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The Blackmailer
(1916) United States of America
B&W : Two reels
Directed by Rupert Julian
Cast: Rupert Julian [the blackmailer], Elsie Jane Wilson [the victim]
The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated, production; distributed by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated. / Produced by Carl Laemmle. Scenario by Calder Johnstone, from a [?] short story? by Rafael Sabatini. Cinematography by Park Ries. / © 22 February 1916 by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated. Released [?] 5 or 21? March 1916. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Drama.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? The Woman receives a call from the Man, a blackmailer demanding from her a large sum of money for the return of certain letters she had written him in the past. She refuses his demand and he leaves, threatening to call in a week, then expose her past foolish actions to her husband, should she fail to comply with his demand. He calls at the time stated and is received by a Swedish servant instead of the usual maid. The servant closes the drawing-room door and mocks the man. Suddenly she removes her wig and drops off the outer dress and discloses herself as the Woman herself. She then tells him what the disguise means: she had discharged her former housemaid, applies for housework at the agency and for a Swedish servant, had rented a room in a tenement house and assumed the disguise, then applied for housework at the agency and secured the position, she as mistress had called for, had established her identity as the Swedish girl both at the tenement and in the home apartment. Then she flashes a revolver and says that she will kill the Man, that she herself is supposed to be out of the house, that he is known to be in the apartment with her and that after she has killed him she will return to the tenement, state that she is going away, change back into her own self, and return to the apartment to find the body of the dead Man. She will destroy the disguise, the police will search for the Swedish woman who has disappeared and the crime will remain an unsolved mystery. She draws to shoot. The Man shrinks in abject fear, and gives her the papers. She drives him from the apartment and destroys the papers before her husband’s return home.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Keywords: Crime: Blackmail, Murder (Attempted) - Impersonation - Maids - Weapons: Guns
Listing updated: 30 October 2022.
References: Edmonds-BigU pp. 85, 86, 87 : Website-IMDb.
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