Peck's Bad Boy

This quiet, early American film, made at Kalem studios, New York, vividly depicts American small town life on the eve of World War l, as embodied by 8-year-old Henry Peck (Harold Goodwin) and his squabbles and adventures. Though clearly intended for a youthful audience, the film has a constant undercurrent of adult issues: wives who try to prevent their husbands from wasting their money on drink and gambling, tempting women who wink at men from behind fans (and whose images later haunt the men’s dreams), domineering older boys who bully and terrorize their more retiring peers, and so on. Above all, the film extols the joys of family life, especially when symbolized by the rocking chair and shared pipe of genial Grandpa Peck (James Morrison). One early sequence shows Grandpa, who is home alone, cunningly duping an insurance salesman (Elmer Booth). Henry’s much-married mother (Jane Stuart) is also at hand to guide the boy in the ways of morality. Though made nine years after D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking The Birth of a National, Peck’s Bad Boy is more in the tradition of Griffith’s earlier short comedies and dramas, with their uncomplicated narratives told through parallel actions, lack of camera movement, and reliance on poetic intertitles. There is little spectacular action, and the film clearly had a low budget. It is a mildly entertaining melodrama with an interesting cast; it is also a fine visual document of American life and values a century ago.