Volume II: Filmography

FOR HER CHILD

June 23, 1914 (Tuesday)

Length: 2 reels (1,982 feet)

Character: Drama

Scenario: Philip Lonergan

Cast: Irving Cummings (Robert Harper, the father), Ethel Jewett (Aline, his wife), Helen Badgley (Elizabeth, their daughter), Tom Aitken (Jim, Aline's brother), Perry Horton (the burglar), Lydia Mead (the maid), Billy Noel (policeman), Harry Marks (policeman)

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, June 27, 1914:

"Aline Harper brooded over her husband's treatment of her brother Jim, until it was torture to her to stay under the same roof with Robert another hour. Jim, handsome, charming and good-for-nothing, always had had a strange effect upon his sister's better judgment. She got him out of countless scrapes, each one worse than the last - until Harper refused to go on giving the young vagabond money and forbade him from the house. Aline blamed everything on Robert, and that night she left him, taking along Elizabeth, their five year old child. Harper was too proud to plead with her. He won his suit for separation on the ground of desertion, and the court awarded him the custody of the child. The day he was expecting Elizabeth, a telegram from Aline brought word that the child was dead. Torn with grief and yet unable to believe, he traced his wife to a country town upstate. But a search failed to reveal any traces of his little girl.

"The sight of her husband's ill-concealed sorrow was more than Aline could endure. She followed him to the village inn, where he had gone to await the night train to New York. Hiding near his window on the upper porch, she was gathering courage to call him, when she heard someone push up the sash, and saw a man enter her husband's room. Breathlessly creeping nearer, she saw him level his gun. Harper threw up his hands; then began emptying his pockets. He drew out the large German watch he had carried for years, and an ivory miniature of herself and Elizabeth, set in jewels. The glitter of the gems bewitched the burglar. He riveted his greedy gaze and in the same instant Harper sprang upon him, wresting the revolver from his grasp. Aline leaped back into the shadow as the thief, with a bound, dove through the window and dropped over the eaves of the porch. Harper sat with trembling fingers, clutching the miniature, devouring it with his eyes. He felt a touch on his arm. 'Robert!' It was Aline's voice, strained and choked with tears. 'She - is - not dead. I hid her - I couldn't bear to give her up - .' He was on his feet with a cry. He put his hand imploring in hers, like a blind man. Scarcely half an hour later they were kneeling side by side, their arms around the child."

REVIEW, The Bioscope, August 27, 1914:

"The Thanhouser Company have a wonderful knack of appealing straight to the heart of their audiences, and it cannot, therefore, be a matter of surprise that their films are so wonderfully popular. Almost all of them have that 'human touch' which is so essential for the success of a modern domestic drama, and which can only be given by players whose art is perfectly natural and sincere. In For Her Child we have a characteristic Thanhouser 'human nature' story which is quite certain to please most picture-goers. Its plot is a trifle artificial, and contains nothing that is very new, it is true, but this counts less than the admirable manner in which it is presented. Such studies as those given by Miss Ethel Jewett and Mr. Robert Harper [sic] as a wife and husband who have inconveniently fiery temperaments, but who love each other truly and discover this fact after various unhappy circumstances have taught them both a lesson, are wholly excellent and go far towards redeeming any points of improbability there may be in the plot. The photography, always with Thanhouser films, is quite beyond praise - flawlessly clear and yet never unpleasantly hard."

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, July 8, 1914:

"The wife in this two-part drama deserts her husband, taking their child with her, because of the dishonesty of her dissipated brother, who gambles away every penny he can beg, borrow, or, finally, steal. By some process of reasoning too strange to be credited to a normal woman, the wife concludes that the husband's refusal to lend more money to the youth indicates a lack of love for her and the child. This lack of a plausible cause for the most important action in the picture lessens its strength, otherwise the film is satisfactory. When Stevens [sic; synopsis says his name was Robert Harper] wins his suit for separation and gains a legal right to the little girl, the wife, rather than lose her daughter, declares that she is dead. Some time later, believing her husband to be in the West, she returns to the city and occupies a house opposite her former home. To bring the pair together again, the author arranges to have Stevens knocked unconscious by a burglar, and being such a near neighbor it is not difficult to account for the wife's presence in the room soon after the attack. Finding a photograph of herself and their child in a place indicating its recent release from the hand of the prostrate man, she changes her mind and believes that he loved her through all and in spite of all. Stevens is revived, and explanations and forgiveness follow. Irving Cummings and the Thanhouser Kidlet feature prominently in this attractively staged and clearly photographed picture."

Note: Details of the story as related by the preceding review differ from those given in the synopsis.

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