For clean, pure comedy-drama, of the highest educational character we have seen nothing to compare with "The Ragged Earl" as made by Lubin for the Popular Plays and Players Company. It represents a type of photodrama that for the past five years we have been trying to convince manufacturers, directors and photoplaywrights is not only the kind that the American people want, but is also the kind that will increase the bank account of all concerned. It is a typical example of educational comedy or of "pure food" as compared with the "adulterated candy" entertainment that is so common nowadays. Give us more of it. As to the acting, Andrew Mack, who plays his old role of Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, the ragged earl, has achieved as great, if not greater, success before the eye of the camera as he did formerly in the eyes of thousands of legitimate theatergoers, and he is most ably supported by the cast with which Lubin has supplied him. William Conklin as Sir Henry Hardcastle is excellent; Edward J. Peil as Lord Wildbrook, the old roue who wishes to marry Kathleen, is inimitable and Ormi Hawley and Eleanor Dunn as the two stepchildren of Sir Henry are simply superb. So also is the actress whose name should have been listed in the cast who played the part of Lady Hardcastle. Another thing deserving comment is the settings and locations. The interiors are not only in keeping with the character of the story, but they also coincide with the exteriors, a point that is apparently almost always, to judge from what we see, overlooked or paid little attention to by nearly every director. Fairmount Park, the Wisahickon Drive, and the Lancaster Turnpike offer some of the most beautiful exteriors that can be found anywhere in the world and, judging from the locations, we recognized in the picture these and similar localities have been utilized for all they are worth by a director who had a discerning mind. - The Moving Picture World, October 17, 1914
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