When a Count Counted

Mignon Anderson is a secretary in a lawyer's office. She has a vacation coming, so she buys nice clothes and goes to a posh hotel. The younger set takes her up, but when one of her boss's clients shows up and announces Miss Anderson !Gasp! works for a living, they drop her like a hot spud. She writes the lawyer's clerk, Harry Benham, that her holiday is spoiled and she is coming home. He wires her to stay for another day.

Thanhouser considered its audience the rising middle class, people who worked for a living and hoped to do well for themselves and their children. The snobbery of old money was an easy target for them, especially when the victim was as pretty as Miss Anderson.

"When a Count Counted" (1912) stars Mignon Anderson, Harry Benham, Lila Chester, Justus D. Barnes, and Florence La Badie in a class story of a stenographer (Anderson) who is given a two week vacation by her lawyer boss (Justus D. Barnes). She's in love with her fellow worker (Harry Benham), and he gives her his blessing to have a great time on vacation. She's been given a goodly amount of money for her vacation by the boss, and now she's going to use it to buy some very chic clothes and she'll stay in a swanky hotel among the muck-a-mucks. Well, she buys the clothes, goes to the hotel, and the men fawn all over her, and the lady muck-a-mucks take to her, too. Then - - - in walks a client of the lawyer who spots the stenographer and tells all that "She's a stenographer in my lawyer's office!" Forsooth and for shame! She works for a living! She's now shunned horribly by those who are the pillars of society's noses. She writes a letter to her boy friend back at the office. He comes up with a plan. Next thing you know he shows up at the hotel and signs in as a count. Well, as title says, "When a Count Counted". A fun romp. Fun for the viewer. Well done little 12 minute short. The one thing that doesn't just stand out, but shouts: there must have been a lot of societal class structure then that really divided the workers, the leaders, and those who didn't need to work because they came from old money. I guess I need to ask, "Has anything changed that much?" No, I don't really need to ask.