The Blot has a lot of plot. Lot of plot. Director Weber fills the film with characters and subplots–unfortunately, not many of the supporting cast get credited so I’ll just have to compliment based on their characters.

The main plot is about rich college kid Louis Calhern who discovers–because he has the hots for his professor’s daughter–white collar jobs sometimes means less than working class wages. The professor, top-billed but mostly absent Philip Hubbard, has a blue blood wife who married down. The wife, played by Margaret McWade–she’s awesome–spends her days fretting over the household accounts, daughter Claire Windsor, and the rolling in dough neighbors. The neighbor husband is an uneducated salesman.

Weber gets in a lot about class and a lot about privilege. One of the most effecting scenes is when Calhern can’t eat his country club dinner because he’s just found out sometimes Windsor doesn’t have enough to eat. Oh, and she’s sick. Weber cuts back and forth between Calhern and the drama at Windsor’s house. McWade is fed up with the poverty and has to do something about it. It’s a somewhat difficult sequence because Weber keeps pushing the line where she can get to with The Blot without lecturing. The film’s got a message–pay people, whether it be the college professor, the library clerk, or the minister–and Weber’s got to sell it through her actors. If they can’t make it believable–Calhern becoming progressive, McWade’s desperation–it’s not going to work.

Luckily, the actors and Weber make it happen. Calhern is fine, but he’s something of an enigma. He’s the lead–though he occasionally relinquishes to McWade for a scene or two–but the viewer’s perception of him is through the Windsor and her family. He’s just this weird rich kid who goofs off in the dad’s classes.

McWade is in the opposite position. Weber lays her bare for the viewer over and over again–from her first scene–and McWade’s phenomenal. By the end of the movie, whenever she’s got to do a scene with Windsor, McWade just overshadows her. It’s not intentional because McWade’s not doing anything, it’s a combination of Windsor basically vogueing through all her scenes and the script’s been far better to McWade than Windsor. Windsor sits out a lot of the second act sick in bed.

Some really good performances from the uncredited supporting cast. The mom next door who hates the professor’s family for being stuck up and being cruel to them. The minister is all right. He’s just there to help Calhern on his path to being a white savior. But Weber makes it work, because the love quadrangle is really strangely handled. None of the suitors interact over Windsor. They just stew (or don’t stew) and fidget. It’s awesome.

Weber does it run a little long, especially in the first half. The shots just run on and on–Blot has sparse intertitles; Weber instead lets the actors’ energy carry the plot forward. But she lets it go long even when taking into account someone getting back from the can. It’s not the scenes, they’re decently paced, it’s the shots themselves. They drag.

Except that awesome dinner sequence; then the cuts are way too fast.

Great performance from McWade, decent one from Calhern, decent enough one from Windsor. And all those great supporting actors whose names are lost to history. The Blot is excellent silent melodrama.

★★★

CREDITS

Produced and directed by Lois Weber; written by Marion Orth and Weber; directors of photography, Philip R. Du Bois and Gordon Jennings; released by F.B. Warren Corporation.

Starring Louis Calhern (The Professor’s Pupil – Phil West), Claire Windsor (The Professor’s Daughter – Amelia Griggs), Margaret McWade (The Professor’s Wife – Mrs. Griggs), Marie Walcamp (The Other Girl – Juanita Claredon), and Philip Hubbard (The Professor – Andrew Theodore Griggs).