Silents are Golden: A Closer Look At: Lois Weber’s Shoes (1916)

A Closer Look At: Lois Weber’s Shoes (1916)

Some of the most powerful silent films were crafted with surprising realism, especially in the early years that we often assume are full of “stagey” acting and hokey melodrama. The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), The Italian (1915), Regeneration (1915) are just a few 1910s works full of humble details and restrained performances. And one of the finest from this period is certainly Lois Weber’s feature Shoes (1916).

In an era when a number of women worked behind the camera, Weber was one of the most prominent and respected female directors. Born in 1879, Florence Lois Weber was from a deeply religious Pennsylvania Dutch family. In her teens she worked with the Church Home Missionary and sang on street corners in urban red light districts. Hoping to bring edifying messages to larger crowds, she decided to join travelling stock companies. One of those companies was managed by former lawyer Wendell Phillips Smalley. Realizing they shared similar ideals, Smalley and Weber would marry in 1904.

Weber began writing freelance motion picture scenarios around 1906, becoming increasingly fascinated by the growing industry. She soon started learning how to direct and also co-starred with her husband in short dramas. After a few years they decided that cinema was the ideal medium for spreading “uplifting” stories and they began making their own films, with Weber getting much of the directing credits.

The couple quickly gained a reputation for quality dramas exploring class differences, romantic complications, and religion. One of their most well-known shorts today is Suspense (1913), which included a triptych effect that was sophisticated for its time. They also made waves with their feature Hypocrites (1915), which included the allegorical “Naked Truth” represented by a fully nude actress in double exposures. Weber defended the artistic integrity of these scenes: “Hundreds of thousands have seen Hypocrites, but those who went with evil thoughts for the gratification of a lustful curiosity uppermost in their mind, found a searchlight suddenly turned on their own conscience. I know, I saw it.”

In 1916, now the main director with her husband working more behind the scenes, Weber would release one of her most profound features: Shoes (1916). It was a simple story about the young Eva Meyer who struggles to set aside enough money for a much-needed new pair of shoes while also being the breadwinner for her impoverished family. Her shiftless father is no help, and her mother is busy looking after her siblings. Towards the end, with her old shoes on the cusp of literally falling to pieces, Eva makes a devastating decision.

Shoes was based on a short story by Stella Wynne Herron, who had been profoundly influenced by the book A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil by social reformer Jane Addams. Addams’ book had examined the tragic lives of poverty-stricken girls in Chicago who were coerced into prostitution. Weber’s film would treat its delicate subject with restraint and dignity, deeply sympathetic to the main character’s plight.

Part of the reason the film works so well is its subtle performance by the teenaged lead Mary MacLaren. MacLaren (formerly MacDonald) had worked as a chorus girl on Broadway and became an extra in Weber’s films. With her thick blonde hair and features that could be as pretty or as plain as needed, MacLaren was a “find” and Weber thought she’d be a perfect lead for Shoes. MacLaren played the role not as a naive waif but a jaded teen who was forced to grow up too soon. One critic would call her “a full-fledged star in about the fastest time known to screen history.”

Weber kept the plot succinct, closely following the Herron story, and insisted on realism for both the performances and the immersive sets. The well-stocked five-and-dime store and the fully furnished Meyer flat were built at the studio. During kitchen scenes Weber insisted on having real corned beef and cabbage cooking on the stove. The most significant departure from Herron’s story was a wistful “what might have been” sequence, showing how the Meyers might’ve fared if the father had actually been a success. The Meyers are shown well-dressed and part of “society,” and Eva’s shown being romanced by a country boy. The sequence was in the spirit of good taste, as the audience already knows the sad decision Eva’s been driven to make.

Shoes, released under Universal’s Bluebird Photoplays, was soon the branch’s most popular film. It received much critical praise for its realism and powerful story. Moving Picture World wrote: “…In dealing with its subject Miss Weber has surpassed herself in craftsmanship, turning out a picture that strikes the heart broadside and overwhelmingly instead of with the muted ‘punch’ of most encounters with problems.” A Wid’s Daily critic summed up its appeal: “It is a human drama, humanly told and humanly played.”

The success of Shoes led to more starring roles for MacLaren, as well as a supporting role in Douglas Fairbanks’s wildly popular The Three Musketeers (1921). She left films for a few years to marry a colonel, and returned to the industry after their subsequent divorce. Having a harder time getting substantial roles the second time around, by the 1940s she started taking in boarders.

MacLaren would struggle uncomplainingly for the next few decades. Hauntingly, the actress who rose to fame for playing an impoverished young woman would eventually sink back into poverty herself.

Destitute by the time she reached her eighties, her house of nearly seventy years became dilapidated and overrun by rats and her many pets. The city considered it a hazard and put it up for auction, moving the 85-year-old MacLaren to a nursing home. She only lived a few more weeks. And yet, according to everyone who knew her at that time, she remained a “lovely” and friendly lady, “just as sweet as could be” right up to the end.

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–Lea Stans for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Lea’s Silents are Golden articles here.

Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterly and has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.