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1915Thanhouser CompanyTwo reelsDrama

Her Menacing Past

Also released as The Menacing Past

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

“Anna Sanderson has been trained by her father, who is a professional burglar, to be his accomplice. She loves the excitement of the life and has no desire to reform. One day, however, the police trail the father and daughter, and Anna, in scaling a high wall, falls and is knocked senseless. Her father carries her in his arms for some distance. Then, seeing that there can be no escape for either of them thus, he places her in the vestibule of a house, and makes his getaway alone. A young doctor and his mother discover the unconscious girl. But when they have revived her they find that she has lost all remembrance of her past life. They keep her in their home, and eventually Anna and the doctor fall in love and are married. Sometime after this, a fall from a horse restores the girl’s memory. The old life of peril and adventure reasserts its attraction for her, and she is on the point of rejoining her father, who has discovered where she is living, when she realizes that stronger than love of adventure is the new love which she bears her husband.”

Summary from Reel Life · 2 January 1915

What the papers said

2 reviews

“In assisting her father in a robbery Anna Sanderson falls and he carries her senseless to a young doctor’s doorstep, and, leaving her there, makes his getaway alone. The doctor falls in love with and marries the girl. Her mind is blank to the past, but a fall from her horse restores her memory. Her desire for excitement brings her …

Read in full · 1 min

“In assisting her father in a robbery Anna Sanderson falls and he carries her senseless to a young doctor’s doorstep, and, leaving her there, makes his getaway alone. The doctor falls in love with and marries the girl. Her mind is blank to the past, but a fall from her horse restores her memory. Her desire for excitement brings her to consider returning to her old life, but on the point of joining her father again, she realizes that her love for her husband is stronger than her love for adventure.”

The Morning Telegraph · 3 January 1915

“Loss of memory, a change in personality, and then a struggle between the new and the old self, are utilized by Philip Lonergan in building up the dramatic situation in this two-part picture. Without being novel, the story, because of careful construction and able acting, becomes moderately interesting. The daughter of a thief—a thief herself—is left wounded on the doorstep …

Read in full · 1 min

“Loss of memory, a change in personality, and then a struggle between the new and the old self, are utilized by Philip Lonergan in building up the dramatic situation in this two-part picture. Without being novel, the story, because of careful construction and able acting, becomes moderately interesting. The daughter of a thief—a thief herself—is left wounded on the doorstep of a young doctor’s home. When she is revived her memory is a blank. Virtually adopted by the doctor and his mother, she develops a personality of much charm, in which there is no suggestion of past misdeeds. In the natural order of events she becomes the wife of the doctor, then a fall from a horse restores her memory, and with it a longing for the excitement of early days. She is on the verge of returning to a career of burglary when the personality of later origin asserts itself, and she goes home like a good little wife. All things considered—story, production, and acting—Her Menacing Past is a very fair release.”

The New York Dramatic Mirror · 6 January 1915

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Cast and crew

Cast
Jane Fairbanks
Mignon Anderson
J. Morris Foster
Mrs. Fairbanks
Writer
Philip Lonergan

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

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More about this film

Bowers’ notes

The title of this film was given as The Menacing Past in a schedule in The New York Dramatic Mirror, December 30, 1914, in a Thanhouser advertisement and separate schedule in the January 2, 1915 issue of The Moving Picture World, and elsewhere, although most other notices listed it as Her Menacing Past.

Posters and media
Glass slide for Her Menacing Past. a.k.a. THE MENACING PAST.

From Volume II: Filmography of Q. David Bowers’ Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, reproduced with permission and unchanged. Read the history of 1915 →

Cite as: Bowers, Q. David. Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, “Her Menacing Past”. thanhouser.org/films/her-menacing-past/

Where a print is held

Held by
No print known