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1914PrincessOne reelDrama

The Target of Destiny

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

“Muriel Blair, a simple country girl, falls in love with Boyd Fleming, whose wealthy parents have a summer home near the village. Boyd proposes, but knowing that his family does not consider her a good match for their son, she refuses to marry him. Boyd is practicing one day on an improvised rifle range, when his little sister, unnoticed by him, climbs up behind the target. Muriel runs to the child’s rescue. She saves Tootsie, but is herself wounded. Mr. and Mrs. Fleming are then completely won over, and Muriel and Boyd are married.”

Summary from Reel Life · 1 August 1914

What the papers said

1 review

“Very pretty scenes around some country village give a pleasing tone to this picture; but the story is not strongly worked out. That attempt on the part of the rich youth’s father to buy off the pretty country girl is nothing less than trite, too trite for a place in any carefully-written offering at the present time. And this is …

Read in full · 1 min

“Very pretty scenes around some country village give a pleasing tone to this picture; but the story is not strongly worked out. That attempt on the part of the rich youth’s father to buy off the pretty country girl is nothing less than trite, too trite for a place in any carefully-written offering at the present time. And this is not the only thin bit of business in the production. On the other hand there is many a delightful bit of posing in it and the loveliest of backgrounds. Truly it is a gem of photography.”

The Moving Picture World · 15 August 1914

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
Boyd Marshall as Boyd Fleming
Eldean Steuart
J.S. Murray, Jr
Loel Steuart
Mrs. Arthur Ellery as Boyd’s mother
Morgan Jones as Boyd’s father
Muriel Ostriche as Muriel Blair
Writer
Philip Lonergan

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

Watch instead

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1915 · Same leadCrossed Wires
A frame from The World and the Woman1:05:26
1916 · Same leadThe World and the Woman

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 1914 →

Cite as: Bowers, Q. David. Thanhouser Films: An Encyclopedia and History, “The Target of Destiny”. thanhouser.org/films/the-target-of-destiny/

Where a print is held

Held by
No print known