Volume II: Filmography

WHEN THE WORM TURNED

September 21, 1913 (Sunday)

Length: 1 reel

Character: Comedy-drama

Director: Lawrence Marston

Cast: Florence LaBadie, Carey L. Hastings, N.S. Woods (newspaper editor), Mrs. Lawrence Marston (country woman)

Note: The title was listed as When the Worm Turns in schedules in Reel Life, September 6, 1913, and later issues.

ARTICLE, The Evening Standard (New Rochelle), July 18, 1913:

"The interior of the business office of The Evening Standard will be shown on the motion picture screen in a new Thanhouser picture. The scenes show the editorial desk of a typical newspaper office and the editor with blue pencil and green eye shade hard at work. He is interrupted by a country woman who wants to advertise her farm. The picture was made Wednesday afternoon. N.S. Wood, a well known actor, acted the role of the editor, and Mrs. Marston, wife of the director of the scenario, was the country woman."

SYNOPSIS, The Moving Picture World, September 27, 1913:

"The farmer was rich, but the stingiest man in his part of the country. He made his wife and daughter labor in the fields. The daughter had a sweetheart, a most desirable young farmer, but the old man drove him away. The mother had stood about all she could, and then rebelled. She read in the newspaper of a new and rare disease which had been discovered by some famous physician, and soon she had all the symptoms. The family doctor, who much disliked the farmer, helped her along, and soon the miser realized that the only way to insure his own safety was to humor his wife's every whim. In this way she secured money, fitted her daughter out with a trousseau, and boldly ordered the marriage of the young couple, her scared husband not daring to protest. When everything she wanted had been done, the woman announced that she 'was cured.' The farmer wondered, and was half inclined to believe that he had been tricked, but was afraid to say so; for everyone laughingly assured him that it would be terrible if the woman should suffer a relapse."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, September 27, 1913:

"An amusing offering, in which the tired, slaving wife teaches her miserly husband a much needed lesson. She pretends to be out of her mind and insists upon having new clothes for herself and daughter and driving to town to see an occasional show. There is a great deal of human nature in this story and the parts are well taken. The restrained, intelligent acting of the wife is particularly commendable."

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, October 8, 1913:

"A miserly farmer refuses to permit his daughter to marry because he needs her to do the chores on the farm. The farmer's wife, who is compelled to do all the housework, reads in a newspaper of a new ailment, and makes her husband believe that she has contracted it. She begins by throwing burnt biscuits at him. The doctor, whom the farmer calls in, is taken into the wife's confidence, and aids her scheme to cure her husband of stinginess by advising the latter to humor his sick spouse in everything. She becomes the boss of the farm, and forces him, at the point of a butcher knife, to give her his bank roll. She drives to town, buys her daughter's trousseau, calls for the girl's fiancé, procures a minister, takes them to the farm, and superintends the wedding that follows. The moment the wife resorted to burlesque methods to create laughter, the film lost in power. The transition of the horny-fisted miser into a palm-opening henpeck was too sudden, and lessens the effectiveness. The other parts, although overshadowed, were creditably presented. The rural scenes lacked nothing - but the smell of new mown hay and burnt biscuits."

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