S.C.A.G.L. Pathé

The son of the wealthy Signor Della Corba loves one of his maids. Her brothers and father rebel at the idea of this union. But the girl is pregnant, and after the birth of the child, Della Corba's son decides to kidnap his mistress on Carnival Day. The brothers, having caught wind of the plan, kill him, then, in disguise, take him masked to his father's house, passing him off as a drunken friend. At dawn, Della Corba discovers her lifeless son under the mask. The maid having died in the meantime, he takes the child in and adopts him.

Gus is making violent love to his cousin Sue, to whom he is engaged, when all at once, he has a desire to sneeze and finds to his consternation that he is without that very necessary article, a pocket handkerchief. Becoming very much excited in his embarrassment, he begins turning his pockets inside out and getting redder and looking more awkward every minute, until Sue, becoming disenchanted with her foolish looking lover, hastens to greet Arthur, whom she sees approaching. It is plain that the latter is gaining ground with Miss Sue, when all at once he begins to sneeze and is unable also to locate his handkerchief. He forgets that on entering he had laid it with his hat on the table, where Gus was fortunate to find it and owing to which good fortune the latter is able to regain the side of his fiancée, who is now alone, as Arthur, feeling that awful tickling sensation in his nose, had to flee.

Stacia Napierkowska (1886-1945) was one of the most successful of the many dancers who appeared onstage, in Paris and internationally, as Hindu priestesses, Esmeraldas, Greek nymphs and maenads, oriental harem favourites or Cambodian temple maidens. After her film debut in 1908, she quickly became a film star, first with Pathé and later with Film d’arte Italiana, creating her own roles in the manner of pantomimes; at the same time she continued her brilliant stage career. Napierkowska was an influential fashion leader, and her dark slender beauty certainly looks like the role model of Josette Andriot. La Danseuse de Siva (1911), a film by Albert Capellani deemed to be lost until recently, has been identified by Tamara Shvediuk in the collection of the Gosfil’mofonds. The print originally belonged to Sergey Ivanovich Osipov, a cinema owner and distributor.