Mrs. Black Is Back (1914)

movie

(21)

Country: USA
Genres: Comedy
Release: 1914-11-30
Director: Thomas N. Heffron
Writers: George V. Hobart , Eve Unsell
Language: None | English
Stars: May Irwin , Charles Lane , Clara Blandick (1876–1962) , Wellington A. Playter , Elmer Booth , James Hester , Cyril Chadwick , Marie Pavis , Howard Missimer
Runtime: min
Awards: N/A
AKA: Mrs. Black Is Back , Mrs. Black Is Back (United States of America)
Plot: Mrs. Black, formerly a plump and good-natured widow, tells Professor Black, her newly-made husband, whom she adores and fears, that she is twenty-nine, instead of thirty-six, her real age, thus neatly knocking off seven years from the sum total. To further convince him of her youth, she tells him also that her son, John, whom he has never seen, is aged ten, when "Little Johnny" is in reality a husky young fellow of seventeen, in school in England. He is fully six feet tall, broad shouldered, and quite up to date, even to his Irish valet, Larry McManus. Not being able to tell the Professor this, Mrs. Black invents a mythical "Aunt Prue," living in New England, with whom Johnny is supposed to be staying. The professor has to curb his impatience to see his new son, and meanwhile vents his fondness in buying toys for "the child." So does the Professor's class of gushing young girls, who look forward with equal eagerness to seeing "Professor's Little Johnny." In order to regain the slimness of her youth, Mrs. Black takes reducing exercises from a physical culture teacher, Tom Larkey, but loses more money and patience than flesh. As Son Johnny writes he is in need of money, and wants to come home, she takes the four hundred dollars due Larkey, which she sends to her beloved offspring, telling him he must stay in England, and finish his college course. The professor decides he needs building up, and sends for an instructor to teach him the proper exercises. The instructor proves to be Larkey, who adds to Mrs. Black's troubles by hounding her for the debt due him. Meanwhile her son has promptly lost the money sent him in poker, and gives a Spaniard an I.O.U. for four hundred dollars on the back of an envelope addressed to his mother, Mrs. Black. Pedro, the Spaniard, coming to America, decides to look up Mrs. Black, and finding her, demands the four hundred owed him by her son; so all her ingenuity is taxed to dodge the two creditors and keep her husband away from them until she shall find some means of obtaining the money due. Son John falls in love with a pretty girl in England and follows her to America, telegraphing his mother on his arrival in New York that he will soon be with her. And Mrs. Black has just learned from her dignified husband that he never forgives a liar. Then things begin to happen, with Mrs. Black as the prime factor. Jack and his valet arrive; the valet is presented as "Aunt Prue's" husband, and Jack masquerades first as the gas man and finally as Lizzie, the new cook. Of course the fatal truth at last comes out, and the penitent Mrs. Black leaps into an auto, about which she understands nothing, and runs away. Her frantic husband sees the machine smash, and when, after believing her gone from him forever, he learns that she escaped injury, he is so glad to find "Mrs. Black is Back," that he readily forgives her deception and welcomes son Jack.
IMDB:tt0004363