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1915PrincessOne reelRomance

Nell’s Strategy

Also released as Nellie’s Strategy

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

“Nell Winter’s father is an old scamp who drinks up his money. His daughter takes in sewing to support their home. Maurice, the son of a rich woman for whom Nell makes dresses, becomes infatuated with the girl, who is by no means pleased to see her father and the young millionaire becoming great friends. She instinctively dislikes Maurice. But also she is in love with Bob, a young clerk in an iron company, who is devoted to her. Bob discovers a scheme for enriching the company and is sent to New York to superintend the city office. He writes Nell that as soon as he has the cash saved, he will come back to make her his wife. Meanwhile, the unpaid mortgage on the Winters’ house is causing Nell a great deal of worry. The next instalment coming due, they are unable to meet it, and her father points out to her that it is her duty to save the day by marrying Maurice. Nell pretends to consent. She writes Bob of her predicament, and he arrives just in time to pay off the mortgage and save his sweetheart from a miserable marriage.”

Summary from Reel Life · 30 January 1915

What the papers said

2 reviews

“Nell pretends to agree that she must marry Maurice to pay off the mortgage incurred by her father. She writes to her lover, telling him of the predicament, and he arrives in time to save her, since he has saved the necessary money.”

The Morning Telegraph · 31 January 1915

“This starts out to be a drama and becomes farcical in treatment toward the close. It is diverting just the same, and has a new type of villain who buys paintings from the girl’s artist-father in order to get a hold upon the girl. But the hero wins out in the end. The close is quite amusing and not to be taken seriously.”

The Moving Picture World · 20 February 1915

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Cast and crew

Cast
Boyd Marshall as Bob
Edward N. Hoyt as Old Man Winter
John Reinhard as Maurice
Justus D. Barnes
Irene Farrington as Nell

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

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A frame from Crossed Wires30:58
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More about this film

Bowers’ notes

This film was designated as Nellie’s Strategy in a Thanhouser advertisement in The Moving Picture World, February 6, 1915, and in a review in the same publication, February 20, 1915; it was designated as Nell’s Strategy in most other printed schedules, including those in Reel Life.

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, “Nell’s Strategy”. thanhouser.org/films/nell-s-strategy/

Where a print is held

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No print known