Volume II: Filmography

A SHOT GUN CUPID

(Princess)

November 21, 1913 (Friday)

Length: 1 reel (1,022 feet)

Character: Comedy

Director: Carl Louis Gregory

Scenario: "Bud" Duncan and Lloyd F. Lonergan

Cameraman: Carl Louis Gregory

Cast: Muriel Ostriche (Mabel; some accounts say Jill), Boyd Marshall (Jack)

Notes: 1. The title appeared as A Shotgun Cupid in a few notices. 2. The scenario writer, "Bud" Duncan, became a well-known comic in the "Ham and Bud" series released by Kalem. Although Reel Life, official organ of the Mutual Program, specifically attributes the script to Duncan (cf. page 18, issue of November 15, 1913), another source suggests Lloyd F. Lonergan as the author. Perhaps Lonergan developed a scenario proposed by Duncan. At the time Duncan was working with Fred Mace for Mutual (but not specifically for Thanhouser) at the Thanhouser studio in New Rochelle. 3. Muriel Ostriche's part is identified as the character Jill in a synopsis printed on page 18 of Reel Life, November 15, 1913, and as Mabel in a full-page advertisement on page 33 of the same issue!

SYNOPSIS, The Moving Picture World, November 22, 1913:

"Jack loves Mabel but Pa tells him he has no money to support a wife, and that when he can show him $500 he can marry Mabel. Chicken thieves bother the old man, and he resolves to lay for them, buys a new shot gun and draws $500 from the bank to buy some property. He hides the money in the old shot gun and hangs it up. Mabel sees him, has an idea, and tells Jack to pad his clothes and get shot and show the old man his own money. He agrees. A tramp is shot by mistake. Jack recovers the money and gets the girl with Papa's blessing."

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, November 15, 1913:

"If the tramp had only known he was being shot with $500, hidden in the old shotgun, likely he wouldn't have yelled bloody murder, nor been so anxious to clear off the scene. It was a joke on everybody all around anyway - and nobody behaved in the least as might have been reasonably expected - not even the mischievous, young pair who had invented the game. The game was the invention of love driven to desperation. For Jack and Jill were in love - they were sure of it, though not yet out of their teens. And father had told them they must wait - until the day when Jack could show him five hundred dollars! Jill set her wits to work - and when she saw her father hiding money in the gun, until he could take it to town and pay for some property he had recently bought - she put Jack up to robbing the chicken house that night. Her part was to exchange the guns, and see that the string tied to father's toe got twitched at the first breath of disturbance in the coop. Of course nobody took into consideration the possibility of a real thief. When father finds that day that he has shot away his money at a tramp, he rashly swears that if Jack will recover it for him, he may marry Jill. This the young lover very cleverly does - and instead of spanking them both when it is all over, father acknowledges himself beaten by sheer logic - and cupid - and gives blessing to the match."

REVIEW, The Morning Telegraph, November 23, 1913:

"This is a rather impossible, but nevertheless interesting comedy. A girl's suitor has been told by her father that he can marry her when he has $500. Shortly afterward the father draws $500 from the bank, which he hides in the mouth of an old shotgun. Chicken thieves have been common, and the old man buys a new gun to use in case any more appear. His daughter changes guns, putting a lightly loaded blank into the gun containing the money. She then arranges to have her sweetheart rob the chicken house. A tramp comes first and is shot with the $500 charge. The lover pursues him and gets the money back. He presents it to the father, and all is well."

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