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The Time-Lock Safe
(1910) United States of America
B&W : One reel / 960 feet
Directed by Harry Solter
Cast: King Baggot [the father], Florence Lawrence [the wife], Owen Moore [the friend], J. Farrell MacDonald [an office worker], Hayward Mack [an office worker]
Independent Moving Pictures Company, Incorporated, production; distributed by [?] Independent Moving Pictures Company, Incorporated [IMP]? / Released [?] 14 or 17? March 1910. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / MacDonald’s film debut.
Comedy-Drama.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? A mother arranges to go to a matinee with a friend; and the plan is that she is to leave her little daughter at her husband’s office. She takes the little one down, but her husband is not in. With a feeling of safety (why not?) she entrusts the child to the care of the office boy, who promises to turn the child over to the father as soon as the latter returns. The boy plays with the child, and we incidentally witness the routine of the office, one feature of which is the appearance of the man who changes the supply of towels at the employees’ washstand. Soon after this the boy is sent out on an errand, and he is gone a long time. Before his return the mother and her friend return from the theater, and very soon thereafter the father comes in from his business errand. He greets his wife affectionately, and she asks him about their little girl. He pleads ignorance and she thinks he is joshing; but soon both realize that something is amiss, and they begin to search the office. They fail to find the child, when the father thinks of the safe. The clerks are preparing to leave, and the safe is locked; it is a time lock safe, that cannot be opened until the morning! He finds the little girl’s hat near it! The parents are frantic, horror-stricken! A policeman is summoned, but he can do nothing. Finally he gets an idea. He takes the father to the abode of a famous burglar, and the cracksman is entreated and paid an enormous sum to come to the office and exercise his art for the sake of the parents. He goes, but insists on being alone in the private office while he does the job. The parents and policeman step outside. He sits down to sharpen a tool, when he sees something. Those waiting outside are horrified to hear thunderous laughter from the burglar inside; in a little while he steps out and they all rush in anxiously, while the burglar exits. There, in the little basket that the towel man left, lies the child, fast asleep, covered by two towels! // [From IMP promotional materials] A drama that suddenly and unexpectedly turns into a farce. If your little child were locked in a safe and you paid a professional safe-blower a stack of money to get him out, and then found the kid safely ensconced in the towel basket and not in the safe at all, would you be glad or would you be sore? Imagine what a corking good picture can be worked up on this plot.
Survival status: Print exists at the UCLA Film and Television Archive film archive.
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 12 December 2024.
References: Robinson-Palace p. 160; Webb-Hollywood p. 180 : Website-AFI; Website-IMDb.
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