Volume II: Filmography

MASTER SHAKESPEARE, STROLLING PLAYER

April 20, 1916 (Thursday)

Length: 5 reels

Character: Drama; Mutual Masterpicture, DeLuxe Edition No. 94

Director: Frederick Sullivan

Scenario: Philip Lonergan

Cameraman: Charles Wilbur Hoffman

Cast: Florence LaBadie (Miss Gray), Robert Vaughn (Lieut. Stanton, her lover), Lawrence Swinburne (William Shakespeare), Robert Whittier (Lord Francis Bacon)

Location: New Rochelle; East Mayport, Florida; and Mexico; some scenes from Mutual Film Corporation's footage of the Mexican war were included, although many "Mexican" scenes were filmed in Florida.

Notes: 1. Some advertisements listed the release date as "week of April 17, 1916." 2. This film was Thanhouser's contribution to what was expected to be a large fund of entries to be released by various producers to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. As it developed, relatively little was accomplished in the industry, although this was not for lack of trying as, for example, in this instance related by Robert Hamilton Ball in his 1968 book, Shakespeare on Silent Film: "Someone sold to the World Film Corporation a plan for a film of Romeo and Juliet for Clara Kimball Young, which introduced an elaborate fight between the two houses and the funeral of Juliet. Later the company was doubtful whether the Juliet should be Mrs. Young or perhaps Gail Kane, or Alice Brady, or Kitty Gordon, or Jane Grey, or Ethel Clayton or Gerda Holmes, and in this confusion the picture was never made." The same writer summarized the Thanhouser entry: "It seems an odd way to celebrate Shakespeare, but Thanhouser was to do better later in the year." 3. Ernest C. Warde was listed as the director of this film in an article in The Florida Metropolis, April 3, 1916, reprinted below. However, the majority of accounts attribute the position to Frederick Sullivan.

ARTICLE, The Moving Picture World, March 25, 1916:

"The coming Shakespeare tercentenary will find itself enriched by a valuable contribution from Edwin Thanhouser of New Rochelle. Frederick Sullivan, the well known Thanhouser director, is now at work on a most unusual production which will be released during the celebration. The only information which can be gained about the production just now is that it is the imaginative work of Philip Lonergan and will very likely be in three reels. Mr. Thanhouser attaches so much importance to the value of the production that he has designated Florence LaBadie to play the star role. The story will be the first work touching on Shakespeare so directly without being founded on any of the poet's work. It is purely a fanciful arrangement of events in which Shakespeare himself is impersonated, as are also the people of his time. It has been seen fit to devise a special vehicle in order to depart from the usual recognized but heavily burdened Shakespearean conceptions."

ARTICLE, The Florida Metropolis, April 3, 1916:

"Real hero, rescue stuff was pulled off by the soldier boys of the local post, National Guard, at East Mayport Sunday afternoon when they played a prominent part in several big battle scenes staged by the Thanhouser Film Company under the able direction of Ernest C. Warde, who is here with a company of players taking the final scenes of a five-reel drama, Shakespeare Strolling Player [sic]. The scenes laid at Mayport will form part of the story, showing how a young army officer, after being transferred from a Northern station to the border, saves a detachment of soldiers who were practically annihilated by Mexicans endeavoring to destroy a railroad. The soldier held the Mexicans back while the brave captain rushes for reinforcements, stops a freight train, which the soldiers board, and rushes back into the battle, arriving just in time to defeat the attackers.

"Scenes showing the troops boarding the freight, being rushed into the battle, the defense of the small detachment and the timely arrival of the reinforcements, besides several other thrilling scenes, were photographed at East Mayport. Several hundred spectators, who arrived by train and automobile, were present. Over 200 enlisted men of the local companies participated, with one company making up as Mexicans. The scenes were all big ones and handled in a capable manner by Director Warde, who was somewhat handicapped by lack of assistants. However, he 'put it over' successfully and staged the scenes in a wonderfully realistic manner. Afterward he personally thanked the officers and enlisted men for their good work and co-operation, besides paying them for their services. Mr. Warde is the son of Frederick Warde, the famous actor, and will return shortly to New Rochelle, N.Y., where the general studios are located, to begin work on several features in which his father is the star."

