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1912Thanhouser CompanyOne reelRomance

The Mail Clerk’s Temptation

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

“When a certain U.S. mail clerk was asked why he made his home in a shabby little hotel at a railroad junction, when he could live so much more comfortably elsewhere, he would flush and tell the inquisitive ones to mind their own business. The fact was that he was violently in love with the daughter of the hotel proprietor, and hoped someday to make her his bride. The clerk was highly indignant when he found that a well-to-do traveling man was paying his sweetheart attention. He remonstrated with the girl, but she was flattered because of her new catch and laughed at him. There was a quarrel, and the girl agreed to marry the drummer, and accepted the diamond ring he offered her. To cause the mail clerk as much sorrow as possible, the girl wrote him a note, telling of her engagement, and asking him not to annoy her in the future. In this letter the girl spoke of her new fiancé as a ‘rich man,’ and the clerk read the note while out on his run one day, and brooded over this particular line. Bitterly he decided that honesty did not pay, and determined to take the registered letters in his care, and use the money to show the girl that there was more than one rich man in the world.

“He looked over the letters and packages, picked out several that seemed especially valuable, when he suddenly came upon one package addressed to the other man in a familiar handwriting. The bundle was from the girl, and it added to the clerk’s rage. Recklessly he opened it, and found it contained the engagement ring. The girl was sending it back to the drummer, because, she simply explained the mail clerk ‘is a good honest boy and I have loved him all my life.’ The clerk realized for the first time how low he was about to fall. He tied up the package again, replaced the others he had selected in the bag, determined he would not destroy her faith in him. He determined to make full confession to the girl when they next met, but was ashamed. He feared that her faith would change to loathing, and determined to die. The girl found him in time to save his life and revived him. He had written a farewell note to her and he motioned her to read it. She saw it was addressed to her, tore it up and held up her arms to him. And thus the romance at the shabby little hotel came to a happy conclusion.”

Summary from The Moving Picture World · 14 September 1912

What the papers said

3 reviews · 1 advertisement

“The feature worth remarking in this production is the picturing of the interior of a mail car enroute, which is well accomplished. The atmosphere of the country hotel is also delightfully realized, the scene in the office, with the dining room in the rear being noteworthy. A mail clerk is in love with a girl clerk at the hotel where …

Read in full · 1 min

“The feature worth remarking in this production is the picturing of the interior of a mail car enroute, which is well accomplished. The atmosphere of the country hotel is also delightfully realized, the scene in the office, with the dining room in the rear being noteworthy. A mail clerk is in love with a girl clerk at the hotel where he lives. A drummer nearly wins her heart. She writes the mail clerk that he has not enough money to win her, and he is tempted to rob the mails to procure the money. The first package he opens he recognizes as being sent by his sweetheart to the drummer. He finds a note in which the girl tells him she really loves the mail clerk, she enclosing the ring the drummer had given her. The acting is good and the stage direction excellent.”

The Morning Telegraph · 29 September 1912

“The heroine, a hotel clerk (Marguerite Snow), wavering in her choice between a drummer and a mail clerk, drives the latter to rifle a mail sack. That he thinks better in the nick of time and returns the stolen mail does not seem to satisfy his conscience because he later attempts suicide. The drama, admirably presented up to this point …

Read in full · 1 min

“The heroine, a hotel clerk (Marguerite Snow), wavering in her choice between a drummer and a mail clerk, drives the latter to rifle a mail sack. That he thinks better in the nick of time and returns the stolen mail does not seem to satisfy his conscience because he later attempts suicide. The drama, admirably presented up to this point and of strong interest, loses something in the weak motive for suicide. The final action would have been better had the hero found difficulty in returning what he had stolen. The hotel lobby is an unusually well-planned interior and the by-plays are skillfully introduced.”

The Moving Picture World · 28 September 1912

More reviews

18 September 1912The New York Dramatic Mirror1 min

“One finds this an interesting little story, somewhat away from the beaten tracks, and presented with both conviction and truth. William Garwood and Marguerite Snow play the leading roles with their customary excellence. It is in its entirety a smooth-going production, and an interesting point is that it features the methods employed in transferring mail by car. The mail clerk boards in a hotel and loves the young lady who is clerk. A drummer appears, who for a while wins the lady’s affections, and there is a misunderstanding over two letters while she is making up her mind. She sends back the drummer’s ring with a note saying that the poor mail clerk is after all her choice, although she had previously intimated that she could not marry him because of his poverty. The mail clerk that day enters his car and is tempted to steal various valuable packages, that he may procure the necessary wealth. He finds her package sending back the ring to the other, opens it, and ascertains its contents. He is conscience stricken and, going to his room in the hotel, attempts to commit suicide by opening his gas jet. The girl becomes alarmed about him when he fails to respond to her knock, though exactly why she should is not clear. An entrance is forced and he is saved, while she informs him that he is the only man for her. It is well put on.”

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11 September 1912The New York Dramatic Mirror1 min

“A railroad mail clerk falls in love with a hotel man’s daughter, but there is a quarrel and in the pique she throws him over and accepts a drummer of large salary. The mail clerk feels the sparseness of his own pay is lost in the girl, and resolves to get risk at any cost. His first plunder is a returned ring and a note—and miraculously he is spared from further temptation.”

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Cast and crew

Cast
Marguerite Snow as the hotel clerk heroine
William Garwood as the mail clerk

Every name opens that person's page, with each film they appear in and which of them you can watch.

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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 1912 →

Cite as: Bowers, Q. David. Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, “The Mail Clerk’s Temptation”. thanhouser.org/films/the-mail-clerk-s-temptation/

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