Thanhouser Company trademark: a T and C monogram inside an octagonTHANHOUSERCompany Film PreservationBuy DVDs

1914PrincessOne reelComedy

Her Way

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

“Jim Ford rather preferred Broadway to life of domesticity. All the efforts of his parents to marry him off had failed. Mr. Ford, his millionaire father, did not favor the young man’s course and plotted with his old friend, Gale, living in a small town near the city, to marry Jim to Gale’s daughter, May. The elder Ford suggests that perhaps it would be a good plan to have his old friend’s daughter enter his household and study Jim for a while. May falls readily into the plan, and is initiated as a housemaid. Jim falls in love with her immediately, and after a short siege proposes marriage. May laughingly refuses him and leaves. Ford, senior, suggests that Jim make a visit to his old friend Gale’s home, and young Ford, rather unwillingly, does so, and there, much to his surprise, instead of finding a frump, as he had pictured Miss Gale to be, he discovers the girl of his dreams. The old folks have little difficulty thereafter in arranging the match.”

Summary from Reel Life · 28 February 1914

What the papers said

3 reviews

“Boyd Marshall in the role of a rich man’s son dissipates his strength and energy in cafes and cabarets. His father and an old friend decide that they would like to have him marry the latter’s daughter. She comes to his house as a maid to see what he is worth. He stops his bad habits and she falls in …

Read in full · 1 min

“Boyd Marshall in the role of a rich man’s son dissipates his strength and energy in cafes and cabarets. His father and an old friend decide that they would like to have him marry the latter’s daughter. She comes to his house as a maid to see what he is worth. He stops his bad habits and she falls in love with him. She goes back home, leaving him a note telling him to be a good boy and sometime they might meet again. Then he and his father pay her parents a visit, he recognizes her, all is explained and they live happily ever after. Muriel Ostriche as the heroine was especially attractive and the little comedy drama is well worth seeing.”

The Morning Telegraph · 8 March 1914

“Uses the same idea as ‘She Stoops to Conquer,’ but, although it is not without interest, it never really lives. No one will believe in it strongly, and the acting is full of artificial suggestions. The heiress is sent to act as a maid in the house of her father’s rich friend whose son, it is thought, will make a …

Read in full · 1 min

“Uses the same idea as ‘She Stoops to Conquer,’ but, although it is not without interest, it never really lives. No one will believe in it strongly, and the acting is full of artificial suggestions. The heiress is sent to act as a maid in the house of her father’s rich friend whose son, it is thought, will make a good match for her. His father knows that it is the habit to make love to the maids. There is something unpleasant in this situation and we dare not call this picture a first-class release.”

The Moving Picture World · 14 March 1914

More reviews

8 April 1914The New York Dramatic Mirror1 min

“Another version of the prodigal son, who is redeemed by a right-minded and very engaging young woman. The son is a devotee of cabarets and similar gaieties, until Muriel, whom his father wishes him to marry, enters the household, disguised as a maid. He soon loses his taste for wine and chorus girls, and is prepared to lead a domestic life with the pretty Muriel by his side. There is nothing new in the film, but it meets the first requirement of a photoplay, that of holding the interest. Acting, photography, and settings are adequate.”

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.

Tell us about a print

Cast and crew

Director
Carl Louis Gregory
Cast
Boyd Marshall as Jim Ford, his spendthrift son
Eugene Redding
George T. Welsh as Mr. Ford, a retired millionaire
Janet Clendenning Henry
Morgan Jones as Mr. Gale, May’s father
Muriel Ostriche as May, a masquerading heiress
Writer
John William Kellette
Photographed by
Carl Louis Gregory

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

Watch instead

Films you can watch from the same company

Matched by cast, director and kind
A frame from The Decoy. A frame from The Decoy (1914), from the Thanhouser restoration on Vimeo.16:08
1914 · Same leadThe Decoy
A frame from Crossed Wires30:58
1915 · Same leadCrossed Wires
A frame from The Vicar of Wakefield1:29:30
1917 · Same leadThe Vicar of Wakefield

More about this film

Bowers’ notes

The release date for this film was listed erroneously as March 6, 1914 in a synopsis in Reel Life, March 7, 1914. However, a schedule in the same issue has Her Way as the Princess release for March 6, 1914, as is correct.

From Volume II: Filmography of Q. David Bowers’ Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, reproduced with permission and unchanged. Read the history of 1914 →

Cite as: Bowers, Q. David. Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, “Her Way”. thanhouser.org/films/her-way/

Where a print is held

Held by
No print known