The Luckless Scheme - Production & Contact Info

The Luckless Scheme (1916)
Short | Comedy, Short

The Luckless Scheme (1916)

Short | Comedy, Short

Blanch Whitney, heiress, reads with anger a notice that Jack Bryson, star reporter of the News, is going to investigate working conditions in the department stores. Her father being the owner of the largest store, she is not altogether ...See moreBlanch Whitney, heiress, reads with anger a notice that Jack Bryson, star reporter of the News, is going to investigate working conditions in the department stores. Her father being the owner of the largest store, she is not altogether pleased with this news. Showing the article to her father, he tells her he is negotiating for the purchase of that paper to try and stop the scurrilous articles Bryson is writing about them. Blanch then remembers an article that Bryson wrote about her and she resolves to work in her father's store as a shopgirl, hoping for a chance to meet Bryson and in some way revenge herself upon him. She is behind the counter when Bryson appears and starts quizzing her to gain some locale for his article. Lefty Jonas, a pickpocket, slips a watch in Bryson's pocket and Blanch sees the incident. In spite of herself she has taken a small liking for Bryson, and she takes the watch from his pocket and slips it in a basket with some articles a customer has purchased. The cash boy, taking the basket, passes Dowdy Donnelly, the store porter, and he, seeing the watch, takes it and thinks he will keep it for himself. The floorwalker has Jack arrested by a store detective. En route to the office they pass Donhelly, who, hearing that Jack is accused of theft, is afraid to keep the watch, and slips it back in Lefty Jonas's pocket. Jack is let go as the watch is not found. He threatens to expose the frame-up in the newspaper and leaves. Jonas tells Whitney that he put the watch in Jack's pocket, but Whitney is suspicious, and searching Jonas, he finds the watch, and with the aid of Donnelly, who despises Jonas, as he is his rival for Dot Kernan's hand, they throw Jonas out of the office. Jack returns and makes a date with Blanch. At the luncheon, she brings tears to his eyes describing how she lives on four dollars a week. He asks her to marry him right away and she consents to run away with him that night. He writes an article for the morning edition, entitled "The Shop Girl." while Blanch arranges with Dot Kernan and her father for Dot to elope with Jack. She would tell the town about it and make Jack the laughing stock among newspaper men. Jack, after writing his story, leaves to purchase a wedding ring. In the jewelry store window he sees a picture of Blanch and learns her identity. This makes him angry. Jack induces Donnelly to take his part in the elopement. That night from a doorway in the slums, he sees Donnelly take a heavily veiled girl from the tenement, and enter a waiting car with her. This car was provided by Blanch. Jonas, who discovered that Donnelly was to elope, suspected the girl was Dot, and he arrived with her father, and might have prevented the getaway, only Jack laid them both low. Jack went to the newspaper office and searched for his story of the shop girl, who turned out to be only a dream to him. He failed to find it and went home while Blanch discovered that she was the victim of her own joke, and her friends laughed at her expense. Donnelly, sore at having Dot mixed up in this kind of an escapade, was appeased when Blanch allowed the minister to marry them, and the completion of the ceremony was interrupted by the entrance of Jonas and Kernan, who followed on a tandem. They were thrown out of the house and Dot married the ideal of her dreams, the store porter Donnelly. Whitney, who had bought the newspaper that afternoon, resolved to discharge Jack in the morning for writing the shop girl story, and told Blanch so. She found the story on her father's desk that night and read it. She knew then that Jack was the man for her, as no one ever spoke of her except as a pillar of wealth. Written by Moving Picture World synopsis See less

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Cast	+ Add Cast
4 cast members

Name	Known for
Gypsy Abbott Blanch Whitney, the Society Doll Blanch Whitney, the Society Doll See fewer	The Man Who Could Not Lose (1914)
Lawrence A. Bowes The Doll's Father (as Larry Bowes) The Doll's Father (as Larry Bowes) See fewer	Big Town Ideas (1921)
Arthur Moon Jack Bryson, the Reporter Jack Bryson, the Reporter See fewer	A Lislebank (1917)
Paddy McGuire Dowdy Donnelly, the Janitor Dowdy Donnelly, the Janitor See fewer	A Broadway Cowboy (1920)