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1912Thanhouser CompanyOne reelDrama

The Race

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

“A young inventor designed a new type of motorboat which he was convinced would break world records. He showed his plans to a builder who promised to look them over. The next day the papers were returned to the boy with a short message that they were impractical. His hopes blasted, the inventor gave up in despair. Later, through the shrewdness of his fiancée, he found that his designs had been stolen by the man to whom he had submitted them. He was unable to prove it, and anyway, as the other man said, the innovation had been patented and the young inventor was out of it. Determined to have revenge the young man set to work to design another motorboat which would far excel his original model. He was successful, and induced the owner of a shipyard to finance the venture. The new boat was completed in time to participate in the international races, and the inventor knew that to win this contest meant everything to him. His backer had promised that if victory was scored he would supply ample funds and was certain that they would both make their fortunes.

“On the day of the race the inventor was making his boat ready, when the man who had robbed him appeared. This person had found that the new boat was a certain winner, and he tried to bribe the inventor to lose the race, but the young man indignantly refused. There was a quarrel and a fight with final result that the boy fell to the ground unconscious and with a broken arm. There he lay until after the time for the race to start, when he painfully dragged himself to the waterfront. Surprisedly he watched the race, was overjoyed, yet perplexed to see that his boat was far ahead. It won with ease, amid the applause of a crowd of excited spectators, and then slowly approached the landing place, where the steersman, his face concealed by the disfiguring ‘racing rig’ alighted and approached him. Then the disguise was thrown off and the inventor recognized the woman he loved. ‘I was standing in the crowd,’ she explained, ‘and I saw the other boats move from the starting line, but yours was not among them. I ran down to the landing, and your mechanic told me that you had gone away, and he didn’t know where you were. There was no time to make a search, or to hunt up someone to take your place. Your instruction came in handy, and I was sure that in an emergency I could run the boat better than any other person than you, for I know all about it. The results show that I was right, didn’t it?’ And the inventor clasped the girl in his unbroken arm, for he realized that he owed, not only love and happiness, but victory and assured fortune to her.”

Summary from The Moving Picture World · 20 December 1912

What the papers said

3 reviews

“Again a topical event serves its purpose of furnishing a splendid basis for a stirring photo-play, and this race story proves one of the goodly offerings of the week. A young investor is cheated out of his plans of a racing motor boat. He sets to and makes a better model. The day of the big trial arrives and his …

Read in full · 1 min

“Again a topical event serves its purpose of furnishing a splendid basis for a stirring photo-play, and this race story proves one of the goodly offerings of the week. A young investor is cheated out of his plans of a racing motor boat. He sets to and makes a better model. The day of the big trial arrives and his rival meets him. A fight ensues in which he is thrown down and his arm is broken. His sweetheart goes to the starting point, sees the other boats off, jumps into his boat and steers the craft to victory. The inventor recovers in time to watch the race, and then he learns who had been responsible for the winning. Thus is the love story brought to an apt conclusion. The boat scenes are well taken, the acting is most creditable, and the development of the story shows careful study.”

The Morning Telegraph · 22 December 1912

“The picture seems forced, artificial. The story appears to have been hastily thrown together, just for the purpose of showing a motorboat in the water. There is an alleged race, but no start is shown nor is the finish clear.”

The Moving Picture World · 28 December 1912

More reviews

18 December 1912The New York Dramatic Mirror1 min

“There is always more or less interest attached to a race of any description, especially if the race is introduced with the story. As the theme for this picture the producers have furnished the story of a young inventor who, robbed of his first motorboat invention which he was convinced would break the world’s record, plans a new one—a faster model—to cheat the thieves. His fiancée urged him on to make a new one after his first plan had been stolen by a contractor, and it was she who came to his rescue and ran the boat as a winner. There is nothing remarkable about the film, nothing of real interest aside from the numerous scenes depicting the speedboats in action. The story proper belongs to that class which any good company could turn out in several hours. The actor in the role of the contractor in exercising more restraint would have been more effective.”

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

Cast
Florence La Badie as the inventor’s sweetheart
Jean Darnell as the inventor’s mother
William Garwood as the inventor

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 Race”. thanhouser.org/films/the-race/

Where a print is held

Held by
No print known