Harry Benham

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 priest is trying to help a poor family when nearby the father is hit on the head by a criminal who then throws him off a bridge into the water below. The priest administers Last Rites then seeks to help the family and find the murderer.

Comte Paul De Valreas is attracted to Frou Frou, the frivolous wife of Henri De Sartorys and the indifferent mother of their young son Georges. Paul persuades Frou Frou to bring her somber sister Louise, who secretly loves Henri, into the household, thus freeing her from any domestic duties.

Having misused funds held in his trust by investing them with his friend, Henry Lowe, Robert Reardon appeals to his future son-in-law, James Calvin, a candidate for the position of district attorney, for help. When Calvin threatens to indict Lowe for fraud if he is elected, Reardon's anger becomes so great that the engagement between Calvin and Reardon's daughter Helen is broken, resulting in Reardon's suicide. After Lowe comes into possession of a check forged by Helen's brother Jack, he uses the document to force a marriage with Helen. Treated brutally by her husband, Helen seeks Calvin's aid, but Lowe frames Calvin, now the district attorney, in a compromising situation with his ex-fiancée. Calvin is about to resign when Helen traps her husband with some marked money, causing his suicide through disgrace. Thus freed, Helen and Calvin find happiness together.

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 young lord elopes with an employee's daughter. The visit of a lady to her home causes the young wife to leave her husband. Years later the peer succeeds to his family estates. Approaching his wife for forgiveness, his entreaties are of no avail. He meets his daughter on the cliffs, and she by accident falls and is killed. The sight of the dead body causes the wife to seek the protection and consolation of her husband

Polly Shannon takes a job as a maid to earn money to go to Paris and study opera. She becomes embroiled in a scheme by her two employers to help their friend in the love of a woman who does not fancy him: She will pretend to be interested in their friend instead. The film has been lost.

After complaining about her dull life, shop girl Sally Manvers falls asleep on the roof of her apartment. Drenched from a downpour, Sally awakens and finds the roof entrance locked. She enters the apartment of society woman Mrs. Standish and encounters Mrs. Standish's brother, Walter Arden Savage, opening the safe. Sally protects Savage from a burglar, and after learning that he and his sister plan to steal their jewels to collect insurance money, she agrees to keep quiet if they take her with them to Newport.

The husband was stern, solemn and never could understand why anyone should laugh. The wife didn't have much sense, perhaps, but she was full of life and laughter. Why they should have married was a mystery; that there should have come a matrimonial shipwreck was hardly a surprise.

A village schoolteacher, unaware that Eben, the village carpenter, is in love with her, marries a surveyor and has a son, David. Eben, distraught at losing her, goes away, and he returns years later to find that David, now an orphan, is running away from his cruel foster father, the squire. Eben befriends David, and when the town is destroyed by a storm the two escape harm. An epilog shows David 25 years later as a successful businessman, happily married, helping to rebuild the town.

Effie Marchand refuses to marry a man she has never met, but who has been picked out by her mother, is exiled to boarding school Then, when sculpting teacher Jules Gerard asks her to pose for him, an always impulsive Effie quickly consents. During one of the modeling sessions, however, Jules tries to seduce her, and Effie is saved only when Al Tournay, a visitor to the studio, fights off the sculptor. Later, when Jules' latest nude statue looks just like Effie, who really only posed for the head, an outraged principal expels her. Effie then begins a romance with Al, and when they get married, Effie's mother takes the wedding as just one more sign of her daughter's impulsiveness. Mrs. Marchand soon finds out, however, that her new son-in-law is the man she had chosen for Effie long before, and so mother and daughter are quickly reconciled.

To avoid marrying the elderly suitor her aunt has chosen for her, young socialite Ivis Van Astor decides to hire Horatio Worthington to pose as her husband. She hopes that as a "married woman" she will pique the romantic interest of Norman Kent, who perceives her as a sweet young thing. Ivis and her hired husband go to Newport, where she begins to flirt with Norman, who discovers her ruse and decides to teach her a lesson. He stages a duel over Ivis with Horatio and pretends to die. Once Ivis is properly chagrined, Norman "recovers," Ivis' aunt falls in love with Horatio, and all ends happily.

The greenhouse proprietor did not take any heart in his work, for he firmly believed he was destined to be a great painter. The result was he neglected business for his easel and customers gradually fell off until the inevitable happened, he went into bankruptcy. His wife, who had faith in her husband's ability with the brush and a deep and abiding love for him, supported the household by her skill as a dressmaker. One day, unexpected good fortune came to the couple, a distant relative of the wife's died and left her $1,000 in his will. The woman made all sorts of plans, but finally decided that she would pay off the mortgage on their little home. Then she noticed for the first time that her husband had left the room, and following him she demanded to know what was wrong. At first he would not tell her, but he finally explained that he wanted the money himself, for it would pay for the art course in Paris.

No description available.

No description available.

A kindly shop owner whose overwhelming gambling debts allow a greedy landlord to seize his shop of dusty treasures. Evicted and with no way to pay his debts, he and his granddaughter flee.

A good example of the clever light comedy Thanhouser produced for its Falstaff label, while other studios cranked out broad slapstick comedies. Harry Benham and Mignon Anderson were versatile and popular Thanhouser stars, here showing considerable skill in light comedy, a genre that invites plenty of satirical social observation such as the burgeoning beauty-salon industry here. Cinema technique shows much more intricate editing and freer use of closeups than just a year or two earlier.

Melodrama in which the rich arrogant George gives money to poor Frank and Jane, so he may spend a night with Jane. Jane goes along with it because she need the money to save her sick husband.

Over the years, an old gardener observes a romance develop between a young boy and girl. 20 years after they break up over a misunderstanding, the old man is instrumental in bringing them back together again.

The young girl has two devoted suitors. She makes her choice yet manages to remain devoted friends with her former suitor as well. After marriage, the girl and her husband often quarreled. It was not surprising, therefore, that her thoughts turned to "the other man," and in time she believed that she would be much happier with him.