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

1914PrincessOne reelComedy

The Dead Line

Also released as When We Are Married

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

“Jack wished to marry Polly, but when he asked her father for her hand, he was landed out in the street. Viewing the home militia at drill gives Jack an idea. When they stack guns to go and have a drink, the desperate lover takes them and plants them along the roadside, loaded with blanks. Then he ties strings to the triggers so that when they are pulled a broadside will be fired. After the first volley the news is given out that the Mexicans have captured the town. The militia, finding their guns have been confiscated, call on the police department for assistance, and under cover of the excitement, Jack and Polly elope. After the ceremony, Jack sends a messenger to declare a truce. But Polly’s father already has discovered the ruse, when the army of defense tries to drown out the ambushed army of invasion. His son-in-law’s cleverness, however, appeals to the obdurate old gentleman, and the elopers are forgiven.”

Summary from Reel Life · 24 October 1914

What the papers said

2 reviews · 2 articles

“A somewhat ungainly comic absurdity. The humour is rather ponderous, and the film is a little too long. Otherwise it is fairly amusing.” …

Read in full · 1 min

“A somewhat ungainly comic absurdity. The humour is rather ponderous, and the film is a little too long. Otherwise it is fairly amusing.”

SYNOPSIS of When We Are Married (British release title), The Cinema, February 11, 1915:

“This picture is a good comedy. The young man is forcibly ejected from his girl’s home by her angry father. The town is about to be invaded, rumour has it, by an enemy, so the valiant home guard, assisted by the police and fire brigade, turn out to repel the invaders. The young man and the girl see in the occasion an opportunity for distracting the attention of the parent, and to play a practical joke on the home guard, with the result that the defenders do much damage amongst themselves without even catching sight of the enemy. In the meantime, the young couple get married, and there is quite a consternation amongst the forces when they discover they have been hoaxed. Everything is amicably settled in the end, however.”

The Bioscope · 4 February 1915

“A burlesque comedy number. A company of soldiers, the police force, and fire department all appear to suppress the invaders, which turns out to be a joke played by the two lovers. They fire a volley of guns over the stone wall. This makes a comedy of average interest.”

The Moving Picture World · 14 November 1914

Articles2 · 10 October 1914 – 31 October 1914

10 October 1914The New Rochelle Pioneer1 min

“Arthur Ellery, director of Princess Films, a Thanhouser product, was busy all this week producing The Deadline, one of the funniest film comedies of the year. Boyd Marshall, Mayre Hall, John Reinhard, James S. Murray, Bruce Weyman, and Joseph Phillips played the leads, and the Old Eastchester Road and Tuckahoe were the stage grounds. Every conceivable sort of uniform was worn by the ‘soldiers,’ and the ‘cops’ were a riot. In the next to last scene Mr. Reinhard drove a big bay horse, spotted up with white watercolor, through the door of a cafe in Tuckahoe, followed by his ‘vast’ army. Hundreds of autoists touring the county stopped to watch the action. It was a Kellette script.”

31 October 1914The New Rochelle Pioneer1 min

“James S. Murray, who was injured in The Deadline, is rapidly recovering from a strained shoulder. Jim had to take a five-foot drop onto Gordon Hollingshead’s back, but ‘Nance’ didn’t have his back there when James made the flop.”

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
Arthur Ellery
Cast
Boyd Marshall as Jack
Bruce Weyman as policeman
Gordon Hollingshead as policeman
J.S. Murray as policeman
John Lehnberg
John Reinhard as Lieut. Hamamelis
Joseph Phillips as Polly’s father
Mayre Hall as Polly
Writer
John William Kellette

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 Tell-Tale Scar12:09
1914 · Same castThe Tell-Tale Scar
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 Mme. Blanche, Beauty Doctor13:35
1915 · Same directorMme. Blanche, Beauty Doctor

More about this film

Filmed in
Tuckahoe, New York, and Old Eastchester Road
Bowers’ notes
  1. This film was advertised as “a clever comedy wherein two lovers profit by the Mexican situation,” the “Mexican situation” being the war in Mexico, which was being covered by Mutual and other film companies. 2. The title appeared as “Dead Line” in most articles, but in some it was give as one word: “Deadline.” 3. Initial publicity gave a British release date of March 1, 1915, but this was subsequently changed to March 4, 1915. In the synopsis printed in the British trade journal, The Cinema, all mention of Mexico was deleted.

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 Dead Line”. thanhouser.org/films/the-dead-line/

Where a print is held

Held by
No print known