Are You a Mason? (1915 film)

Are You a Mason? is a 1915 American silent comedy film produced by Adolph Zukor (Famous Players Film Company) and Charles Frohman, and distributed through Paramount Pictures. Directed by Thomas N. Heffron, it starred John Barrymore as a young husband who pretends to join the Masons as an excuse to get out of the house. It was based on a 1901 play by Leo Ditrichstein.[1]

Are You a Mason?
(aka:The Joiner)
Film poster
Directed byThomas N. Heffron
Screenplay byEve Unsell
Based onAre You a Mason?
by Leo Ditrichstein
Produced by
StarringJohn Barrymore
Production
company
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
March 22, 1915
Running time
5 reels
CountryUnited States
LanguageSilent (English intertitles)

This film is presumed lost.[2]

Plot summary

Frank Perry discovers that his wife desires him to become a Mason. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Perry goes out for several nights to carouse and have fun while telling his wife that he is undergoing initiation at the Masonic lodge. When his wife invites her father, a Grand Master of the Masons, for a visit, Frank goes to comedic lengths to avoid being found out. The farce is magnified by the circumstance that his father-in-law has also been lying about his Masonic association.[3]

Cast

Production

The film was based on a 1901 farce by Leo Ditrichstein, who in turn adapted it from a German play, Die Logenbrüder (The Freemason), by Curt Kraatz and Carl Laufs.[4]

Are You a Mason? was Barrymore's third feature-length film as well as his third film under contract to Famous Players.[5] Up and coming film hero Harold Lockwood had also appeared in Barrymore's earlier The Man from Mexico in 1914.

Release and reception

Are You a Mason? was released on March 22, 1915.

Louella Parsons, writing for the Chicago Herald, praised the picture, and Barrymore in particular.[6] The New York Dramatic Mirror called it a "screen comedy triumph", and found nothing in it to criticize.[7] In Moving Picture World, reviewer Lynde Denig also liked the picture and thought that Barrymore improved on his earlier good performances.[8]

The Variety reviewer was unimpressed, describing it as "a decidedly mild comedy" and saying that it had "innumerable opportunities for comedy situations, most of which have been sadly neglected"; the reviewer went on to credit Barrymore with whatever laughs the film was able to deliver.[9]

It was re-released by Paramount in 1919 under their temporary re-issue banner The Success-Series, celebrating some of the company's major early first successes.[10] A 1922 remake was planned for Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle but was dropped[2] due to the Virginia Rappe murder scandal which ruined his career. The comedy was filmed again as a talkie in 1934.

See also

References
  1. The AFI Catalog of Feature Films:Are You a Mason?
  2. Bennett, Carl, ed. (December 13, 2008). "Are You a Mason?". Progressive Silent Film List. Retrieved 2015-11-09 – via Silent Era.
  3. Synopsis of film: "Are You a Mason?". Manufacturers' Advance Notes. Moving Picture World. 23 (12): 1786. March 20, 1915.
    Also, "Are You a Mason?". Brief Stories of the Week's Film Releases. Motography. XIII (13): 509. March 27, 1915.
  4. Tibbetts, John C. (1985). The American Theatrical Film: Stages in Development. Popular Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-87972-289-0.
  5. Tibbetts, John C.; Welsh, James M. (2010). American Classic Screen Features. Scarecrow Press. pp. 25–26. ISBN 978-0-8108-7679-8.
  6. Parsons, Louella O. (March 22, 1915). "John Barrymore Furnishes Whole Screenful of Laughs". Seen on the Screen. Chicago Herald. Reprinted in Abel, Richard (2015). Menus for Movieland: Newspapers and the Emergence of American Film Culture, 1913–1916. University of California Press. p. 202. ISBN 978-0-520-96188-3.
  7. "Are You a Mason?" (PDF). Feature Films of the Week. New York Dramatic Mirror. 73 (1893): 28. March 31, 1915 – via Fulton History.
  8. Denig, Lynde (April 3, 1915). "Are You a Mason?". Review of Current Productions. Moving Picture World. 24 (1): 70.
  9. "Are You a Mason?". Film Reviews. Variety. 38 (4): 24. March 26, 1915.
  10. "Are You a Mason?". Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Retrieved 2015-11-09.
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