Volume II: Filmography

THE FAIRIES' HALLOWEEN

October 28, 1910 (Friday)

Length: 1,000 feet

Character: Comedy

Cast: Marie Eline (Marie)

Note: In publicity the name of the holiday was sometimes spelled with an apostrophe between the seventh and eighth letters, as Hallowe'en.

ADVERTISEMENT, The Moving Picture World, October 22, 1910:

"The Fairies' Halloween is a wonderful subject that will startle at any time o' year and which you can use with a lecture 'roundabout and during Halloween week. If you haven't a lecturer pass the synopsis to your singer and see if it doesn't enable him to 'talk' intelligently on this very entertaining novelty. The film abounds in trick scenes that are highly interesting, and the gyration of the pumpkin men and the fairies, for instance, are highly amusing. The picture should occupy a high place on your program."

SYNOPSIS, The Moving Picture World, October 29, 1910:

"Marie is the tiny daughter of a well to do farmer. On Halloween her father, to amuse her, picks a pumpkin that she selects, and fashions a jack-o-lantern out of it. Her new toy pleases the child immensely, and at once takes a place in her affections equal to that held by her dollie. So it is natural that she should be thinking about the two of them when she is tucked into bed and falls asleep. Perhaps that was why the queen of the fairies came to her and invited her to a Halloween party that her loyal subjects were giving in their woodland retreat. And so that Marie would be perfectly happy, not feel embarrassed among strangers, the queen asked Dollie and Pumpkin to be her guests also. And, as a further mark of favor, she waved her hand, and Dollie and Pumpkin could run around and talk as well as Marie could. It certainly made it more enjoyable for the little girl.

"A fairy Halloween party is one of the finest things going in the amusement line, and only very nice and very good little girls are invited to them. As Marie filled these requirements, she had a perfectly glorious time, but was inclined to weep when she woke up later in her own little bed, and found that her toys had lost their miraculous gift of life. But it consoled her somewhat to have them, for they served as reminders of her wonderful evening. And perhaps the fairies will ask her to attend another party later. If they do, she has decided that Pumpkin and Dollie must have their shares of the good times as before."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, November 12, 1910:

"A story that will interest the children in all those grown people who have not forgotten their childhood days and the pleasures they had with Halloween games and the fairy stories which are essential features of every child's life. To see the doll and the pumpkin suddenly assume life is interesting and naturally causes the little girl to whom they belong surprise. The good times they have with the fairy's help will long remain in her memory, even though it is only a dream. That dream, translated into the motion picture film, will serve also to interest many thousands of others. The first little girl might have been disappointed when she found that she had been dreaming, but those who see the picture will not be disappointed; they are let into the secret soon enough to prevent that."

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, November 2, 1910:

"This sounds as if it ought to be very clever, but aside from the work of the little heroine and the dance of the fairies it is entirely uninspired. It needs a drastic application of imagination. The broad idea is excellent, but the details of the management indicate impoverished resources. When the aid of fairies is invoked it opens up all sorts of avenues of fanciful treatment, but this film doesn't get away from stolid realities. For example, nobody could imagine anything more earthly than the outside of the house from which the little girl escaped with the fairy queen and her comrades. That should have been treated fancifully. The events pictured don't amount to anything; there is a sameness about them, nothing surprising happens, and not very much that is pretty. Worst of all is the poetry(?), which is interpolated to explain the narrative; that is beyond criticism. The Thanhouser Company has missed good opportunities in this film."

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