Lost1910Thanhouser Company1,000 feetComedy

The Iron Clad Lover

Name: The Iron Clad Lover
Genre: Comedy
Released: 1910-12-09

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

“Dick makes love to Bessie while Tom plays a game of chess with her father. Tom, naturally nervous, plays such a poor game that he and the old man quarrel and Tom is ordered from the house. Next day is Bessie’s birthday. Tom brings a bouquet and a box of candy. But he is turned away from the house and has the gifts thrown at his head by Bessie’s father. Dick arrives and is welcomed. Tom, in desperation, buys a suit of armor, puts it on and has himself delivered to the house as a present to Bessie. Dick finds out that Tom is inside the armor and makes life miserable for him, blowing cigar smoke through the visor and making love to Bessie. Tom, unable to stand this, tries to announce himself, but only succeeds in stumbling over and breaking a valuable vase. Bessie’s pa has the ‘armor’ thrown out.

“Dick’s conscience makes him tell Bessie that Tom was in the armor and they started the rescue. They were horrified to learn that the old man has sold the armor to a junk dealer; and Dick and Bessie have an exciting chase before the junk man is rounded up, when it takes combined efforts of a policeman, locksmith, and plumber to release Tom from his iron suit.”

Summary from The Moving Picture World · 10 December 1910

What the papers said

2 reviews

Read in full · 1 min

“A farce representing the difficulties which beset the unwelcome suitor. He is thrown out, and still he is determined to conquer and thinks he has succeeded when he gets himself carried in the house as a present in a suit of armor. Again he is thrown out and this time sold to the junk man. Then, taking pity on him, the girl and her lover pursue the junk man and secure his release. The idea is novel and the carrying out, although developing a tendency to the roughhouse type, affords amusement for the audience.”

The Moving Picture World · 24 December 1910

Read in full · 1 min

“Harry [sic] was the favored rival of this pair, but he couldn’t play chess with her father and watch the girl at the same time, so the father, being an irascible old man, threw Harry out. He determined to get in somehow, and accordingly rented a full suit of armor, and was delivered to his sweetheart’s home. His rival, however, saw through the game, and did everything he could think of to annoy him, making him so exasperated that he fell and broke a valuable vase. The old man, thereupon, threw the ‘armor’ from the attic window with Harry inside, and then sold it to a junk man. By aid of a plumber he was freed from the armor, after which the rival loses out, but he does it good-naturedly. The story, of course, is impossible, but it is a change from the ordinary run of farce.”

The New York Dramatic Mirror · 14 December 1910

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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

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 Iron Clad Lover”. thanhouser.org/films/the-iron-clad-lover/

Where a print is held

Held by: No print known