Ben Brewster

Brewster looks at the relationship between A Retreived Reformation and several works based
upon it as examples of situational dramaturgy.

+In this paper, I shall attempt to illustrate situational dramaturgy at work in an early twentieth-
century play,

Paul Armstrongs Alias Jimmy Valentine , and the film adaptation of it directed by Maurice Tourneur
for World Film in 1915.

Armstrongs play derives from a short story by O. Henry, A Retrieved Reformation, first published in
Cosmopolitan magazine in 1903.

+Extracts from the play and synopsis were published in contemporary magazines.

French version of the play adapted by Yves Mirande and Henry role as Le Mysterieux Jimmy was
produced at the The atre de la Renaissance in Paris, premiering on 26 June 1911.

Tourneur later claimed that I produced the French stage version of Alias Jimmy Valentine.

+. According to Jean Mitry, between 1910 and 1912, Tourneur worked as an actor and stage manager
for Abel Tarride, the actor-manager of the Theatre de la Renaissance, and also directed some
productions there, so the claim may well be correct.

The French and Catalan versions are fairly free adaptations,

+and it is possible that the French one influenced Tourneur or his uncredited screenwriter (if any) in
the film adaptation.

O. Henrys story is only a few pages long, and essentially presents a single situation: Jimmy
Valentine,an expert safecracker,is released from prison, collects his burglars tools, and travels to
Elmore, Arkansas, where he plans to rob the bank.

However, he falls in love with the bank managers daughter,reforms, opens a shoe shop, prospers,
and gets engaged to the girl he loves. A police detective with a warrant for his arrest arrives in
Elmore just as Jimmy is preparing to leave for the West with his bride.

At that moment it is discovered that her little niece has been shut into the new bank vault, which has
a time lock. Jimmy uses his tools to open the safe and save the little girl, and the detective thereupon
tears up the warrant, allowing Jimmy to marry and live happily ever after.

This account of the situation involves a lot of backstory;

+its bare bones is the ironic position Jimmy is placed in: if he rescues the little girl, he betrays his
identity,is arrested,and his reform goes for nothing;if he sticks to his new persona,the little girl dies.

+This is a characteristic situation:

the protagonist is confronted with a dilemma, and the action is suspended to allow all its
implications to be grasped; the dilemma poses two contrasting moral outcomes; it evokes the chains
of circumstances that led to the protagonists need to decide, and the possible future outcomes of
his decision.

As Tourneur remarked: Structurally there is not resemblance between the O. Henry fiction and the
Armstrong comedy.

Armstrong motivated the situation by providing a new and more complex chain of prior events,
allowing for this series of climaxes.

+The action is distributed over four acts. Brewster defines these 4 act as you can see

The first act is set in the Wardens office in Sing Sing, with the visit of Rose,her uncle,and member
soft he prison reform league the Gate of Hope. The Warden offers his visitors an exhibition of
criminal types, culminating in the request to Jimmy that he open a safe without knowing the
combination,which he insists he is unable to do. Rose recognises Jimmy, and persuades her uncle to
secure him a pardon.

The second act takes place immediately after Jimmys release, in a hotel lobby in Albany, where
Jimmy has arranged to meet Rose. Jimmy is approached by Detective Doyle, but refuses to become a
stool pigeon. Red Joclyn and Bill Avery, former associates of Jimmys,appear,and Valentine tells them
he is going straight. Rose introduces Jimmy to her father, and the latter, at her request, offers Jimmy
a job in the Springfield bank. Jimmy promises to get Joclyn a job there too.

The third act takes place in that bank several years later. Jimmy is now Lanes trusted right-hand
man, and Joclyn is a watchman. A very, who has reformed and married a widow whose son is a
photographer, arrives with a photograph he has had made for Jimmy. A very has been trailed by
Doyle, who announces his imminent arrival. Jimmy decides to brazen out the situation, using the
doctored photograph to establish an alibi. He is successful, but as the crestfallen Doyle prepares to
leave, Red runs in calling Jimmy, to say that Kitty Lane has been locked into the safe. Act 4 (or Act 3,
scene 2) is set in the vault. A blindfolded Jimmy opens the safe with Reds assistance, watched
unbeknown to them by Doyle and Rose. When Jimmy takes off the blind fold he sees Doyle, and gives
himself up. Rose comes forward and pleads for him; realising that the two are in love, Doyle tears up
the warrant and leaves the couple together.

+The problem with this structure is that it sags in the middle.

+Here are the actions in the french version.

The French version of the play eliminates the second act, and Tourneurs film drastically cuts it. The
French play has two acts in Jimmys office in the bank before the final vault scene and adds a new
character,a villain,to complicate the relations between Jimmy and his former associates on the one
hand, and his dealings with the detective on the other. Act 2 reveals that Rose is engaged to a neer-
do-well cousin, but has fallen in love with Jimmy.Evans tries to persuade Roses father that Jimmy
and his friends are untrustworthy without success.

A much more important change in the film is in the exposition.Whereas O.Henrysstorybegins with
Jimmys release from prison, and the first scene in both the American and French versions of the play
is set in the Wardens office in Sing Sing while he is serving his sentence.
In directly representing what was backstory in the play, Tourneur is following standard prescriptions
of the period. It was generally agreed that whereas in literature it was possible to double back in
time and tell earlier events after later ones, this was inappropriate in drama and film, where all
significant narrative action should be portrayed in story order. Nevertheless, in medias res openings
were highly valued.

Robert H. Davis and Arthur B. Maurice

Davis and Maurice explore the origins of the character of Jimmy in A Retrieved Reformation.

The question of the original of the Jimmy Valentine of A Retrieved Reformation is likely always to
remain a matter of controversy.

According to Dr. George W. Williard, who was the night doctor at the penitentiary, the original Jimmy
was one Jimmy Connors. Dr. Williard, who was a friend and admirer of Porter,has contributed
reminiscences.

Of all the characters that figure in the O.Henry stories Jimmy Valentine is by far the most widely
known; in fact, he is the only character who by name stands out conspicuously in the long roster.

Probably that is largely due to the popularity of the play and the association of Jimmys name with
the play title.

It is a peculiarity of the stories that the names of the men and women who figure in them mean
nothing or little.Much the same maybe said of the short stories of Guy de Maupassant, with whom O.
Henry has so often been compared. In O. Henrys case the exceptions to this rule are few.

A Retrieved Reformation was published in the spring of 1903. Jennings asked Porter why he had
not used the story before, and the reported reply was:Ive had it in mind,Colonel,ever since you told
me of it.But I was afraid it would not go. Convicts, you know, are not accepted in the best society
evenin fiction.