Volume II: Filmography

THE WOMAN AND THE BEAST

Working title: THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR

Alternate working title: THROUGH THE UNBARRED DOOR

Alternate working title: THE MAN SHE MADE

(Graphic Features-states rights)

April 17, 1917 (Tuesday)

Length: 5 reels

Character: Drama

Director: Ernest C. Warde

Scenario: Emmet Mixx

Cameraman: William M. Zollinger

Cast: Marie Shotwell (Rosa), Fred Eric (John), Alphonse Ethier (Big Frank), Kathryn Adams (Marie), J.H. Gilmour (the priest), Tula Belle (the child), Captain Jack Bonavita (Bonavita, an animal trainer, substituted for Alphonse Ethier in the struggle with the lion), Arthur Bauer, Inda Palmer, Wayne Arey

Locations: New Rochelle and Mount Kisco, New York

Notes: 1. This film, which while in the making had several working titles, was produced by Thanhouser in the late summer of 1916 and was released in 1917 by Graphic Features, W. Ray Johnston (of Thanhouser affiliation), manager, with offices in Room 401, 729 Seventh Avenue, New York City. There was no specific issue date for the film, as the picture was released on a states rights basis. However, the first showing to the trade was on Tuesday, April 17, 1917. 2. Captain Jack Bonavita, a well-known animal trainer who had been hired to double for Alphonse Ethier in an animal scene, was killed by a lion before this film was released. 3. An article in The Moving Picture World, August 26, 1916, noted that this film, then bearing the working title Through the Open Door, was being produced at the time.

ARTICLE, The New Rochelle Pioneer, July 15, 1916:

"Nearly 70 actors and actresses of the Thanhouser Film Corporation went to a circus at Mount Kisco on Wednesday to work with Director Ernest Warde on a five-reel feature photoplay titled The Man She Made. The case includes Marie Shotwell, Jack Gilmore [sic], Alphonse Ethier, Wayne Arey, Kathryn Adams, Inda Palmer, and little Tula Belle."

ARTICLE, The Morning Telegraph, August 13, 1916:

"It was one of those red-hot days of last week, Miss Shotwell was working in the studio, in a scene for The Man She Made, a Thanhouser picture that is to be released through Pathé. 'It is a terrible day to work,' said Ernest Warde, her director. 'Yes,' agreed Miss Shotwell cheerfully, 'but it is a more terrible day to look for work.' It is this spirit which causes Miss Shotwell to accomplish anything she determines to do, and which has caused those who know her to call her 'the undaunted woman.' Miss Shotwell laughingly produced the other day a criticism she had kept of her work. She and her director, Ernest Warde, were making a scene for her picture over in New Jersey. A country newspaper wrote it up. According to the paper, 'Miss Shotwell appeared in a spectacular scene calculated to thrill the most blaze [sic].'"

ARTICLE, The New Rochelle Pioneer, September 23, 1916:

"The following line was in an expense account the other day: 'One ton of hay to fall on - $8.' The auditing department investigated, then ok'd the expenditure. The hay was purchased to put beside a cliff 30 feet high. Tula Belle, one of the child actresses, leaped from the top while Marie Shotwell, the star of the picture, and Ernest Warde, the director, held their breath and wondered if $8 worth would be enough. It was."

ARTICLE, The Moving Picture World, April 21, 1917:

"A sensational states rights picture that is nevertheless clean and, to quote its distributors, 'sane in plot,' is promised in a five-reel production by Graphic Films, entitled The Woman and the Beast. Marie Shotwell, star of Enlighten Thy Daughter and The Witching Hour, heads the cast, which is of the all-star variety through the presence of Alphonse Ethier, Fred Eric, J.H. Gilmour, and Kathryn Adams. Ernest C. Warde is the producer, and this fact would generally be accepted as a guarantee of production merit. The story, by Emmet Mixx, deals with a timid man - a first rate pacifist - who took himself a spirited wife. He believed that meekness was more attractive than aggressiveness, she in not turning the other cheek. There opinions clashed continually. She came to lose respect for him. The moral of the play becomes evident: is a pacifist necessarily a coward? That moral is of interest in every city, village and hamlet in the country today - wherever war is discussed, and that is everywhere. Showings of the picture are being given to states rights buyers daily at the office of Graphic Features, Room 401, 729 7th Avenue, New York. The posters and general advertising reflect the heart interest element in the story."

ARTICLE, The Moving Picture World, May 5, 1917:

"While a fight between a lion and a man is announced as one of the spectacular events in the Graphic Features film, The Woman and the Beast, it is not the only one, according to the producers. Emmet Mixx wrote the scenario, and it called for an exciting Italian fete in the first reel, in which the services of over a thousand supers were required, not to mention an entire Italian settlement close to New York. For the second reel Mr. Warde had the simple job of getting a circus, and in the third reel he had to allow a lion to escape from the circus, and to send a pursuing mob after him. In the fourth reel he had to let little Tula Belle, Graphic Features' eight-year-old star, drop 45 feet from a cliff, and in the fifth stage there is an actual fight between the lion and a man, who thrusts a massive rock from the mountaintop to the powderhouse below and blows up the powderhouse. From the director's description there is no doubt that whoever enjoys a 'thrill' will enjoy The Woman and the Beast. The children will be especially interested in little Tula Belle's work and the circus section of the story. In fact, it appears to be a picture that holds appeal for every class of film fan. Heading the cast is Marie Shotwell, whose work in The Witching Hour, Enlighten Thy Daughter, and Warfare of the Flesh won her this role. The cast is an all-star one, with such Broadway favorites as Alphonse Ethier, Fred Eric, Kathryn Adams, J.H. Gilmour and Tula Belle."

ARTICLE, The Moving Picture World, May 12, 1917:

"Graphic Features, producers of The Woman and the Beast, have just disclosed that Captain Jack Bonavita, the famous animal trainer slain recently by one of his own lions, appeared in this film production. 'We did not feature the fact in our advertisements, on the posters, or in the film,' says the Graphic, 'because we do not want it to appear we used a tragedy for advertising effect. But although you will find no trace of it in the film or advertising, it is a fact that Bonavita appeared in our film, doubling in the scene of the battle between man and beast, for Alphonse Ethier. Ethier is a giant in stature and nerve, but he assuredly needed a double for the particular scene, and Bonavita was the double.'"

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