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1915Thanhouser CompanyTwo reelsDrama

The Heart of the Princess Marsari

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

“An Indian Prince marries an American girl. On his wife’s death he sends their little daughter, the Princess Marsari, to America to be educated. Some years later, the Prince joins her there and tries to make his child’s choice of country his own. Marsari falls in love with a young American portrait artist. When Paul Leighton is accused of the murder of his wealthy uncle—whose will is found to leave his estate to the nephew—the young Princess is the only person who believes in his innocence. One point especially weighs with her. The victim’s body, on its discovery, was stone cold. Yet the man had not lain long dead. The Princess sets her wits to work and gradually traces the crime to a half-crazed painter who has used liquid air to kill Leighton’s uncle. The fearless girl entraps him, forces from him a confession, and is about to give him up to justice when he meets with a still stranger death than did his victim. The Indian Prince recognizes in all these happenings ‘kismet’—and the Princess Marsari and Paul Leighton are married.”

Summary from Reel Life · 8 May 1915

What the papers said

2 reviews

“A two-reel mystery story featuring Marguerite Snow, James Cruze and Harry Benham. The girl’s father is Gunga Ras, a Hindu student of the occult. The girl’s uncle is found dead and the lover blamed. But she personally investigates the crime. The father is suspected, but it develops that the death was really caused by use of liquid air in the …

Read in full · 1 min

“A two-reel mystery story featuring Marguerite Snow, James Cruze and Harry Benham. The girl’s father is Gunga Ras, a Hindu student of the occult. The girl’s uncle is found dead and the lover blamed. But she personally investigates the crime. The father is suspected, but it develops that the death was really caused by use of liquid air in the hands of another. The plot itself is not exceptionally strong, but holds the attention. The liquid air demonstrations break the illusion somewhat, but are nonetheless interesting. The climax is quite strong.”

The Moving Picture World · 22 May 1915

“The strange inheritance of some beautiful settings bought for an elaborate production stand the producers in good stead in this two-part Thanhouser picture, one of the old regime’s, by the way. It serves further to emphasize the power of liquid air, although the experiments are not convincing. So much trick photography is resorted to in other pictures that skeptical ones …

Read in full · 1 min

“The strange inheritance of some beautiful settings bought for an elaborate production stand the producers in good stead in this two-part Thanhouser picture, one of the old regime’s, by the way. It serves further to emphasize the power of liquid air, although the experiments are not convincing. So much trick photography is resorted to in other pictures that skeptical ones may readily believe these interesting experiments unreal. Otherwise it concerns Marguerite Snow as the daughter of an Indian prince—James Cruze—who learns to love an artist—Harry Benham. Then the artist’s uncle is found murdered, and the nephew is accused. Much of the mysticism on the part of the Indian father leads the audience to believe that he was instrumental. However, the daughter starts to unravel the mystery, and finds that liquid air containers were attached to rubber tubes near the scene of the demise. She confronts the inventor of the death-dealing apparatus, who falls into a vat of his own deadly material. Then the father, the young man having been cleared, decides that the fates are in favor of the match. There were, it is true, a few inconsistencies, but the liquid air phase took the offering quite out of the usual run.”

The New York Dramatic Mirror · 19 May 1915

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
Bruce Weyman as a demented painter
Harry Benham as Paul Leighton, an artist in love with the princess
James Cruze as Indian prince
Justus D. Barnes as the artist’s wealthy uncle
Marguerite Snow as Princess Marsari, his daughter
Morgan Jones as see note

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 When the Studio Burned14:14
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More about this film

Bowers’ notes
  1. A title word was spelled as “Mirsari” in The New York Dramatic Mirror, May 19, 1915 and in a review in The Moving Picture World, May 22, 1915. 2. Reel Life, May 8, 1915, on page 10, omitted James Cruze from the cast list and indicated that the Indian prince was played by Morgan Jones. However, on page 15 of the same issue, a photograph of a scene from the film is captioned with Cruze’s name. Of the four different scenes shown on that page, none included Morgan Jones. 3. Bruce Weyman’s surname was spelled as “Wiaman” in some publicity.

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, “The Heart of the Princess Marsari”. thanhouser.org/films/the-heart-of-the-princess-marsari/

Where a print is held

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No print known