Volume I: Narrative History

Chapter 5 (1912): Films From the Inventory

While Charles J. Hite was pulling strings behind the scenes in the new Film Supply Company show, the Thanhouser release schedule continued the distribution of pictures made during the preceding three months. Whom God Hath Joined, produced in Florida, was first publicly screened on May 31, 1912, and featured James Cruze, Marguerite Snow, and Florence LaBadie. The Morning Telegraph suggested: "Directors and players may well take an extra trip to the nearest Independent picture theatre where this may be shown, for its detail is so creditably carried out that it reflects the highest credit upon the makers."

Dottie's New Doll, released on June 4th to enthusiastic reviews, was a story along the lines of the 1910 film, Delightful Dollie, and featured Helen Badgley, the Thanhouser Kidlet, as the doll who comes to life. This theme was popular with audiences, it seemed. To wring a few more nickels from the idea, a similar plot was to be used in 1913 for The Spoiled Darling's Doll. Then came Her Secret, released on June 7th, with Mignon Anderson, Marie Eline, and Harry Benham, followed on June 11th by On the Stroke of Five.

A Night Clerk's Nightmare, a split-reel subject issued on June 14th, combined New Rochelle scenery with footage taken in Niagara Falls, a scenic wonder which theatre patrons apparently never tired of viewing. William Russell played the part of the night clerk, in a picture which The Morning Telegraph found to be pleasing:

For a dream story this is an oddity and serves to entertain in no ordinary manner. The clerk of a small town hotel and the maid are in love, and all runs smoothly until the advent of a traveling salesman who invites her to go to the theatre with him. She accepts, and the clerk is furious, but not so terribly so that he cannot doze off, as is his usual habit. He then dreams some awful experiences, in which the drummer Note is the villain and he the hero. His dreams take him through a fire, into the rapids of Niagara, where the drummer is hurled, and finally back to the hotel, when he is awakened by the returning pair. The salesman leaves to catch a late train, and the girl goes to bed, making the clerk realize that she loves him, and that he has been a chump all the way through. It is entertainingly told, and the dream part is a rapid series of melodramatic scenes, each of which is aptly put on.

The second part of the reel was taken by Why Tom Signed the Pledge, a 355-foot film important in Thanhouser history for it represents the first screen appearance of Riley Chamberlin, an older man who was to play comic roles with the New Rochelle studio until his death in 1917. Earlier, Chamberlin had been on stage with Edwin Thanhouser's company at the Academy Theatre in Milwaukee, where he was a favorite with audiences.

Next came another important film, The Twins, which introduced the winsome Fairbanks twins, Madeline and Marion, born in 1900, who were sufficiently identical that one wore a blue ribbon and the other a pink one so that they could be told apart by their fellow workers at the studio.

The Moving Picture World had this to say on June 15th:

THE THANHOUSER TWINS. We have had The Thanhouser Kid, "The Thanhouser Kidlet, and, lately, The Thanhouser Poodle, but all of this array must stand back for what has just doubled the strength (numerically) of any of them - to wit The Thanhouser Twins. They make their first appearance in a film released Tuesday, June 18th that is called The Twins. The twins, of course, are the hit of The Twins. Likewise The Twins would be naught without the twins. As it is The Twins, is a success and the twins are a success.

The story relates that a grouchy old uncle adopts one of the twins when they become orphans - declining to have the other, who forthwith is sent to an orphanage. But the orphanage twin escapes from there and joins her sister at the uncle's. Here, through consummate cleverness and a remarkable resemblance to each other, they fool their uncle into thinking that just one sister is in the house.

The Morning Telegraph considered the picture to be "one of the sweetest child photoplays that has been released since the beginnings of motion pictures." Further: "Delightful in every sense, this photoplay should score one of the big successes of the year. The Thanhouser Twins may be sure of a welcome wherever they appear and as often as they choose."

In the meantime, the Comet Film Company, formed in October 1911 as a reorganization of the Yankee Company, and which had been moribund for most of the time since early 1912, sought to ride on Thanhouser's coattails - in a nice way. Readers of The Moving Picture World, June 15, 1912, were greeted by a full-page advertisement which read, in part: "THE NEW COMET. The New Comet Company has not been sleeping - oh no! Not for a second. We have been very much awake. From the fourth of January to April 15th we had our stock company at Jacksonville, Florida, taking pictures with which to fortify ourselves when the inevitable crash came. We were prepared to meet it, no matter which way the wind blew. We had more than a score of negatives on hand, all high-class in every respect, and after all, the man with the A-1 pictures is the winner in the film game every time. THANHOUSER, FOR EXAMPLE. While our Southern company was doing big things at Jacksonville, our New York headquarters were being reorganized and remodeled from stem to stern. Nothing was left of the old Yankee outfit (which the Comet succeeded) but the four walls...."