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1910Thanhouser Company970 feetDrama

The Girl Reporter

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

“May Merrill and Will Marshall are sweethearts and both reporters on the Daily Wave. Will leaves the paper to accept a position of private secretary to Blake, commissioner of public works. Shortly after Will takes up his new work Blake is threatened with exposure and punishment on his charge of accepting a bribe. In order to save himself, Blake makes it appear that Will is the guilty party. May is sent to investigate the matter for the Wave. When she discovers that Will is accused, she determines to devote all of her time to clearing him, and with this end in view, she applies for the vacant position of private secretary to Blake. Assisted by Pete, faithful office boy from the Wave, who follows her to her new position, May does some clever detective work and, clearing Will, manages to fix the guilt where it belongs, on the shoulders of Blake.”

Summary from The Moving Picture World · 20 August 1910

What the papers said

2 reviews · 1 advertisement

“A love story with the scenes laid in a newspaper office, and requiring some clever detective work on the part of the girl. Anyhow she succeeds in clearing her sweetheart of false accusations and places the blame where it belongs, on the shoulders of his former employer.”

The Moving Picture World · 3 September 1910

“This film story has melodramatic interest, and the acting is good, but the means by which some of the incidents are brought about will not stand the acid test. For instance, if a political boss wants to ‘shake down’ a traction company for $5,000, would he submit the proposition in writing? A young man reporter, who is in love with …

Read in full · 1 min

“This film story has melodramatic interest, and the acting is good, but the means by which some of the incidents are brought about will not stand the acid test. For instance, if a political boss wants to ‘shake down’ a traction company for $5,000, would he submit the proposition in writing? A young man reporter, who is in love with a girl reporter, has become the private secretary of the boss, and is the person who delivers the demand for the $5,000. The traction officials mark the bills and deliver the money, but the boss ‘gets wise’ and shifts the suspicion on his secretary, who is arrested. But the girl comes to the rescue. She engages herself as the secretary’s successor and succeeds in getting the boss’ accomplice to tell all about the deal, while witnesses in hiding are taking down his words. The scenes in the newspaper reporters’ room would have been more convincing in the first scene if the staff had been more busy in writing copy instead of waving their arms and moving about.”

The New York Dramatic Mirror · 27 August 1910

Advertisement

20 August 1910The New York Dramatic Mirror1 min

“Here is a delineation of the grinding of a great modern newspaper mill as the public best likes to see it—from the inside. It is an intimate study of press and politics and it will be a revelation to you and it of course includes one of those Thanhouser love affairs that your patrons so yearn for.”

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

No cast or crew is credited in the surviving sources for this film. Bowers records the title and the release; the names did not come with them.

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More about this film

Bowers’ notes

Girl reporters were popular film subjects, as suggested by this film and such later releases as The Girl Reporter’s Big Scoop (Kalem, 1912), The Girl Reporter (Crystal, 1913), and the serial, Perils of Our Girl Reporters (Niagara Film Studios-Mutual, 1917).

From Volume II: Filmography of Q. David Bowers’ Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, reproduced with permission and unchanged. Read the history of 1910 →

Cite as: Bowers, Q. David. Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, “The Girl Reporter”. thanhouser.org/films/the-girl-reporter/

Where a print is held

Held by
No print known