Thanhouser Company
-
She
This sensational popular story was one of three Haggard novels filmed by Thanhouser. It has many of the elements found in the not-yet-invented adventure/fantasy serial genre. Thanhouser’s expertise in location work, costume fantasy, and elaborate storytelling pay off in in SHE, the studio’s first...Watch Movie
-
The Farmer's Daughters
The daughters of the farmer do some very good character work fooling young college graduates who are bent on matrimony. Incidental glimpses of American farm life considerably enhance the value of the film. The one-reel light comedy was a specialty of Thanhouser, as were...Watch Movie
-
The Portrait of Lady Anne
In 1770, the beautiful Lady Anne in a jealous fit throws over her lover who goes away to the war and is killed. Fast forward to 1912 where a descendant of Lady Anne is entertaining and much the same happens. A fantasy of romance and jealousy across 200 years. Sets are, in...Watch Movie
-
Zudora Episode #2: The Mystery of the Sleeping House
A mysterious and exotic secret society conducts elaborate ceremonies in American suburbia with the kidnapped heroine Zudora who they want to marry off to their leader as a substitute for the real princess who was taken by a rival tribe back in India. The sets range from cheap...Watch Movie
-
The Woman in White
In its last two years of production Thanhouser concentrated on multi-reel features of high quality. Lloyd Lonergan’s scenarios were the foundation for the attention to quality, whether with original stories or with adaptations like THE WOMAN IN WHITE. Stylistic and technical...Watch Movie
-
A Dog's Love
The fantasy centers on a dog and a child, a universally appealing movie subject. The loyal dog's attachment to his little girl playmate is treated with pictorial beauty and simple, honest sentiment. Reviewers of the time praised the double-exposure passages for their dramatic effectiveness. Baby...Watch Movie
-
The Thanhouser Studio and the Birth of American Cinema
A fifty minute documentary recounting the remarkable tale of one of America's pioneering independent motion picture studios during the first decade of the twentieth century. Based in New Rochelle, New York, the studio produced over one thousand films that were seen by...Watch Movie
-
The World and the Woman
THE WORLD AND THE WOMAN is historically important as the screen debut of legendary actress Jeanne Eagels. The role of a prostitute turned faith healer is suitably challenging for the star. Edwin Thanhouser began phasing down production at the studio in early 1917, so this is a...Watch Movie
-
The Coffin Ship
A love story filmed in Long Island Sound with a stowaway and a shipwreck. Because of 1911 production convention, a sprawling adventure is truncated to one-reel length. Good location work, a strength of Thanhouser pictures, creates a visually strong seagoing story. Long Island Sound locations were...Watch Movie
-
Joseph in the Land of Egypt
The second of “Thanhouser Big Productions,” a monthly schedule, Joseph in the Land of Egypt was a true “feature” film, a new class of film which came to dominate the market by the end of 1914. A feature was an hour or more, heavily advertised, with elaborate production...Watch Movie
-
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
James Cruze featured as Jekyll/Hyde in this second U.S. film version of the classic novel by Robert Lewis Stevenson. This famous tale, made even more sensational by Richard Mansfield's stage performance, was filmed in at least nine silent versions. Thanhouser's was the second...Watch Movie
-
Cinderella
An elaborately produced version of the well known fairy tale interrupted by just a few summarizing intertitles, with Florence LaBadie and Harry Benham. Although in-camera trick photography is important for the story, it is rather conventional, having been introduced over ten years earlier by...Watch Movie
-
The Marvelous Marathoner
Thanhouser’s "Falstaff Comedies" was a schedule of one-reel comedies released each Friday beginning in April 1915, later changed to each Tuesday. Looking for a niche, Thanhouser’s short plot-driven comedies stood out from other studios’ trend toward longer offerings and broad...Watch Movie
-
Marble Heart
This story, already a well-known English play of 1854 adapted from an earlier French play, casts the three most popular Thanhouser adult stars in a story of unrequited love, with a dream sequence that parallels the main story. Pale makeup is especially noticeable in some scenes, the answer to...Watch Movie
-
The Elusive Diamond
A one-reel crime drama with crooks, ruses, kidnapping, escape and a twist, all wrapped in a coherent narrative. Screenwriter Lloyd Lonergan’s amazing versatility served equally well in several genres. There is successful pictorial telling of the setup and attempted theft, and...Watch Movie
-
The Vagabonds
THE VAGABONDS source is a different kind of classic, a poem by an influential and prolific writer of inspirational and cautionary stories for children, particularly boys. THE VAGABONDS is a series of flashbacks where a penniless, friendless tramp relates the story of his downfall due to drink....Watch Movie
-
The Cry of the Children
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN is the most famous and best documented of all Thanhouser films. In its day it was recognized as one of the most important expressions of the pre-World War One reform movement, in particular child labor. Perhaps because the uncompromising content drew...Watch Movie
-
Their One Love
One of the many Civil War movies made during the 50th anniversary of the conflict. This was one of Thanhouser’s last one-reel dramas and was released just after D.W. Griffith’s Civil War epic THE BIRTH OF A NATION. Griffith’s monumental picture had included three long-shots of nighttime...Watch Movie
-
The Soap Suds Star
Theater, particularly vaudeville, has been an endless source of material for movies. This energetic comedy features a down-and-out actor and a funny laundry proprietor who are hired as a vaudeville act. They become a big hit, but when they try Shakespeare, they destroy their...Watch Movie
-
Seven Ages of an Alligator
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...Watch Movie
