Volume II: Filmography

DORA THORNE

Advertisement in The Moving Picture News, April 27, 1912. (F-390)

(Mutual Film Corporation)

c. May 1, 1912 (States rights)

Length: 2 reels

Character: Drama

Director: George O. Nichols

Scenario: From the book by Charlotte M. Braeme (best known in the literary field as Bertha M. Clay)

Cast: Marguerite Snow (Dora), Mignon Anderson (Dora's mother), Harry Benham

Notes: 1. This film was completed by Thanhouser and was to be issued as a Thanhouser release. However, in the meantime the Mutual Film Corporation came into being. Charles J. Hite, an important executive in both companies, made an arrangement whereby Dora Thorne would be released by the Mutual Film Corporation on a states rights basis, with such distribution beginning in early May 1912. Mutual was an operator of film exchanges, and the releasing of its own film, Dora Thorne, represented a new business activity. Apparently, the venture was not particularly successful, for no other Mutual-owned films were released specifically under the Mutual label until the next winter, when the short-lived Punch series appeared. A notice concerning the Dora Thorne arrangement appears in the May 4, 1912 issue of The Billboard, and Mutual Film Corporation advertisements for the film appeared in the various trade journals. 2. In a biographical note in The Moving Picture World, December 4, 1912, it was stated that Lawrence Marston directed Dora Thorne, but the film company producing the picture was not named; it is believed that if Marston was involved in directing the Thanhouser version, he was an assistant to George O. Nichols. 3. Another Charlotte M. Braeme novel, My Poor Wife, was made into a Thanhouser film, His Wife, released on October 28, 1915.

ADVERTISEMENT (by the Mutual Film Corporation), The Billboard, May 4, 1912:

"Ask the first 10 persons you meet (over the age of 18) if they have read Dora Thorne, America's most popular novel - now ready for release as a two-reel film masterpiece with exclusive territorial rights. Charlotte M. Braeme's stories have 20 million American readers. Her best effort is Dora Thorne filmed the way Mrs. Braeme wrote it. The subject is jammed with human interest. The tragic love story of Dora, the lodge-keeper's daughter, and Lord Rowland reaches every heart...Read, remembered and revered in every state Dora Thorne is the favorite story of the American home. Remember, this is the first exclusive feature of this company. Frankly, we are after reputation with, and you can 'cash in' on our certainty to 'make good'... Mutual Film Corporation, Room 708, 145 West 45th Street, New York, New York."

SYNOPSIS, The Bioscope, March 20, 1913:

"A young lord elopes with an employee's daughter. The visit of a lady to her home causes the young wife to leave her husband. Years later the peer succeeds to his family estates. Approaching his wife for forgiveness, his entreaties are of no avail. He meets his daughter on the cliffs, and she by accident falls and is killed. The sight of the dead body causes the wife to seek the protection and consolation of her husband."

SYNOPSIS, The Billboard, May 18, 1912:

"REEL ONE: Rowland is the only son of an English nobleman and is destined on his father's death to inherit the title and the state. His parents are desirous that he make a match suitable to his prospective rank, and their choice is Lady Valentine Chartiers, who has youth, beauty, rank and wealth. They communicate their decision to the young man and are horrified when he tells him that he has fallen in love with Dora Thorne, the handsome daughter of their lodge-keeper. Rowland had met her while out sketching and the charms of the young girl completely won him. He declines to give her up, and when his father threatens to disown him, Rowland leaves the ancestral home with Dora, makes her his wife, and they go to Italy where he hopes to win fame and fortune as an artist. Some years later, when privations have dulled the beauty of his wife, and poverty has taken away their romance, Rowland meets Lady Valentine and cannot help contrasting her with the woman of his choice. Dora's jealousy is aroused, she feels neglected, and her only consolation is the baby whom she adores.

"REEL TWO: Dora Thorne, after a jealous quarrel with her husband, had left him and returned to her old home with her infant girl. Rowland's mother, at his request, endeavored to care for the woman and child, but Dora proudly refused any assistance. Meantime Rowland remained in Italy, were he won fame as a painter. Sixteen years after, Rowland's father dies and he is now a nobleman with a large estate. He returns to England, but his wife refuses to see him and keeps her daughter out of his sight. While sketching one day, Rowland by chance sets his easel by the place where he first met his wife. Suddenly a young girl appears and her manners and way recall the wife he has lost. He questions her and is overcome with joy when he finds that she is his daughter. Again he appeals to his wife, again she refuses him and begs him not to take from her the only joy of her lonely life, her daughter. The man sorrowfully consents, but the daughter who has brought joy into his life is with him but a short time. She is killed by falling over a precipice. The parents meet at her bier, and their mutual sorrow ends in mutual forgiveness. In life, the girl had failed to bring them together, but in death she reunited them, for they know that by consenting to forget the past they are fulfilling her dearest wish. And so, after many tragic years, the wife of Lord Rowland enters the home that is hers of right."

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