Volume II: Filmography

THE FINGER OF SCORN

July 14, 1912 (Sunday)

Length: 1 reel

Character: Drama

Cast: James Cruze (the minister), Mignon Anderson (the wife), Harry Benham (the drummer)

SYNOPSIS, The Moving Picture World, July 20, 1912:

"The girl could not even remember her mother, who had died when she, her only daughter, was still a child. The girl's only near relative was her stepfather, the deacon, who prided himself on 'doing his duty' by the girl. He was a highly religious man. When the girl's young fancy was attracted by the attention of a vulgar drummer [term for a traveling salesman at the time - Ed.], he indignantly made her a prisoner in her room. Without explaining that it was the character of the man he objected to, he simply told the girl that she would have to be punished. Feeling that she had been treated like a child, the girl became indignant and ran away. At the railway station she met, by accident, the fascinating drummer, who, his sales completed, was leaving town on the night train. Learning the girl had no definite destination, he offered to act as her friend and guide. The trusting country girl gratefully accepted his assistance. A year later, a shabby outcast, whose wasted figure bore a slight resemblance to the country girl who had left the deacon's home, returned there, humbly entreating shelter and forgiveness. Being 'a religious man,' the deacon promptly turned her into the streets, pointed her out as a thing of loathing to her fellow townsmen, and joined the other esteemed citizens in welcoming to the village its new minister.

"The new minister was an extremely poor young man, with a delicate wife, and a little daughter dependent upon him. Shortly after their arrival in the village, the little girl rushed from the cottage to the rescue of the outcast, whom she found was being driven through the village by a crowd of cruel children, who were hurling after her stones and abusive names. The child took the poor hunted creature into her father's home, and the minister was willing to give her shelter. This, however, the highly scandalized community would not tolerate his doing, and the outcast, rather than bring misery into the one home in which she had found kindness, voluntarily went away. She passed the old mill, and, crossing the bridge near the mill dam, she wearily climbed the hill and took refuge in a deserted cabin. That night, the mill dam burst, and it was from her vantage point on the hill that the outcast saw the oncoming torrent which meant destruction to the tiny village which lay in the valley below her. She it was who brought the first words of danger to the people who had derided her. It was her weak arms that carried to the safety many children, among them her tiny champion, the minister's little girl. She paid for this last act of heroism with her life, but she smiled in death as she never could have smiled again in life."

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