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1915Thanhouser CompanyTwo reelsDrama

The Undertow

Also released as The Undercurrent

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

“Jack, a country boy, falls into evil hands in the city and becomes identified with a gang of thieves. In a fight with the police, the gang is chased over the roof of a house. Jack seeks refuge in one of the apartments occupied by Detective Sergeant Grey and his sister, Florence. The girl takes pity on Jack and hides him while the search, headed by her brother, is going on. Jack promises to reform. His old associates, however, bend all their powers to drag him back. At last they manage to implicate him in a safe robbery and he is arrested. Jack, apparently escaping from prison, goes to the rendezvous of the thieves. They taunt him with his helplessness, and believing that the case against him is overwhelming, they tell him just how the evidence was planted. A detective and several officers, concealed within hearing, rush out and overcome the criminals. Jack, proven innocent, wins Florence for his wife.”

Summary from Reel Life · 10 April 1915

What the papers said

1 review

“A two-reel crook story, not very new in plot but abounding in action of a stirring sort. The country youth goes to the city, where he falls in with bad company. He is caught in a police raid, but saved by the detective’s daughter. He promises her to reform and tries to do so, but the gang attempts to lure …

Read in full · 1 min

“A two-reel crook story, not very new in plot but abounding in action of a stirring sort. The country youth goes to the city, where he falls in with bad company. He is caught in a police raid, but saved by the detective’s daughter. He promises her to reform and tries to do so, but the gang attempts to lure him back. This is a typical crook production. The photography in the first reel was taken on a gray day; it is much better in the second.”

The Moving Picture World · 24 April 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

Director
John Harvey
Cast
Bert Delaney
Ernest C. Warde
Ethel Jewett

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

Watch instead

Films you can watch from the same company

Matched by cast, director and kind
A frame from The Net. A frame from The Net (1916), from the Thanhouser trailer on Vimeo.58:46
1916 · Same leadThe Net
A frame from Silas Marner43:26
1916 · Same castSilas Marner
A frame from King Lear. A frame from King Lear (1916), from the Thanhouser restoration on Vimeo.35:56
1916 · Same castKing Lear

More about this film

Bowers’ notes
  1. Another film, The Song of the Heart, was originally scheduled to be released on this date but was postponed until May 11, 1915. 2. A synopsis published in Great Britain gave the country boy’s name as Bill and a female thief’s name as Dolly.

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 Undertow”. thanhouser.org/films/the-undertow/

Where a print is held

Held by
No print known