Chicken Casey (1917) User Reviews

The story has many bright and interesting situations

[deickemeyer · 1 February 2015]

"Chicken Casey" has a Peg Woffington flavor in that it deals with an actress enacting a role in private life for a definite purpose, in this case to prove that she can play a part for which an author deems her unsuited. The author sees her perform in a rather colorless and dignified character on the stage and decides that it would be folly for her to undertake the part of Rags, a tough girl of the Bowery type, which he has depicted in a novel to be dramatized. She schemes with her manager and a dramatic critic to prove that she can by actually impersonating his ideal in real life. He is brought into contact with a supposed girl of the slums, "Chicken Casey," none other than the accomplished actress well disguised, and a live series of romantic adventures follow. Just after meeting the supposed "Chicken Casey" the rather dignified young author is obliged by her cleverness to shield her in his own house at three in the morning. Some lively episodes follow, particularly as he is obliged to dry her soaked clothes, in which both obtain interesting views of the other under circumstances of enforced intimacy. The actress accomplishes her purpose; she gets the role on which she has set her heart, but the author feels the personal affront of her deception, and they become estranged after getting a closer view of each other than ordinarily permitted in conventional contact. Again the bright girl uses her wits, and a reconciliation follows. The story has many bright and interesting situations, and it is visualized with Ince's fine craftsmanship, but honors go to Miss Dorothy Dalton for a most consistent and intelligent performance of her role. The constantly expanding capability she has been showing has by no means reached its limit, but this performance shows a finish and larger grasp of screen interpretation than she has ever before exhibited. She is well supported, especially by Charles Dunn in the role of an author, in spite of the black horn glasses which would-be authors now and then affect. The settings are superb and the general effect one of pleasing entertainment. – The Moving Picture World, February 3, 1917