ARTICLE, The Moving Picture World, April 22, 1916:

"Master Shakespeare, Strolling Player, the second Masterpicture DeLuxe of the same week, is a timely subject in view of the Shakespearean tercentenary which is now absorbing the nation's dramatic and literary interest. Miss Florence LaBadie is featured in this production, supported by an exceptional company of players, headed by Lawrence Swinburne, who gives an interesting portrayal of the Bard of Avon. Master Shakespeare, Strolling Player, is not a costume play as the title might imply. A large part of it is today, with considerable of the story centered in and about a military post along the Mexican border. The production deals with the young married couple - the wife, a student of Shakespeare and having her own views of the Shakespeare-Bacon controversy, and her husband, a young army officer, more interested in his profession than the question of whether Shakespeare or Bacon deserved the credit for the literary masterpieces generally attributed to the former's remarkable brain. The play, or that part of it referring to the Elizabethan rule, has been worked out with Thanhouser fidelity in costuming locations."

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, April 8, 1916:

"In Master Shakespeare, Strolling Player, an interesting and highly artistic Mutual Masterpicture, DeLuxe Edition, the much mooted question as to whether Shakespeare or Bacon was the real author of the plays attributed to Shakespeare, forms the basis for a production which is very timely as well as tensely dramatic. The Shakespearean Tercentenary is absorbing the attention of the literary and dramatic fields this spring. It is extremely interesting that Shakespeare himself, the man whose knowledge of life, whose generosity and whose genial humor is betrayed in all of his plays, should himself be introduced to the screen.

"Lawrence Swinburne, the Thanhouser player, is seen in the role of Master Shakespeare, the strolling player. Miss Florence LaBadie, the Thanhouser star, is Miss Gray, the young lady whose difference in literary tastes from those of her fiancé, causes a serious climax in the drama. Miss Gray, the daughter of Colonel Gray, according to the story, is very fond of literature. The plays of Shakespeare have afforded special interest to her, but she has come to believe, very sincerely, that they were the work of Bacon instead of the Bard of Avon. The girl's fiancé, Lieutenant Stanton, does not agree with her. At last, because she has been used to having her own way in every particular, she determines to make her affianced husband agree with her on this one subject. Their discussion leads to a serious misunderstanding, and their engagement is broken.

"Stanton is transferred, at his request, to the Mexican border. After his departure she feels more curious than ever about Shakespeare's life and reads his plays and studies his life with a new eagerness. At length she comes to learn that humanity and understanding means more than a coronet, and feels that her pride of race had previously made her unjust. At this time, a dispatch from the West tells her that Stanton has been wounded in a fight with bandits. In her delirium she finds herself standing in front of an old English castle. A stately woman, in the costume of the Elizabethan period, addresses her as 'daughter,' and orders her to enter the coach. At first puzzled, the girl at length realizes that she is back again in the 16th century in England, and that she is the daughter of the Earl of Pembroke.

"At a tavern in the country, the coach stops to change horses, and the girl and Lady Pembroke alight, wearing the masks with which ladies of the court always travel. A handsomely dressed noble, who had long wooed the young lady in vain, passes by. He determines to steal her away to his castle. Summoning his retainers, the noble enters the tavern, and is at the point of carrying the girl away, when a young soldier, a trusted follower of Drake, espouses the girl's cause, and, single-handed, holds the enemies back. To her surprise, the girl recognizes her former fiancé, Lieut. Stanton. The combat is so unequal that it seems as if the young soldier will be overcome. At this juncture a stranger enters the room, draws his sword in behalf of the youth, and joins in the fray. The assailants of the young woman are put to rout, and the gallant rescuer announces himself with a bow and flourish, as Master Shakespeare, Strolling Player.

"At the performance of Shakespeare's play before the court, Lord Bacon sends one of the poet's scholars, whom he had bribed, to declare that Shakespeare had stolen the play from him. Bacon brings about a duel, and the young officer, less skilled than he, is killed. As the girl throws herself on the lifeless form of the soldier, she awakes, and finds herself back in the 20th century, safe in her father's house. And from the other room appears the sturdy form of the young lieutenant, who had only been injured in Mexico."

REVIEW, Exhibitors Herald, May 6, 1916:

"As a whole: not brilliant; story: confused; star: charming; support: good; photography: good; setting: very good. Directed by Frederick Sullivan.

