Going Straight (1916). Fine Arts/Triangle. Directed by Chester and Sidney Franklin. Scenario by Bernard McConville, Camera by F.B. Good. Cast: Norma Talmadge, Ralph Lewis, Nino Fovieri, Francis Carpenter, Fern Collier, Ruth Handforth, Eugene Pallette, George Stone, Kate Toncray, Carmen De Rue, Violet Radcliff. 5 reels. Copies located at George Eastman House (2 double reels, 35 mm.) and National Film and Television Museum London (1959 ft. 35mm viewing copy). This film has been available in 16mm and is currently available on video.

Review from Variety, May 26, 1916

"Going Straight is a Fine Arts (Triangle) five-part feature by Bernard McConville, directed by C.M. & S.A. Franklin, that starts off like a world-beater but peters out into a very conventional tale, the psychology of which is all wrong. A prosperous business man is very happy in his home life, with a wife and three children. He and wife read a newspaper clipping about a robbery whereupon there is flashed for an entire reel their past life showing they had been crooks, the man had done his "bit" but had determined to go straight when he learned in jail of the birth of his first child. A former associate, who had double-crossed him on a previous occasion, blackmails him and finally demands he participate in just one more robbery, on penalty of squealing on the wife, who hadn't served her time. He is finally compelled to acquiesce, but just why one crook would trust another who had once doubled on him, is one of those things that only a screen author could answer. Of course you know from the first reel that the double-crossing crook has got to die and the second, third, fourth and most of the fifth reels are taken up with good acting and fine visualization of "suspense," "anguish," etc. Norma Talmadge and Ralph Lewis are finely cast, but the story is ridiculously impossible.

Last revised, January 23, 2012