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1912Thanhouser CompanyOne reelDrama

A New Cure for Divorce

No copy you can watch online. No print is known to survive. What follows is what does: the release, the cast, the story, and what the trade press said at the time.

The story

“While a wealthy couple were out automobiling one day, they saw a moving picture factory and curiosity led them to enter. They were much impressed with what they witnessed, and it struck them that it would be an excellent idea to have film made of the approaching wedding of their only daughter. Desirous of surprising the young couple, the old folks took no one into their confidence, and bride and bridegroom, minister and wedding guests had no idea that they were posing before the camera. The bridal couple went away on their honeymoon and had a foolish silly quarrel, such as often befalls young married people. The bridegroom was haughty, the bride was indignant, and declared her intention of immediately proceeding to Reno. The bridegroom said he didn’t care, and at the time he really thought he meant it. Their matrimonial bark was just on the verge of being hopelessly shipwrecked, when a telegram arrived from the old folks at home. It invited the bridal couple to dine with the girl’s parents and announced that the latter had a surprise for them. The unhappy couple talked it over, and decided, for the parent’s sake, to pretend to be friends for a while at least, until the arrangements for their divorce were near completion. The wife knew her parents had an old fashioned prejudice against divorce, and wanted to postpone giving them pain as long as she possibly could.

“The surprise was really a surprise for them. It came off at a moving picture theatre and was the film story of their own marriage. As they looked upon it and realized how they had promised to love, honor and cherish each other, the differences between them became very small indeed. Before the film had been run off the bride was weeping in her husband’s arms, and he was telling her that it was all his fault, while she remonstrated and declared she alone was to blame. So the surprise was a surprise indeed, and it reunited a young couple who had been fast drifting apart.”

Summary from The Moving Picture World · 27 July 1912

What the papers said

4 reviews · 1 article

“Originality in theme and presentation are the basic merits of this play. A husband and wife visit a motion picture plant (the Thanhouser), and there conceive the idea of having their daughter’s forthcoming marriage photographed in motion. It occurs, and during the event a camera is busy throughout the ceremony, unknown to any of the participants. Later the bride and …

Read in full · 1 min

“Originality in theme and presentation are the basic merits of this play. A husband and wife visit a motion picture plant (the Thanhouser), and there conceive the idea of having their daughter’s forthcoming marriage photographed in motion. It occurs, and during the event a camera is busy throughout the ceremony, unknown to any of the participants. Later the bride and bridegroom quarrel and decide on a divorce. The girl’s parents invite her home for a visit, promising a surprise for her, and they both decide to accept despite the arrangements for their divorce being under way. After a warm welcome home the parents take the young couple to a nearby motion picture theatre, where a special showing of the wedding picture is flashed upon the screen. It serves to break up all ideas of a divorce, and the couple fall into each other’s arms, rejoicing in the miracle. It would have been better to have actually thrown the picture of the wedding on the theatre screen instead of repeating it as an individual scene in the play. This has been done before and could easily have been repeated here. The whole, however, calls for praise and is a picture story with a good moral as well as being one of individuality in plot. It is very well done in every respect.”

The Morning Telegraph · 4 August 1912

“A New Cure For Divorce, for August 2, is good. The Nobel [apparently after the Nobel prize of Sweden] cure for the desire for separation in the newly married pair, who have quarreled over so small a matter as learning to swim, which the young bride refuses to do, is the exhibition of a moving picture of their wedding which was taken unawares to them.”

The Moving Picture News · 27 July 1912

More reviews2 · 3 August 1912 – 31 July 1912

3 August 1912The Moving Picture World1 min

“A novel story and a pretty story, in which the interior of a moving picture factory is shown. Also there is demonstrated the value of having a cinematographic record of a wedding ceremony and likewise the value of revealing the existence of the film at the psychological hour—in this case smashing a prospective divorce case and bringing a new couple to a realization at the silliness of their quarrel.”

31 July 1912The New York Dramatic Mirror1 min

“This is a bright ‘summery’ little comedy of no especial depth of plot, but made entertaining by the diverting incidents it introduces and the clever, spirited acting. Mignon Anderson plays the role of the wife and William Garwood the husband. The ‘new cure for divorce’ proves a novelty, since it is a motion picture of the wedding shown to the bride and groom just as they are about to separate that brings them together again. Before the wedding the parents visit the Thanhouser motion picture plant at New Rochelle and see a motion picture scene enacted, and the result is that they have a picture taken of their daughter during the marriage ceremony. They intend to exhibit this film to her after the marriage as a surprise. For their honeymoon the young couple go to the seashore, where they have their first quarrel, when the groom goes in the water with another lady. He incidentally gives an exhibition of some good diving. The bride at once determines to return home but is prevented by the arrival of a telegram from her father. He appears with the motion picture film, which he shows to the two, and during the process they decide to make up their differences.”

Article

27 July 1912The Moving Picture News1 min

“A New Cure for Divorce, released August 2, doesn’t especially feature a smile [a reference to an article about the Thanhouser film, Treasure Trove, mentioned in the preceding paragraph of the same article], but as a matter of fact it follows one. The man has just told his wife a yarn that has caused her to laugh, and then has told her that the story had no foundation in truth, whereupon she makes a wry face, and wants to know why he must tell ‘fibs.’ In fact, the pair don’t get along well together at all, and a little later contemplate a divorce, when a wise relative shows up with a new cure that is the excuse for the alluring title.”

Have you seen this film, or a print of it?

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Cast and crew

Cast
Mignon Anderson as the bride
William Garwood as the groom

Every name opens that person's page, with each film they appear in and which of them you can watch.

Watch instead

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A frame from The Evidence of the Film13:40
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More about this film

From Volume II: Filmography of Q. David Bowers’ Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, reproduced with permission and unchanged. Read the history of 1912 →

Cite as: Bowers, Q. David. Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, “A New Cure for Divorce”. thanhouser.org/films/a-new-cure-for-divorce/

Where a print is held

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