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1913Thanhouser CompanyOne reelDrama

For Her Boy’s Sake

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

The son of a poor widow fell in love with a heartless showgirl, who spurned the simple gifts he gave her. In a moment of desperation he tried to rob the box office of the theatre in which he was employed as a stagehand, but he was detected by the night watchman who shot and wounded him mortally. Before he expired he wrote a letter to his mother saying: ‘Many a man has tempted to sin for the woman he loves.’ The widow, in order to maintain herself, obtained work as a scrubwoman in an office building, where she became acquainted with a prepossessing young clerk, whose wife she learned is dangerously ill and was told by a physician to go to Arizona. Noticing that the clerk looked extremely sad and knowing the cause, she went home, took her life savings, returned to the building and placed the wallet in the clerk’s coat which was hanging on the wall. But in the next office the clerk was working feverishly trying to open the safe. The widow noticed it and her involuntary cry startled him. The woman explained to the clerk what she had done and with tears in his eyes he accepted her proffered aid.

Summary from The Moving Picture World · 29 March 1913

What the papers said

4 reviews

An old woman sacrifices her all for a young man she has never seen before, just because of the memory of her own son, who had attempted to commit theft but had been shot while in the act. He had fallen in love with a girl of the stage, he being a stage employee, and had tried to rob the …

Read in full · 1 min

An old woman sacrifices her all for a young man she has never seen before, just because of the memory of her own son, who had attempted to commit theft but had been shot while in the act. He had fallen in love with a girl of the stage, he being a stage employee, and had tried to rob the box office, but had been caught. He wrote a confession on his deathbed to his mother, who was afterward forced to earn her own living as a scrubwoman. One night she discovered that a clerk in an office building where she worked was about to try and rob a safe in order to provide funds to send his wife out West for her health. So the widow went home and secured all of her savings and brought the money to the young man, which he took with gratitude, thus being prevented from committing robbery. The story is consistently told, and if a trifle farfetched in theme it is still entirely possible.

The Morning Telegraph · 30 March 1913

A human interest story covering many years of time. In the first part we see the manner in which the woman’s son robs a safe to obtain money for a girl. For this he is convicted [sic] and passes out of the picture. Ten years later, as a scrub woman in an office building, she sees a clerk about to …

Read in full · 1 min

A human interest story covering many years of time. In the first part we see the manner in which the woman’s son robs a safe to obtain money for a girl. For this he is convicted [sic] and passes out of the picture. Ten years later, as a scrub woman in an office building, she sees a clerk about to yield to the same weakness, because his wife is ill. She gives her savings to him. The closing scene is very pathetic, and while not entirely new, the story is a successful one.

The Moving Picture World · 5 April 1913

More reviews2 · 29 March 1913 – 26 March 1913

29 March 1913The Moving Picture News1 min

For Her Boy’s Sake is tremendously human and full of pathos. This film has also been beautifully produced.

26 March 1913The New York Dramatic Mirror1 min

For her boy’s sake, or rather for the sake of the memory of the boy, the old scrub woman sacrifices her meager earnings, saved against old age, that the young man in the office building where she is employed might send his sick wife into the mountains without being required to steal. That was the undoing of her own boy; he loved a woman and for her sake, though she was unworthy, he stole and paid the debt with his life. She never forgot it, nor that even strong men are oft-times led astray through the love of some woman, and when she sees the pitiful condition of this young man and his temptation to steal, she is only too willing to save him by this small offering. With naturalness and charm the action is carried along up to that point where the mother has gathered together her savings for that time when she will be unable to work, but the author, in failing to bring the old woman and young man together in a more personal way, prior to the sacrifice, loses a part of the pathos and power the big situation might otherwise possess. The small incident of the old woman falling and having her injured hand bandaged by the clerk seems hardly sufficient.

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Cast and crew

Cast
James Cruze
Marguerite Snow
Victory Bateman as the mother
William Garwood as the son
William Russell

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More about this film

Filmed in
Southern California
Bowers’ notes
  1. Cymbeline was originally scheduled for release on March 25, 1913 but was rescheduled to March 28, 1913. 2. This film was misidentified as For His Son’s Sake in The Motion Picture Story Magazine, July 1913.

From Volume II: Filmography of Q. David Bowers’ Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, reproduced with permission and unchanged. Read the history of 1913 →

Cite as: Bowers, Q. David. Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, “For Her Boy’s Sake”. thanhouser.org/films/for-her-boy-s-sake/

Where a print is held

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