Volume II: Filmography

THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED HOTEL

Production still with Harry Benham and WIlliam Russell. (F-620)

October 21, 1913 (Tuesday)

Length: 1 reel (1,012 feet)

Character: Drama

Director: Carl L. Gregory

Scenario: Lloyd F. Lonergan

Cameraman: Carl L. Gregory

Location: Cape May, New Jersey

Cast: Florence LaBadie, William Russell (the hotelkeeper), Harry Benham

Notes: 1. This film was the fourth in the series of Cape May productions. The group of films included the following: Louie, the Life Saver (October 7, 1913), A Deep Sea Liar (October 12, 1913), Beauty in the Seashell (October 19, 1913), The Mystery of the Haunted Hotel (October 21, 1913), The Water Cure (November 2, 1913), and Little Brother (November 7, 1913). 2. Another film with a scenario by Lloyd F. Lonergan, Always Together, was released by Majestic on the same date, October 21, 1913. 3. The title was given erroneously as The Haunted House in The Motion Picture Story Magazine, February 1914.

ADVERTISEMENT, Reel Life, October 18, 1913:

"Another Cape May story, of a hotel down there long reported haunted. The result was bankruptcy for the unfortunate proprietor. Then a curious young physician came to stop at the place and didn't like the air of mystery. His curiosity set him searching for the spook and he located it in the hotel man's own family!"

SYNOPSIS, The Moving Picture World, October 25, 1913:

"At the seashore resort they called it 'the haunted hotel,' and explained that since the death of the proprietor's wife, who was drowned at sea, her spirit had walked the sands each night. True or false, the story had ruined the place, and for years it had been closed and was fast falling to ruins. The proprietor lived there with his daughter, but he was practically bankrupt, and it was whispered that he would soon be turned out for non-payment of his taxes. A young physician came to the resort to visit his sister, and hearing of the haunted hotel, decided, out of curiosity, to investigate. He was greatly taken with the broken-down owner, and listened with sympathy to his story of misfortune. When the doctor came away, he vowed that he would devote part of his time seeking to solve the mystery of the haunted hotel, and by good luck he succeeded in doing so. The 'ghost' was unmasked, but she was not punished. The innkeeper's daughter was the 'spirit,' and her mind had been unhinged by grief because of the death of the mother she dearly loved. The doctor succeeded in restoring her to health, and the hotel, the curse removed, soon regained the popularity of the summer visitors, who had shunned it when it was a 'haunted hotel.'"

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, October 18, 1913:

"Everyone likes a spice of mystery, and the moving picture screen lends itself admirably to everything in the ghost line. In fact, kinetic photography is the only perfect method so far discovered for reproducing Mr. Ghost as he really is - shadowy, intangible - yet perfectly depicted. This story is simple enough in its description, but as it works out in the moving picture, it is thrilling enough to satisfy the most devoted ghost-believer. The hotel around which the story revolves has been haunted some time by the shade of the proprietor's wife, who was drowned at sea, and the reputation thus obtained has killed it with the traveling public. The place is inhabited only by the broken-down proprietor and his daughter. They are shortly to be evicted for non-payment of taxes when a young doctor comes to the resort and becomes interested in the ghost story. He determines to investigate it and discovers the ghost in the person of the daughter, whose mind has become unhinged through grief over her mother's death. He restores her mind to normal condition, business picks up and everybody is happy. The various scenes were photographed from buildings and localities at Cape May which lent themselves in a particularly effective way to the working out of the story."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, October 25, 1913: This review is reprinted in the narrative section of the present work.

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, October 29, 1913:

"While visiting his sister at the seashore, a physician meets an old summer hotel keeper, and learns the story of how the appearance of a ghost ruined his prosperous business and reduced him to poverty. Several years previous the wife of the boniface went out in a rowboat and was drowned. The man's daughter, returning from boarding school, discovered her mother's body washed ashore on the beach. The shock unhinged the girl's mind. A report being circulated that, at night, the dead woman's ghost was seen to walk from the hotel to the beach and back caused the guests to leave in superstitious fear. The physician, seeking to solve the mystery of the haunted hotel, lies in wait at midnight and sees an apparition emerging from the tattering building, walk along the beach, and then return to the old inn. The physician follows, enters the hotel, and discovers the ghost to be the mentally deranged daughter of the ruined hotel keeper. He succeeds in effecting a cure and, as his fee, wins the girl for a wife. The author, subjugating weirdness to sympathetic appeal, uncovered an unusual story, which the actors, in their delineation of the characters presented, together with the photographer's art, put across the screen with telling effect. Well directed."

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