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1910Thanhouser Company1,000 feetDrama

Her Battle for Existence

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

“Susan Dale has been brought up in luxury. She has two suitors, Will Emory and Jim Briggs. She chooses Will, and at the opening of the picture informs Jim of her choice. But a change comes to the fortunes of Susan’s father: an unlucky speculation claims his wealth and his life. When Will discovers that his fiancé is penniless his love cools; he breaks the engagement and goes to Europe to avoid the girl. Susan, friendless, starts out to earn her own living. She applies for a job in a lawyer’s office, but leaves when the man insults her. She secures a place in a department store, but is discharged because, fatigued after an arduous day at the counter, she took a seat while on duty. She applies for work in a factory, but is rejected, owing to lack of experience. Finally, in desperation, she takes a place as maid in the home of Mrs. Gray. There Burg, the offensive lawyer, meets her, and in a spirit of revenge, denounces her as a thief. The mistress discharges her and Susan decides to end her life. Fortunately for Susan, Burg meets Jim Briggs, the rejected suitor, on the street and laughingly tells him how he brought about Susan’s discharge. Jim knocks the wretch down and rushes to Mrs. Gray’s residence. He arrives in time to dissuade Susan from her purpose, and all ends happily to the peal of wedding chimes.”

Summary from The Moving Picture World · 16 April 1910

What the papers said

3 reviews

“Perhaps the chief good this picture will accomplish is to show the difficulties which beset an inexperienced girl who undertakes to battle for existence alone. While the picture ends happily through the intervention of a former lover, the end was too apparent to make the picture altogether convincing. As a stimulant to thought, however, along these lines it is a success. The acting is sympathetic and the photography clear.”

The Moving Picture World · 30 April 1910

“A romantic story representing too vividly for comfort what might befall any girl left alone without some occupation sufficient to insure her a support. In this instance all is well that ends well, and when a former sweetheart finds her and takes care of her one is disposed to offer congratulations upon the result. The acting is good and the …

Read in full · 1 min

“A romantic story representing too vividly for comfort what might befall any girl left alone without some occupation sufficient to insure her a support. In this instance all is well that ends well, and when a former sweetheart finds her and takes care of her one is disposed to offer congratulations upon the result. The acting is good and the photography is clear and correct. The film will be certain to please because it tells a good story and tells it well.”

The Moving Picture World · 7 May 1910

More reviews

30 April 1910The New York Dramatic Mirror1 min

“A number of overdrawn and inconsistent incidents in this film story do not rob it of its interesting strength. The acting is good and the scenic backgrounds appropriate.

“A young woman whose father loses all his wealth and kills himself is deserted by her cold-blooded fiancé and is compelled to make her own living. Strangely enough, having been a bird of fashion, she knows stenography and typewriting, but the job she gets is at once lost because her employer gets ‘fresh.’ Then she tries clerking in a store and is discharged for sitting down. Service as a maid leads to no better results, as the fellow who had insulted her as a stenographer, denounces her to her mistress, and she is again discharged. She now attempts suicide and turns on the gas, but a former sweetheart, who has read of her father’s failure and suicide, arrives in good time from the Klondike with a belt full of gold, and knowing by instinct where to find her arrives in time to burst open the door and save her. [This seems to differ from the synopsis.—Ed.] She is unconscious from the gas, but those who enter the room appear not to be affected by it. When she recovers she falls into his arms.”

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

Prints of films thought lost still turn up in attics, private collections and archives. A record like this one is how the next one gets found.

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Cast and crew

No cast or crew is credited in the surviving sources for this film. Bowers records the title and the release; the names did not come with them.

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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 1910 →

Cite as: Bowers, Q. David. Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, “Her Battle for Existence”. thanhouser.org/films/her-battle-for-existence/

Where a print is held

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