Volume I: Narrative History

Chapter 5 (1912): Cuddebackville

View of the Caudebec Inn, Cauddebackville, New York, from a card post marked September 1913. Owned by Charles B. Predmore, inn was a stopping place for Biograph, Pathé (with an accent on the final "e"),

Thanhouser Victor, and Gem film crews. A large contingent from the Thanhouser Film Corporation stayed here in October 1912 during the filming of The Forest Rose. (A-4-1.jpg)

The Forest Rose, released in two reels on November 29, 1912, was filmed in Cuddebackville, New York, a tranquil little community which had served as a location for numerous Biograph films during the summers of 1909, 1910, and 1911. The Thanhouserites, under the direction of Lucius J. Henderson, stayed at the Caudebec Inn. Mr. and Mrs. Henderson were situated in Room 11, apparently the best of the facilities in the three-story wooden structure. Mr. and Mrs. D.W. Griffith had stayed in the same room during visits by the Biograph people, and Pearl White made it her home in late May and early June 1912 when a film crew from Pathé Frérès was stopping over. Under the direction of Charles V. Predmore, the Caudebec Inn was ideally situated amid varied scenery of hills, waterways, and open countryside. Note

Based upon a story by Emerson Bennett, The Forest Rose told of Indian and pioneer life in the early days of the American West. Marguerite Snow took the title role, while Fred Vroom, Francis Newburgh, Jean Darnell, James Cruze, William Russell, David H. Thompson, Harry Marks, Harry Benham, Marie Eline, Helen Badgley, and others essayed further roles. So many players were involved that during the filming the New Rochelle studio must have been nearly vacant! Louis Reeves Harrison wrote a lengthy review for The Moving Picture World:

The multiplying stories of adventure among the Indians may indicate an epoch and its demands. Sufficient time may not have elapsed to have considered them in perspective, to compare their merits with others exhibited before millions of people in this country, but I am unable to find any strong demand among grown people for literature of a kind that James Fenimore Cooper made popular during the early part of last century, that decayed and finally died with the yellow-backed dime novel.

I am led to think from the character of stories most sought by people that those of a bygone decade are seldom read in even Cooper's masterly expositions. The Indian went down fighting as savagely as a Turk and about as much regretted. There is very little that can be truthfully represented as ideal in the character of a people gloating over the hideous torture of innocent women and children. They represent a hindering and utterly useless element in the civilization of mankind, but their hideous presence in this fair land may serve to set forth the struggles and hardships of those who fought for what we now enjoy. Note

The Indian narrative is necessarily one of bloodshed, his thread in the pattern woven by our pioneers is always a red one, and he was a distinct factor in our militant evolution during the early centuries. Perhaps his reason for being was to keep early Americans busy fighting a dangerous and treacherous foe so as to prepare them for the wars in which they threw off the yoke of monarchial government and enabled them to deal with other dangerous and treacherous foes at home and abroad in their steady progress toward social and political enlightenment.

The trouble with tales not strictly historical is the wearisome similarity of one to another. The Thanhouser company does its best, and that means that the performance is far from being uninteresting. The settings are all chosen with characteristic good taste, the costumes are correct in every fine detail, the roles are well assigned in some instances, Marguerite Snow and Fred Vroom carrying off the honors, and there is not the smallest sign of a let-down in quality, but the play itself is drawn from a stale source and does not lend itself to the fine capabilities of those performing in it nor to the good taste of those directing its presentation.

Francis Newburgh as the lover is as plainly out of his element as a genuine cowboy would be in a drawing room. He tries to be a forester, but evidently would feel more at home in a dress suit. When it comes to mounting a horse, stalking an "Injun," or handling a gun, Vroom is quite at home. He has been there in real life or in movies. But the hero has the manners of a modern gentleman. He is lost in the woods. This is one of the results of attempting what is much better done by those who are making a specialty of lurid photodrama for the messenger boys and the billboards.

Forest Rose opens spiritedly in Revolutionary times, when two wealthy planters who are friends and neighbors offer their services and all their earthly goods to their country's cause. One is killed in action and entrusts his little daughter to the survivor. After the war is over, the surviving officer is given a land grant in compensation for his sacrifices and takes his small family, embracing wife, two sons and ward, to what was then wild territory. There they settle. All of this leads us to expect an attractive story of those times, but we are suddenly jerked to a period "Ten Years After" when the children are grown up.

One son, Albert, is in love with Forest Rose and takes to hunting instead of to farming. He is trained in wood craft by an old scout named Wetzel and is absent from home when Indian raids destroy his home and all members of the family save Forest Rose. She is carried into captivity. The first reel ends with the burning of the cabin and Albert's oath that he will never rest until he has rescued Rose from her unenviable fate.

There are some far-spreading exteriors in the second reel, some pictures worth framing, views of hills and valleys, woods and streams that are highly artistic and admirably chosen. The "Good Old Scout" strikes the trail of the Indian band and finds them camped in a picturesque site conveniently located near a military outpost occupied by pioneers and soldiers in expectation of attack. Much to the relief of these ordinary human beings our relentless hero and the Good Old Scout undertake to locate the redskins.

The two determined men reach an eminence from which they look down on an Indian village of a group of tents in the valley below. Each grasps his trusty rifle and creeps through the bushes in an attempt to stalk the wariest foe that ever hunted quick-eared game. Albert comes upon two squaws at the edge of a stream and acts rudely toward them until he finds that one is none other than the long-lost "Forest Rose." He embraces her and lets the other go - presumably to warn the band and stir them to action - wasting a lot of precious time before he realizes where he is at.

In consequence of being too much of a gentleman to crack the skull of a red lady with the butt of his gun, Albert is captured and tied to a tree. There he is allowed to remain while the unsuspecting Indians roll in their blankets and go to sleep. Now comes Good Old Scout with a knife tied on the end of a stick and cuts the string that binds the hero. We are given a view of this ingenious and highly exciting episode in small scope. We actually see how it was done just as if we had been on the spot.

None of the Indians wake up in time - someone forgot to set the alarm - so the hero escapes. He and Old Scout make a stand against the tribe later on and every shot tells. Bing! Over goes one of the red varmints. Bang! Over goes another. It is all very exciting as long as the supply of Indians does not run out. Even Forest Rose tries her hand in deadly aim, with the results that promise great accessions to the Happy Hunting Grounds; but the whites tire of so much victory, steal a few horses from the deserted village, and ride away to the fort, where Albert and Forest Rose are united in marriage and supposedly live happily ever after.

The exciting plays of these characters are as much of a strain on the performance as they are on the credulity and patience of the average audience. I hope the Thanhouser company will revert to the grand classics that established them in favor deservedly high.

Harrison's critique is valuable to the modern film historian because it is so specific. With so many films coming on the market, few reviewers had the space to discuss a production in depth, and one-reelers, which still made up the bulk of Thanhouser's output, were receiving increasingly less attention as time went on.