Volume II: Filmography

THE RESTORATION

August 5, 1910 (Friday)

Length: 1,000 feet

Character: Drama

Cast: Marie Eline (the little girl)

ADVERTISEMENT, The Moving Picture World, August 6, 1910:

"This isn't a 'Thanhouser Classic' in the accepted or advertised sense of the term, but it is a 'Thanhouser Classic' for all that, it's a subject that will go down through the time, as an unusual release can be considered a classic. Anyway, it's an almighty gripping idea done into an almighty pretty picture and your patrons will like it as much as anything we've turned out to date."

ARTICLE, The Moving Picture World, August 6, 1910:

"The Friday release (August 5) is a gripping heart-drama, by name The Restoration. It is a curious, a novel thing; in a sense a study in aphasia - one of those weird plots you expect a Thanhouser picture to unfold."

SYNOPSIS, The Moving Picture World, August 6, 1910:

"Hugh Logan is a widower who lives with his only child, a little girl, in a small cottage in the country. Logan is a commercial traveler and, as the play opens, is preparing to leave on a business trip. He takes the train to the city, where he is attacked by footpads, who leave him unconscious in the roadway. He is found by Maud Neal and her father, who are passing in an auto, and they take him into their home. There he revives, but the shock has affected his memory, and he is unable to recall anything of his past life. The kindly Neal secures him employment, and as time passes Logan falls deeply in love with Maud. He finally proposes to her and it is accepted.

"In the meantime, little May has been waiting in vain for her father. As no word is received from him, and she has no other relatives, Bridget, the servant, takes her to the orphan asylum, where she is compelled to make her home with other little unfortunates. May dislikes the place. In the end she escapes from it. But, gaining the city, she gets lost there and, tired and hungry, goes to sleep on a doorstep - the Neals'. There she is found by Maud, who takes her into the house. Maud is much attracted by the child's charms and finally decides that she must never be parted from her. She tells Logan of her decision and he objects. They quarrel. Feeling himself in the wrong, Logan returns and asks Maud's pardon. He meets May, who recognizes her father. At the sight of her, his memory returns. Speedily he determines to retain May from out of the things of the old life, and Maud from out of the new."

REVIEW, The Morning Telegraph, August 7, 1910:

"The story told in this film is of a father who leaves his motherless child home while he goes away on business. The father is sandbagged by hold-up men, and is picked up by a passing automobile. When the father becomes well his memory is blank. In the meantime, his little girl is sent to the orphan asylum. She steals away from there to search for her father. The latter is now given employment by his benefactor and he falls in love with the daughter, which affection is returned. Later the little orphan girl is found by the woman who loves the father, and adopts her. When the father and daughter meet his memory comes back to him and all ends well.

"The photography at the beginning of the film is poor. It seems queer that the child should be able to escape from the orphan asylum in such an easy manner and that no search be made by the institution. It seemed very theatrical and hardly possible that the child should make the first stop at the house of the father's intended. Why did not the producer have the child make a few more stops or have something happen to her instead of making the first stop at the woman's house?"

REVIEW, The Moving Picture World, August 20, 1910:

"A drama based upon loss of memory through an injury. A little girl is left alone to mourn her father's loss, while he has married another woman and lives comfortably in a neighboring city. But she escapes from the asylum and wanders to the city, and the sight of her restores her father's memory, and then comes happiness for all. It is an emotional story and might be true."

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, August 13, 1910:

"A lapse of memory involves the action here, and a chance meeting dissolves it. A man, having been sandbagged, returns to consciousness without a shred of memory. He becomes engaged to the daughter of his benefactor. Meanwhile, his own little daughter, whose mother had died, runs away from the orphanage to which she has been confined, and sets out to find her father. Being adopted by her father's fiancée, she succeeds in finding him and in restoring his memory. The manifest absurdity of this plot lies in the adoption. No girl just betrothed would ever adopt a runaway orphan. The Thanhouser heroine is a very attractive young lady and always appears to advantage in such congenial roles as this one. The hero also does straightforward and creditable work. In the lesser roles, the servant girl and the heroine's father showed capability."

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