"The House of the Little Shoes" appeared as a serial in Munsey's Magazine and created a large following of readers. Essanay very appropriately clipped the title, as seen above, and the adaptation by Edward T. Lowe, Jr., has retained for the screen all the gist of the printed story. The production is in five reels. Director Berthelet has given the filmed story very appropriate settings, some of them sumptuous and others squalid, as the occasion demands. Had he made the little gamin, David Noel, appear with a dirty face, instead of the nice dean one we see him wear as he emerges from the human kennel that he calls home, the spectator would be still more convinced of his real type. The acting of little Mary V. McAlister as Rosalind, and little Jack Paul as David Noel, when these characters were children, will appeal to everyone who sees them. Later on, when the characters become grownups, Henry B. Walthall appears as David and Mary Charleson as Rosalind. Mr. Walthall's David Noel is the creation of an artist. It shows fine imagination and a rare gift of expression. The self-made man, who has risen from the New York gutter to become the leader in a movement that accomplishes the independence of a new republic in South America, cannot be expected to become also the polished gentleman. Hence his rudeness and his almost unpardonable offense in doubting the truthfulness of Rosalind Arloff, when she denies that she is either a professional dancer or engaged on the stage, comes near ruining the dearest quest of his life. And Mr. Walthall's David Noel is made to express the doubt brutally, both in look and word. But the true heart of Mr. Walthall's David is made to show itself pure as gold, when at the feet of Rosalind he again becomes the beggar boy with a shivering heart. Mary Charleson's Rosalind is another fine characterization. When poverty has come to her father and herself Rosalind is still the gentlewoman, proud of her independence, and devoted to her bedridden parent. The slight put upon her by David's questioning of her truthfulness is not forgiven, even when he proves her identity. In the scene where she dismisses him in a storm of anger, Miss Charleson's Rosalind reveals the bitterness of the shock to her gentle refinement. An instant afterward, when David lies unconscious at the foot of the stairs, down which he has fallen, her woman's heart melts in tenderness and she kisses him as love and anxiety take possession. Vasilie Orloff and Abel are well acted by W. K. Haupt and Patrick Calhoun. The photography is fully up to Essanay's high standard. – The Moving Picture World, February 3, 1917
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