Volume I: Narrative History

Chapter 9: 1916 Hidden Valley

Produced in Jacksonville early in 1916, Hidden Valley was originally scheduled to be released as a Mutual Masterpicture, DeLuxe Edition on June 29th. After the arrangement with Mutual was cancelled Edwin Thanhouser announced the five-reel film would be issued on August 29th. That date, too, was postponed, and a new issue time of September 10th was given to the trade. Finally, on November 5th it was released as a Gold Rooster Play. The picture featured Valkyrien as the white goddess to a tribe of ostrich hunters in Africa, while Boyd Marshall took the part of a missionary, Ernest Warde, who also directed the film, essayed the role of the high priest of the savage tribe, and Arthur Bauer was the feather importer. Approximately 500 blacks from the Jacksonville area served as extras in the roles of African natives.

Variety reviewed the film:

Thanhouser is releasing through Pathé as a Gold Rooster feature Hidden Valley, which is a distinct step in the right direction for the New Rochelle film manufacturing concern. It is a consistent scenario - nothing wonderful to be sure - but well sustained, and nicely executed without having recourse to any vast production expenditure. After the first reel it partakes of a Rider Haggard flavor, the action moving from civilization to the wilds of Africa, the natives worshipping the hero as a visitor from the skies. A young divinity student, finding his fiancée loves another, takes a trip to Africa to assuage his grief. He penetrates Hidden Valley, where he finds a beautiful white girl (Valkyrien) is about to be offered up as a sacrifice. He rescues her (with no heroic fights, but through a trick) and carries her off, presumably to be his wife. A number of colored people are employed as natives, some of the men being permitted to retain their mustaches, although stripped of all sartorial adornment excepting breechclouts. All told, it is an acceptable program feature. - Jolo.

Wid's Film and Film Folks panned the production, noting in part: Note

Although there is nothing particularly distinctive about this, it is quite possible you can get it by with the average audience simply because the scenes are laid in an African jungle.... There is little that can be called acting, most characters were Negro "extras" and there is no originality about the plot to carry the production.... It may be that you can use this on a day when you play just routine features and get by with it by billing Valkyrien as the star of Diana, Note with the suggestion that her vogue as a classical dancer caused the Thanhouser Company to select her for this script, in which she does a number of barefoot dances to prove that she is a goddess. I wouldn't promise very much regarding the production, because it is quite ordinary all the way and will never stir up any enthusiasm. It's just a routine melodrama of more or less ancient situations which will be accepted by those who aren't critical and scorned by the analytical ones. Don't figure that the barefoot dancing stuff is sensual, because it isn't. Neither is it wonderfully artistic. Play it as barefoot dancing and that's all.

By the autumn of 1916 Edwin Thanhouser's films were being reviewed by many different trade journals and newspapers. He was now in the league of producers of large, multiple-reel features, right along with Lasky, World, Fox and other studios which had been grabbing much attention in the past year or so. Reviews of Thanhouser films in most publications were lengthy and on balance favorable.

Next on the release list came The World and the Woman, released as a Gold Rooster Play on November 19th. Jeanne Eagels took the lead role, a woman of the streets. An article Note based upon a Thanhouser news release told of an aspect of the film's production:

By a wink of the camera's eye Jeanne Eagels, Thanhouser star, escaped having her friends in Kansas City, her home town, hear that she was down and out when, as a matter of fact, she was at one of the most successful moments in her career.

The opening scene in The World and the Woman, Philip Lonergan's Thanhouser-made Pathé Gold Rooster play, shows Miss Eagels tramping Broadway, out of luck, out of funds. In order to get Broadway at ease, Director Eugene Moore hid his camera in a moving van, and as Miss Eagels walked past one of Broadway's most noted restaurants the scene was photographed, while passersby unwittingly took part in the drama. In the midst of the scene the director was astonished to see Miss Eagels run forward and seize a man and woman and drag them up to the moving van. "Mr. Moore!" she called. The director, raging at the interruption, threw aside the flap covering the camera and looked out. "See," said Miss Eagels to the man and the woman, "It's just a moving picture, and I'm acting in it. These aren't my regular Broadway clothes." In the midst of the scene Miss Eagels had spied friends from Kansas City, her home, staring at her in astonishment. She wanted to prove to them that she wasn't all she appeared to be.

The New York Dramatic Mirror reviewed the picture:

Imagination and originality are shown in The World and the Woman, featuring Jeanne Eagels. It starts with an unfortunate girl of the city who is hired in the spirit of jest by a young worldling to act as maid in his Adirondack lodge. Miss Eagels, as the girl, brings out her hopelessness and frailty. Then as the girl becomes known to the simple country people, she is taken to their hearts. Finally, she is driven by the actions of her employer to seek refuge with a family with a beautiful little daughter, prettily played by Ethelmary Oakland. The child falls downstairs and injures its back during an old-time dance. The doctor says the child is doomed to die in a short time. While the parents are in despair, the girl is led to exercise faith and the child is healed.

An effective piece of photography shows the vision of Christ, which the penitent girl sees, bending over the stricken child. There is a sub-title that introduces the healing episode with the statement that some people have a mysterious power of healing, which science acknowledges but cannot explain, and that a powerful church has been built in this day on the faith in this manner of healing. There is excellent acting throughout by Miss Eagels, who makes the healer a very human and sympathetic character. The remainder of the cast is equal to the smaller parts they play. As to the direction, it has preserved excellently the atmosphere of the shooting lodge and the country place with its old meeting house and quaint customs. The photography is noticeably good.

Other reviews were complimentary as well. Jeanne Eagels was to work with Thanhouser in other films, and then in the 1920s to become involved in a number of scandals which made lurid headlines in the tabloids. A tragic figure, at the height of her career late in the decade she met an untimely end from a drug overdose.