Volume II: Filmography

HER LOVE LETTERS

January 20, 1914 (Tuesday)

Length: 1 reel (1,004 feet)

Character: Drama

Scenario: Lloyd F. Lonergan

Cast: Harry Benham (Williamson, a well-to-do broker), "Miss Beautiful" (Elise, his wife), Helen Badgley (their child), Leland Benham

Note: Thanhouser advertised in The Moving Picture World, January 17, 1914 "Introducing 'Miss Beautiful' - She has no other name." In subsequent weeks, her anonymity was publicized further, including by a news release which suggested that she was a society girl who wanted to avoid recognition. However, a photograph of her was published on page 6 of Reel Life, January 17, 1914.

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, January 17, 1914:

"Williamson and his wife, Elise, are very happy - until she is obliged to go abroad to the bedside of her dying mother, and the ship is lost. Mrs. Williamson is not reported among the few survivors. In settling his wife's affairs, Williamson goes through her desk - and is deeply touched to find the letters he had written her during their engagement. But a shock comes when he also discovers another package of love letters, addressed to 'sweetheart' and signed 'Henry.' For the sake of their little girl, Williamson decides he will never breathe to anyone a word about his wife's other lover. Shortly after, Mrs. Williamson is found at sea, clinging, with two others from the shipwreck, to an open boat. She returns home - and at first the shock of joy eclipses everything else in her husband's thoughts - then, the memory of the secret letters comes between him and her. He is on the point of leaving her forever - when she discovers the whole trouble, and proves conclusively that the letters were written to an old school friend, and given to her for safe keeping. She forgives her husband his suspicions, first for the sake of their child - and, later, freely out of the love she bears for him."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, January 31, 1914:

"A very pretty picture; but not powerfully acted at the critical moment, it loses the strength that the author of it, he is not known to us, had a right to expect. The young wife and mother on a voyage alone is wrecked and her husband thinks her dead. He finds some love letters and thinks ill of her. She is rescued and comes home. The husband receives her, but we are left in suspense as to how he will treat her and this makes an excellent situation. The letters prove to belong to a friend of the wife."

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, January 28, 1914:

"The plot of the story of this picture is not exceptionally strong. There is considerable charm about the production, however, principally on account of the competency of the players among whom are numbered Harry Benham and the Thanhouser Kidlet, and partly on account of the artistry displayed in the settings. In the story Mrs. Carey is summoned to visit the deathbed of her mother. Later, the husband reads a startling notice in the newspaper to the effect that the vessel on which his wife has embarked has been burned at sea, the majority of her passengers perishing with her. Carey, believing that his wife is among the dead, mourns her loss; and one day in looking over her private papers he finds a letter of which he reads only the latter portion, and which apparently is a proof of his wife's unfaithfulness. The wife, returning home, is surprised and grieved at the attitude of her husband, the matter is cleared up by her when she persuades him to read the commencement of the letter which shows him that it is in reference to her sister [sic; the synopsis indicates friend] and not to her."

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