Volume II: Filmography

FLOOD TIDE

September 19, 1913 (Friday)

Length: 1 reel (1,007 feet)

Character: Drama

Director: W. Eugene Moore, Jr.

Cast: Marie Eline (the little girl castaway), Muriel Ostriche (as the girl grown up), W. Eugene Moore, Jr., Lila Chester, David H. Thompson

Notes: 1. The wrecked yacht was named the Ada-Marie. 2. The theme of the plot is somewhat similar to that of Silas Marner.

SYNOPSIS, The Moving Picture World, September 20, 1913:

"On a lonely lighthouse lived a keeper and his wife. They were devoted to each other, and when the wife was dying her sorest grief was that she would be leaving her loved one alone. Just before she died, however, she had a dream and awakening told her husband with a smile that God would send someone to comfort him. A few days later while the stricken man was praying at her grave his attention was attracted by a bundle which had been brought in by the sea. He found it to be a little girl, senseless, who had apparently been swept ashore from some wreck. She was wrapped in a life preserver bearing the name of a yacht. A few days later he learned that the owner of the yacht, a banker involved in difficulties with the law, had been lost with his child and crew while trying to escape on the yacht. There was no one to claim the child, and the pious keeper accepted her as a gift from God which he had been promised.

"Years later, when the child had grown to be a handsome young woman, her aunt, a wealthy society woman, found and claimed her. The girl at first did not want to go, but the keeper persuaded her, believing that her relatives had the first claim. Then sorrowfully he took up his lonely life again. One afternoon, while thinking of her, he fell into a troubled sleep. He awoke to find her beside him. She showed him a letter which she meant to send to her aunt, telling her that fashionable life had no charms for her and that she had decided to devote herself to the old man who had been a father to her for many years. So 'The Gift of God,' as he always called her, came back to home, never more to leave him."

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

"A story which gets hold of the heart strings. The keeper of the lighthouse rescues a child from drowning after the yacht was destroyed by fire. The girl grows up at the lighthouse and is later claimed by her aunt. She goes to the city, but steals out of the ballroom and rows to the lighthouse in a boat to see her old friend. A simple plot, but nicely pictured and acted with true feeling."

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, September 24, 1913:

"Immediately following the burial of his wife, an old lighthouse keeper discovers a little girl washed onto the rocks from a private yacht that was destroyed by fire. In his loneliness, the tot becomes a blessing and a comfort to her foster father. Ten years later a pleasure party visits the lighthouse. A lady identifies the now-grown girl as her niece by the lost yacht's life preserver which the old man has retained as a souvenir. The young woman leaves with her newly found relatives, and soon makes her debut into society. Her social success and numerous admirers do not bring her happiness. Upon her vision constantly crowd memories of the lonely lighthouse keeper, until she finally rows out to him, remains, and sends her aunt the message that she prefers her island home. The humanism that surcharges this piece rings true and deep in the hearts of an audience. Its ocean setting makes the ballroom scene look tawdry by comparison, and leaves no doubt as to the heroine's preference. High water mark acting."

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