Thanhouser Company

With The Old Curiosity Shop and David Copperfield, both released in 1911, and Nicholas Nickleby in 1912, Thanhouser established itself as producer of the best Dickens adaptations in American film.

A rather complex interweaving of romance and crime is squeezed into one reel. A "respectable" couple of city "card sharpers" invite a distant country relative to visit, then use her as a pretty, unwitting decoy to lure rich victims. They flee town a step ahead of the law. At a resort, the innocent girl falls in love with the latest victim, but they help expose and apprehend the guilty parties.

Retelling of the well-known story of Pocahontas.

An aging King invites disaster, when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters, and rejects his loving and honest one.

Helen Gray, the daughter of a hard working carpenter, receives the attention of her employer, much against her father's will. On her birthday, Mr. Adams invites her to dine with him and presents her with a handsome bracelet. That night, on Helen's return home, at twelve o'clock, her father, who has waited up for her, upbraids her.

Dramatic three-reel film based on Wagner's opera of chivalry and spiritual struggle. Wandering minstrel Tannhauser wins the heart of Elizabeth, niece of the powerful Landgrave. Later, under the spell of Venus and her nymphs, Tannhauser passes into Venusberg, a netherworld of earthly pleasures. Returning to the Landgrave's court, he praises Venus in song and sparks the righteous anger of all present. His own prayers and those of Elizabeth free him from enchantment and he takes up the habit of a monk, devoting himself to God. He sets off to seek absolution in Rome while Elizabeth waits at court, ever weakening in his absence.

Henry Dennys, a wealthy Englishman, has two sons who are frequently brought into the company of Edith Danvers, whose father, a retired general, lives on the adjoining property. As the youths approach manhood each one unknown to the other is secretly in love with the girl.

Zudora, not knowing she's an heiress to a $20 million fortune, lives with her uncle, a mystic and detective, who covets her inheritance. She wants to marry John Storm but her uncle is against it. However, the uncle makes a bargain; if Zudora can solve the next twenty mysteries brought to him, she can marry as she chooses. Episodes 1,2 and 8, plus another unidentified chapter, survive. The rest is believed to be lost.

A series of flashbacks where a penniless, friendless tramp and his dog relates the story of his downfall due to drink.

Audrey Munson (a real-life 'perfect' model for numerous Beaux-Arts sculptors) first appeared artistically nude as a sculptor's model, recreating classic artistic (nude) paintings in George Foster Platt's controversial film from the Mutual Film Corporation. In fact, the film told the story of her own life. This film has generally been regarded as the first non-pornographic American film to feature nudity. This was the first known film in which a leading actress stripped down to be naked, making her the first nude film star. (filmsite.org)

A broker who was trying to get rich dishonestly, found himself in danger of arrest. Just as he was preparing for flight a neighbor entered. This man had been poor all his life, but coming unexpectedly into a legacy of $10,000, decided that the broker was the man who could invest the money for him.

The Fisherwoman was a dominant force on the busy island. Unaided she had built up a large business. She employed many fishermen, and grew wealthier year by year. She sent her son to college, and was delighted when he told her, after graduation, that he intended to help her in the work. Contact with the world, however, had spoiled him for a narrow life. The mother divined his secret, although he tried to hide it. "You have your own life to live, my son," she said, "and I would not keep you here." The son's progress in business was rapid. One day word came from him that he was married, and he sent his mother the picture of his bride. Time passed, and the son wrote more and more infrequently. The mother believed that the wife was to blame, and although they had never met, she began to hate her bitterly.

In the home of the stalwart young son and his mother, the girl rescued from the sea grows strong again after her fearful exposure. Her attractiveness, so different from that of the fisher maidens, has a telling effect on the young man. He asks her, at length, to become his bride, and she accepts. But a few days before the wedding the affianced bride disappears, sailing away with a strange man from the city, who has suddenly appeared. Thinking that his sweetheart had deserted him for another, the fisherman is heartbroken for a time, but gradually the keen edge of his sorrow wears away, and he succumbs to the attractions of another girl, one who had recently come to the village with her father, and who had lived together and alone at the end of the town.

He was a hard-headed old business man and very mercenary, so when he received a letter from a debtor in a little country town asking for more time in which to pay the amount he owed, he decided to show no mercy. But on the way to the home of his debtors he had an accident. He slipped and fell from a cliff upon a projecting ledge below. He was thinking less of the money than of the chances of prolonging his life when he heard someone call him, and looking up he saw a girl standing on the cliff.

Based on Browning's poem, a widowed Duchess raises a son that decides to abandon modern ways and act like it's the medieval days. When he wishes to marry, a young woman is found and plays along believing it's all a joke.

Documentary footage showing the alligator in several stages of growth, from babyhood to a ripe old age; a film taken at an alligator farm in California. In early 1913 as Thanhouser staff and crews were setting up a facility in Los Angeles, cameraman Carl Louis Gregory was taking documentary footage, from which four “split reel” short subjects were created: A MILLION BIRDS, filmed at California pigeon and ostrich farms; LOS ANGELES THE BEAUTIFUL (two different version with the same title), showing scenic attractions; and SEVEN AGES OF AN ALLIGATOR, filmed at an alligator farm. Released together, HIS UNCLE'S WIVES and SEVEN AGES OF AN ALLIGATOR filled up one 1,000-foot “split reel.” (Fandor)

Young Bernick and Johan Tonnesen are close friends, living in Norway. Bernick is engaged to marry Johan's sister, who is an heiress. He is simply marring her for her money, as he is really in love with the wife of an actor. While on a visit to his old love, in which he hopes to break off the affair, the woman's husband unexpectedly enters the room, and Bernick is compelled to escape by the window. Johan, upon learning of his friend's threatened disgrace, assumes Bernick's guilt, and leaves the country for America. Bernick takes advantage of his friend's chivalry by allowing it to be generally believed that Johan also misappropriated funds. In reality, Bernick was guilty of this crime as well as the other.

After having been wrongly accused of murder and robbery, a heretofore kindly and gregarious weaver becomes a nasty, bitter, lonely old miser. Originally a seven-reel picture, a three-reel re-release survives.

The film's heroine is a dancer of world-wide reputation who, in the days of her struggle, has offended the story's villain.

A chorus girl in a theatrical show is being pursued by a "Stage Door Johnny" while her somewhat prudish boyfriend tries to "rescue" her from a life in the theater. Old Jane, the show's wardrobe mistress, takes the girl under her wing and gives her advice on how to handle her situation.