Lost1914Thanhouser CompanyTwo reelsRomance

The Cripple

Name: The Cripple
Genre: Romance
Released: 1914-10-06

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

“Will Jameson has been crippled from boyhood. He bears his affliction bravely until he falls in love with Ruth Stevens. He often is a guest at Judge Stevens’ home, and one evening, feeling that he cannot longer endure the merriment among the other young folks in which he can take no active part, he goes to find the judge and excuses himself on the pretext that he has promised to be home early. Meanwhile, an ex-convict, whom the judge formerly sentenced, has entered the house meaning to avenge himself. Will reaches the library barely in time to save the judge’s life. In his struggle with the convict, however, his leg is broken. An eminent surgeon discovers that the operation which must be performed will cure Will of the old trouble. The young man induces him to keep this a secret from the Stevens family. Later, Will returns and proposes to Ruth, who realizes that she loves him.”

Summary from Reel Life · 26 September 1914

What the papers said

2 reviews · 1 article

Read in full · 1 min

“Over-sensitive as to his misfortune, a young cripple shrinks from proposing marriage to the girl he loves. The escape from prison of a desperate criminal gives him an opportunity of proving, however, that he can be as useful as most other men in a fight, in spite of his physical disability, and, wonderful to relate, the broken leg which he sustains in this struggle actually results in the cure of his lameness. The bar to matrimony being thus removed, the story ends happily. It is a conventional little romance, but it is quite pretty and it is very capably acted. The miraculous cure does not impress us as very convincing, but that may be due to a lack of medical knowledge and the wonders of very modern science.”

The Bioscope · 21 January 1915

“A two-reel story by Philip Lonergan. In the first scene is shown the friendship between the two children. The little boy is injured by an auto and grows up a cripple. In later years a second injury restores the crooked leg to normal shape and he is able to dance and run and offer his love to the girl he …

Read in full · 1 min

The Moving Picture World · 17 October 1914

Article

5 September 1914The New Rochelle Pioneer1 min

“Lydia Mead is starring in her first two-reel story, The Cripple, a Phil Lonergan story with Nolan Gane in support. The little New Rochelle girl has had lead parts in His Reward and Arty the Artist, and is rapidly climbing to the top in her profession. In private life she is Mrs. Marvin Perry Horton, assistant director Horton’s ‘leading lady.’...”