SHOES (1916)
​Restored by EYE Filmmuseum, Netherlands
Selected for the Library of Congress‘ National Film Registry
Download or Read the SHOES press kit here

BUY ON DVD OR BLU-RAY DIRECT FROM MILESTONE HERE!

“When the shoes became too worn to endure a third soling and she possessed but 90 cents toward a new pair, she gave up the struggle; to use her own contemptuous phrase, she ‘sold out for a new pair of shoes.’” — A New Conscience for an Ancient Evil by Jane Addams


USA, 1916 • Directed by Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley. 
Cast Mary MacLaren (Eva Meyer), Mattie Witting (Her mother), Harry Griffith (Her father), Jessie Arnold (Lil), William V. Mong (“Cabaret” Charlie) Production Universal Film Manufacturing Company’s Bluebird Photoplays Producers Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley Screenplay Lois Weber, suggested by the book A New Conscience for an Ancient Evil by Jane Addams and the story “Shoes” by Stella Wynne Herron Photography Stephen S. Norton, King D. Gray, Allen G. Siegler. Restored by the EYE Filmmuseum, Netherlands. Archvists:  Annike Kross and Rob Byrne. Thank you also to Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi and Frank Rouman.

Eva Meyer is poor shop girl working at a five-and-dime. She is the sole wage earner for three younger sisters, a mother who struggles to hold everything together, and a father who prefers beer and penny dreadfuls to work. Each week, Eva returns to her cold-water flat and dutifully hands over her meager earnings to her mother. But her wages barely cover the grocer’s bill and cannot provide for decent clothing. With only cardboard to patch the holes in the soles of her shoes, Eva’s life becomes harder with each rainy day and every splinter. In constant pain and with no solution in sight, the disheartened girl considers the uninvited advances of Charlie, a cad with clearly dishonorable intentions.

Weber adapted her script for Shoes closely from a short story by Stella Wynne Herron published in the January 1, 1916, issue of Collier’s. Herron’s inspiration for her story came from social reformer Jane Addams’s 1912 book on prostitution A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, which Herron quoted in her epigraph: “When the shoes became too worn to endure a third soling and she possessed but 90 cents toward a new pair, she gave up the struggle; to use her own contemptuous phrase, she ‘sold out for a new pair of shoes.’”
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Weber weaves a beautifully simple story with a technique much celebrated in post-WWII Italy as neorealism. Shooting exteriors around Los Angeles — including a remarkable scene in Pershing Square and the actual front of Woolworth’s on Broadway — Weber created her masterpiece. 

The director’s brand-new discovery, 

sixteen-year-old Mary MacLaren (resembling a young Jennifer Lawrence) is the embodiment of youthful innocence and too-early world-weariness. Much like the 1912 English play “Hindle Wakes,” Shoes is a plea for women’s equality (women’s suffrage was still a hard-fought political goal in both countries), but where one celebrated a woman’s right to sexual freedom, Weber’s film portrays the reality and tragedy of a shop girl in modern society.
The Shoes restoration by the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam combined a Dutch nitrate print and a 1930s American “comedic” reissue of the film called Unshod Maiden found at the Library of Congress. Thanks to the recent discovery of the original script and intertitles in the 16mm microfilm files at NBC/Universal, the Milestone edition more closely reflects the original film. Prominent composer/pianist Donald Sosin is creating a new score to accompany Shoes.

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EYE's beautiful restoration has since been enhanced by the original intertitles found in 2016!

Check out the Milestone website here!

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