Volume I: Narrative History

Chapter 7 (1914): Debut of the Serial

Monday, June 22, 1914 marked the debut of the first two-reel episode of Thanhouser's entry into the serial sweepstakes: The Million Dollar Mystery. Howell Hansel was the director, and George Webber served as the primary cameraman. Backed by The Chicago Tribune and a group of Chicago investors, the Syndicate Film Corporation, headed by Charles J. Hite, released the serial under the auspices of Mutual. The actual production was accomplished by the Thanhouser Film Corporation. The story took 23 episodes to tell and was released at the rate of two reels each Monday, through the autumn of the year, plus a final episode the following February. When all was said and done, the production lived up to its name and earned over a million dollars, making it the greatest success of any serial to that time. Never mind that around the studio, the film was referred to as The Million Dollar Misery, off the record of course!

As the episodes unreeled on the screen, viewers watched Stanley Hargreave (played by Alfred Norton), who in his youth had had the bad judgment to join the Black Hundred, a group of Russian conspirators who vowed to stick together until death. Hargreave fled to America, where he became a millionaire and fathered a daughter known as Florence Gray (played by Florence LaBadie). His former Russian compatriots tracked him down and sought his hidden fortune, thus providing the title to the series. In the first episode, The Airship in the Night, Hargreave is on the verge of falling into the clutches of the conspirators, who enter his mansion (in reality, Charles J. Hite's home in New Rochelle), and escapes by the skin of his teeth when an aeronaut friend lifts him skyward from the roof in a balloon.

Dozens of Thanhouserites had roles in The Million Dollar Mystery. In addition to the lead roles played by James Cruze (newspaper reporter Jim Norton) and Florence LaBadie, among the more notable parts were those of Sidney Bracy as Hargreave's butler, Lila Hayward Chester as Florence Gray's boarding school chum Susan Farlow, Marguerite Snow as the lavishly dressed Countess Olga Petroff, Frank Farrington as arch conspirator Braine, Albert C. Froome as a conspirator in several disguises, Claire Kroell as Princess Parlova, A. Leo Stevens as the balloonist who saves Hargreave at the start of the serial, and spy Peggy Burke.

Most of the filming was done in and around the New Rochelle studio, including many scenes taken in a three-acre parklike area behind the studio buildings. The basic framework of the story was the brainchild of Harold MacGrath, who had created the highly successful Selig serial, The Adventures of Kathlyn. MacGrath crafted - "novelized" is the word used in publicity - Lloyd F. Lonergan's scenario for publication in newspapers. Care was taken to have each installment be a story in itself, but not so much that the ending would be revealed - for the uncertainty and suspense were to be "continued next week." Note

Thanhouser publicists pulled out all the stops to whip up interest in The Million Dollar Mystery. Even William J. Burns, who headed one of America's most famous detective agencies, was pressed into service and appeared in advertisements to attest to the depth of the mystery involved! So intense was the promotional effort that relatively few advertising pages or news releases were devoted to other Thanhouser films during the next several months.