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1914Thanhouser CompanyOne reelComedy

The Butterfly Bug

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

“Professor Notty, the naturalist, attempts to sort out his bugs and other flora and fauna, but his wife, the neighbors, the ashman, the children in the attic, the iceman, a housecleaning maid and a boy with a reflecting mirror torment him into a frenzy and he is unable to work. Professor Notty rushes from garret to cellar in his flight to obtain peace and finally runs madly to the local insane asylum and demands admission. He is chased by his family and friends, however, and after he is saved from incarceration is repaid by seeing his tormentors punished.”

Summary from Reel Life · 25 July 1914

What the papers said

2 reviews

“The amusing adventures of a portly old entomologist, whose wild endeavours to find a peaceful retreat where he may mount his specimens provide the major part of the humour. The story is rather long drawn out and is not played quite fast enough at times. Otherwise it is quite excellent in its way.”

The Bioscope · 19 November 1914

“Professor Notty, the ‘butterfly bug,’ has a hard time finding a fine place in his home in which to classify his collection of butterflies. This situation has been used a few times already and also is rather slight. There is little substance to this offering.”

The Moving Picture World · 15 August 1914

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

Cast
Doris Farrington as another “demon child”
Ethyle Cooke as his mother
Fan Bourke as Mrs. Sophia Notty
Harry Blakemore as Professor Nimrod Notty
Helen Badgley as “demon child”
Leland Benham as the mischievous boy
Irene Farrington as maid

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

Watch instead

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Matched by cast, director and kind
A frame from A Dog’s Love11:12
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A frame from Coals of Fire13:13
1914 · Same castCoals of Fire
A frame from Jack and the Beanstalk13:24
1913 · Same castJack and the Beanstalk

More about this film

Bowers’ notes

Ethyle Cooke is erroneously assigned two roles in this film, the mother of the mischievous boy and also, incorrectly, as a “demon child,” in a cast listing in Reel Life, July 25, 1914.

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, “The Butterfly Bug”. thanhouser.org/films/the-butterfly-bug/

Where a print is held

Held by
No print known