Her Friend The Bandit

[Elliot L. Hearst]

It's so cute that Charlie spells her name as "Mable."

[Richard M Roberts]

It's so cute that Charlie spells her name as "Mable."

Oddly enough, he was not the only one, I've seen Normand's first name spelled that way in a number of reviews and even some of the Mutual press material for the Keystones. Odd because I've never known or known of anyone named Mabel who spelled their name Mable.

Looking further into HOW MOTION PICTURES ARE MADE (1914), something interesting struck me that I have not heard anyone mention before. The Keystone short was apparently another of those documentary-type shorts that they were shooting at the time usually to fill out split-reel releases, and this one may have started out like that, strangely showing more footage of shooting a Kay-Bee film and ending with various Keystone Stars, including possibly Chaplin, shooting a comedy scene, ending up with enough material for a full reel.

However, one of the Kay-Bee stars of the time was a young Mildred Harris and she has been mentioned in some sources as appearing in the film. If that is true, and Chaplin turns out to have appeared in it as well, how's that for irony if Chaplin appears in his actual first film with the woman who would later become his first wife.

RICHARD M ROBERTS