"If the director had been allowed to concentrate on the Shakespeare story which is the raison d'etre of this picture's presentation, this timely release of Thanhouser's might have been a far, far better thing than it is. Let it not be understood that the picture, as it stands, is a failure. It is not. But the perfectly unnecessary introduction and the equally useless ending distract attention from a main story in which there is material for the making of a big picture. The fifteenth-century portion of the film is interesting; the present-day introduction with which the director appears to apologize for the main story is the summit of weariness. A man and his fiancée quarrel over who wrote the Shakespeare plays, and he goes to Mexico to fight. Girl relapses, as it were, into Shakespearean times and becomes the daughter of the Earl of Pembroke, the beloved of Francis Bacon, who, finding her unattainable, attempts to kidnap her. Follow plots and counterplots in which Shakespeare and his manuscripts play important parts. Finally, Bacon is routed and exposed, and she awakes from a delirium convinced that the name on the title page of Hamlet is the right one. Her fiancée returns and finds her in a melting mood, and so all ends happily. Florence LaBadie is the star - a very delightful figure, both as the girl of today and as the lady of ancient times. L. Swinburne and Robert Whittier makes a Shakespeare and a Bacon, respectively, who much resemble the traditional pictures. The supporting cast gives satisfactory help throughout, and the settings, as said above, are very good. It is a thousand pities that well could not be left alone in this case. As the picture stands, its first and its last sections quite bury the main story and give a general impression of avoidable weakness."

REVIEW by Adam Hull Shirk, The Morning Telegraph, April 16, 1916:

"Edwin Thanhouser's contribution to the tercentenary Shakespearean celebration is a film dealing with the familiar Bacon-Shakespeare controversy and blending in an interesting manner the past and present through the medium of a dream. A distinctly timely feature is the showing of American military operations in Mexico, and while these scenes were probably staged for the occasion they are interesting and exciting and calculated to arouse patriotic fervor when shown. The idea of a modern character being transported back to the good old days of swashbuckling is not entirely new, having been used in the spoken drama on one or two occasions, but in this particular connection it seems to be quite apt and affords an opportunity for the display of versatility on the part of several of the principal actors. It is no small jump from the role of the United States army officer to that of a wandering soldier of fortune in the times of Queen Elizabeth, but the feat is successfully accomplished by Robert Vaughn, while Miss LaBadie does quite as well in her transition. Some effective costuming is noted in the scenes depicting the Court of Good Queen Bess, and at the inn, but the setting for the former was somewhat unconvincing.

"The story is hung upon the quarrel arising between Miss Gray and her affianced, Lieutenant Stanton, over the authorship of the plays attributed to Shakespeare's own titles, Much Ado About Nothing. Stanton is called to Mexico, and in an affray with the peon army is supposedly wounded to the death. In her anguish Miss Gray falls asleep, or rather, becomes delirious, and dreams that she is back in the times of Shakespeare. She meets Bacon, who tries to carry her to his castle, but she is rescued by a man whom she recognizes as the lover she lost in the twentieth century, and by Shakespeare. The latter is rewarded by being given the coveted opportunity of reading a play aloud to the queen. Bacon bribes a henchman to swear that the play has been stolen by Shakespeare. But Stanton, now a captain of the guard, has overheard the plot and denounces Bacon. They fight a duel and the famous essayist kills the opponent. Miss Gray, who is apparently a duchess or something of the sort, sees the fatal swordplay and awakens. She is told that she has been delirious for weeks and that during the time the man she loves has recovered. They are reunited and she is perfectly willing to admit that Bacon was the rascal his detractors claim him to have been. Lawrence Swinburne as Shakespeare was excellent, while the Lord Bacon was a charming villain in the hands of Robert Whittier."

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, April 29, 1916: This review is reprinted in the narrative section of the present work.

REVIEW, Variety, April 21, 1916:

"Thanhouser (Mutual) five-reeler featuring Florence LaBadie. Picture is announced as this concern's offering in honor of Shakespeare's tercentennial. The plot is unique but improbable. Through a discussion on the relative merits of Sir Francis Bacon and Shakespeare in which their ideas differ, a young engaged couple split. The man, an army officer, favors Shakespeare while his wife-to-be believes the bard failed to write a large number of the words credited to him. The officer is transferred to a distant post and tries to forget. The girl stays home and tries to do the same. She does a large amount of reading and upon one occasion falls into a stupor in which she dreams she is alive at the time of the two poets. She is a young noblewoman and when visiting a tavern is accosted by Bacon, who tries to take her off to his castle. Shakespeare, as the strolling player, intercedes and saves her from the other. Following this is a lot of court business in which the bard is brought before Queen Elizabeth and receives numerous honors which all ends with the girl waking up and calling for her sweetheart. Mixing fiction and history in this way is no easy task, and as done in this hardly proves interesting. The action jumps from the firing line in Mexico to the time of Shakespeare and then back again and, all in all, it is rather confusing to say the least. The cast fits."

REVIEW, Wid's Film and Film Folk, April 20, 1916: This review is reprinted in the narrative section of the present work.

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