Excess Baggage

The copy of this movie posted on the National Film Preservation site has some issues. It's a later cut-down -- but, since it was originally a one-reeler, its timing on the site at more than 13 minutes is odd. It also has a good deal of damage and is tinted a bright red.

Leatrice Joy is angry because her husband, a writer, never earns any money. So, with a kick to his behind, she is off to the big city. Her husband dumps all the clothes from her steamer trunk and hides in it, where he suffers much physical abuse. Once in the Big City of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Miss Joy checks into a hotel full of ogling men, is caught in a fire, and all turns out as well as things can in a one-reel comedy.

Miss Joy is quite lively and physically abusive to her so-far-unidentified husband, and there are some cute gags along the way, although nothing amazing. She would leave the same year for Hollywood, where she would become one of DeMille's leading actresses of the early 1920s and wind up married to John Gilbert.