role and most times it does not demand any positive or intentional performance.
- Duty to live up to Expectation: This duty strikes with the duty to protect and uphold the family image because when children live up to expectation, they by so doing uphold the image of the family.
This is an early feature-length film starring Norma Talmadge; reportedly, it's the earliest that survives. By the following year, her marriage to movie mogul Joseph Schenck and the formation of her own production company would lift her to major stardom. In "Children in the House", however, Talmadge is undistinguished from the rest of the cast.
- Sidney Franklin, Chester M. Franklin
- Fine Arts Film Company
In The Children in the House, the children provide the means of identifying the robbers. These children, known as the Fine Arts kiddies, had been featured in short films produced by Griffith and the Mutual Film Company (with which Griffith was associated in the early 1910s) and directed by sibling filmmakers Chester and Sidney Franklin.
Cora chooses money over love and marries wealthy Arthur Vincent instead of Charles Brown. The couple has two children, but family ties do not prevent Arthur from spending most of his time with cabaret dancer Jane Courtenay. Soon, Jane's financial demands on Arthur become exorbitant, and so he plots with some friends to rob his father's bank.
- C. M. Franklin, S. A. Franklin, Millard Webb
- Norma Talmadge
The editing becomes fast-paced by the end, and there's a fair amount of cutting back and forth between plots throughout the film. Overall, "Children in the House" is competently made for its time, which is expected from a Fine Arts production: a couple overhead angle shots of passengers in cars standout. Yet, there isn't much of interest here.
The two children, Peter and Wendy, enjoy time in the "nursery", a virtual reality room able to realistically reproduce any place they imagine, and grow increasingly attached to it. The parents, George and Lydia, wonder if the automated house's functions have rendered their roles as parents superfluous.
