Thanhouser Company

Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself.

Silent adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear

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.

Elaborately produced version of the well known George O. Nichols fairy tale interrupted by just a few summarizing intertitles, with Florence LaBadie and Harry Benham.

A love story filmed in Long Island Sound with a stowaway and a shipwreck.

The girl was young, pretty, and also a good businesswoman; When her father died she took up the reins of management and ran an orange grove with successful results. Her capable hands were so busy that she had no time to think of love. One day, however, "the prince" appeared.

The production vindicated the new feature-length movie format by restoring several characters, plot complications, and atmosphere that had been truncated in Thanhouser’s 1910 version of less than one-sixth the length.

Thanhouser's version of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Edwin Thanhouser re-made The Vicar of Wakefield in 1917 as a eight-reel feature film providing us with a frame of reference for the maturation of film language and cinematic techniques over the ensuing eight year period.

In the days long ago when knights were brave and venturesome, enchanted forests grew and mythical creatures lived among us.

The lead Florence La Badie plays dual roles. Clever editing is used for the scene where her two characters meet. La Badie, however, does appear twice within a scene via superimposition, but that's in a flashback-within-a-mirror scene. There are a couple such scenes where La Badie's reflection in the mirror reflects her reflective melancholy mood.

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.

An indictment of the evils of child labor, the film was controversial in its time for its use of actual footage of children employed in a working mill.

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.

The ghost of a selfish, inconsiderate woman must make up for her past transgressions by making sure that her descendant marries the man who is right for her.

A short adaption of the novel by Charles Dickens.

A messenger boy is wrongfully accused of stealing bonds worth $20,000. Luckily, a film crew is shooting a moving picture on the same street. The boy's accuser has the police convinced, until...

In "The World and the Woman", Jeanne Eagels plays Mary, a prostitute (which is implied by her walking the streets and being hassled by policemen) who reluctantly takes a better position at a country lodge as a maid. In this woodland community, she attends church and the path to Salvation becomes clear to her. Through Mary's faith, the injured folk of the countryside are healed. However, her old employer, whose lustful advances she'd previously spurned, still has designs on her.

An innocent man is accused of murdering his aunt.

The Thanhouser Company's two-reel adaptation of Oscar Wilde's eponymous novel. “The plot is unusual, and even though none of the familiar epigrams of the author find their way into the subtitles there is an artistic flavor to the production. Dorian's picture shows evidence in the passing years of his selfish, dissipated life, though his own countenance remains unchanged. Harris Gordon handles the leading role effectively, and Helen Fulton was pleasing as the ill-fated young actress who won Dorian's heart." - The Moving Picture World, July 31, 1915.