Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model

File:Reata Winfield as Nellie.jpg

Nellie Grey is a young woman who works in the cloak department of a department store. She lives in a boarding house with her abusive great uncle and his handicapped son, Tom. Long separated from her mother, she is unaware that she has a fortune coming to her. Her nefarious cousin, Walter Hilton, hopes to secure the money for himself. He first intends to marry Nellie, but her co-worker Hortense Drake has her own eyes on Walter, so Hortense convinces him that it is better to dispose of Nellie completely. Nellie is then subjected to four acts of plots against her by Walter and Hortense. They tie her to train tracks, but she is rescued by Jack Carroll, a handsome young man who lives in the boarding house. They try to crush her with an elevator, but Tom saves her. Walter ties her to the mast of a yacht, but a co-worker from the store frees her. She is blown off a bridge with a bomb, but Jack pulls her from the water. Only in the fourth act is Walter finally thwarted, and Nellie is reunited with her mother.{{cite magazine |title=Beautiful Nellie |first=Franklin P. |last=Adams |author-link=Franklin Pierce Adams |magazine=The Green Book Album |date=July 1909 |volume=2 |issue=1 |page=202}}{{cite book |title=Blood on the Stage: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery, and Detection: An Annotated Repertoire, 1900–1925 |last=Kabatchnik |first=Amnon |location=Lanham, Maryland |publisher=Scarecrow Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-8108-6123-7 |pages=66–73}}

The Broadway production opened on New Year's Eve in 1906 at the West End Theatre. A. H. Woods produced and Reata Winfield played the role of Nellie. After a long run on Broadway, the play moved to road companies, where it continued to pull large audiences. A production on Manhattan's Lower East Side ran for five years.{{cite book |title=From Traveling Show to Vaudeville: Theatrical Spectacle in America, 1830–1910 |editor-first=Robert M. |editor-last=Lewis |location=Baltimore, Maryland |publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2003 |isbn=0-8018-7087-9 |page=[https://archive.org/details/fromtravelingsho0000unse/page/189 189] |url=https://archive.org/details/fromtravelingsho0000unse/page/189 }}

Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model was a classic melodrama, one of the most popular of its day. It contains a number of elements that were typical of the genre, and especially of the melodramas written by Davis, a prolific author who turned out several such scripts per year. (Nellie was his seventh production that season.){{cite book |title=American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 1869–1914 |last=Bordman |first=Gerald |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1994 |isbn=0-19-503764-2 |page=602}} Among these common elements were the poor heroine who is secretly the child of a wealthy family, the scheming relative trying to steal her inheritance, and the dramatic physical perils she faces (tied to train tracks, explosions, etc.).{{cite book |editor-first1=Jackson R. |editor-last1=Bryer |editor-first2=Mary C. |editor-last2=Hartig |title=Encyclopedia of American Drama |edition=3rd |chapter=Davis, Owen |location=New York |publisher=Facts on File |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-4381-4076-6 |name-list-style=amp}} Davis estimated that Nellie faced death 17 times during the course of each production.{{cite book |title=The People at Play: Excursions in the Humor and Philosophy of Popular Amusements |first=Rollin Lynde |last=Hartt |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |location=New York |year=1909 |oclc=11723142 |page=187}} Even the title was typical, reflecting the main character's affinity to the expected working class audience.{{cite book |title=The People at Play: Excursions in the Humor and Philosophy of Popular Amusements |first=Rollin Lynde |last=Hartt |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |location=New York |year=1909 |oclc=11723142 |page=160}}

The Broadway production was a hit, pulling in $4000 per week at the box office.{{cite book |title=American Profile, 1900–1909 |url=https://archive.org/details/americanprofile100wage |url-access=registration |first=Edward |last=Wagenknecht |author-link=Edward Wagenknecht |year=1982 |publisher=University of Massachusetts Press |location=Amherst, Massachusetts |isbn=0-87023-351-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/americanprofile100wage/page/254 254]}} At the time, the New York Dramatic Mirror complimented Winfield's performance on Broadway as "a natural and spirited rendering". The Scranton Republican described the action as "nerve-wracking" and said it taught the importance of honesty "in an intelligent, plausible way".{{cite news |title=Nellie, Beautiful Cloak Model |newspaper=The Scranton Republican |date=January 19, 1908 |page=6 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1664669/the_scranton_republican/ |via=Newspapers.com}}{{open access}}

Literary critics tended to dismiss the play, calling it "formulaic",{{cite book |title=The Emergence of the Modern American Theater, 1914–1929 |first=Ronald Harold |last=Wainscott |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, Connecticut |year=1997 |isbn=0-300-06776-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/emergenceofmoder0000wain/page/77 77] |url=https://archive.org/details/emergenceofmoder0000wain/page/77 }} "far-fetched", "cheap melodrama",{{cite magazine |title=Interesting People: Owen Davis |first=Franklin P. |last=Adams |author-link=Franklin Pierce Adams |magazine=The American Magazine |date=March 1911 |volume=71 |issue=5 |page=609}} and "one of the most perfectly bad plays of its era".{{cite book |first=Stanley |last=Kunitz |author-link=Stanley Kunitz |editor-first=Dilly |editor-last=Tante |title=Living Authors: A Book of Biographies |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.260813 |location=New York |publisher=H. W. Wilson |year=1935 |oclc=1002984 |page=94}} A review in The Sun said Davis had just written the play "several nights ago", suggested a press agent did the casting, and mocked an adult actress for playing Nellie's young male cousin.{{cite news |title=Sorrows of a Cloak Model |newspaper=The Sun |location=New York |date=January 2, 1907 |volume=74 |issue=124 |page=7 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1671034/the_sun/ |via=Newspapers.com}}{{open access}} Franklin Fyles called it a "bum play" with plot points that were "worn out", but nonetheless predicted it "would draw in women like a bargain sale".{{cite news |first=Franklin |last=Fyles |title=Society Bred Girl and Daughter of the Slums Open Simultaneously in Slum and Society |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=January 13, 1907 |issue=11,174 |page=4.3 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/1671468/the_washington_post/ |via=Newspapers.com}}{{open access}} A review of a road production in the Los Angeles Herald said it was "impossible to take seriously" and "utterly lacking in cohesiveness, continuity or ethics".{{cite news |title=Lurid Melodrama Is 'Nellie, The Beautiful Cloak Model,' at Grand |newspaper=Los Angeles Herald |volume=34 |issue=231 |date=May 20, 1907 |page=3 |url=http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19070520.2.35.2#}}

File:Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model (1924) - 4.jpg

In 1924, Emmett J. Flynn directed a silent movie adaptation of the play for Goldwyn Pictures. Claire Windsor starred as Nellie.{{cite book |last1=Roberts |first1=Jerry |title=The Great American Playwrights on the Screen: A Critical Guide to Film, TV, Video and DVD |date=2003 |publisher=Applause Theatre and Cinema Books |location=New York |isbn=1-55783-512-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/greatamericanpla00robe_0/page/135 135] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/greatamericanpla00robe_0/page/135 }} Following the movie, a novelization of the story by Grace Miller White was published by J. S. Ogilvie.{{cite web |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/615112519 |title=Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model: A Thrilling Story |publisher=WorldCat |access-date=May 4, 2014}}

{{Reflist}}

{{commons category|Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model}}

• {{IBDB show|397320}}
• [https://archive.org/details/nelliebeautiful00woodgoog Text of the novelization] at the Internet Archive

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Category:1906 plays

Category:Broadway plays

Category:Melodramas

Category:American plays adapted into films