Volume II: Filmography

HER MENACING PAST

a.k.a. THE MENACING PAST

January 5, 1915 (Tuesday)

Length: 2 reels (2,030 feet)

Character: Drama

Scenario: Philip Lonergan

Cast: Mignon Anderson, Morris Foster, Mrs. Fairbanks

Note: The title of this film was given as The Menacing Past in a schedule in The New York Dramatic Mirror, December 30, 1914, in a Thanhouser advertisement and separate schedule in the January 2, 1915 issue of The Moving Picture World, and elsewhere, although most other notices listed it as Her Menacing Past.

SYNOPSIS, Reel Life, January 2, 1915:

"Anna Sanderson has been trained by her father, who is a professional burglar, to be his accomplice. She loves the excitement of the life and has no desire to reform. One day, however, the police trail the father and daughter, and Anna, in scaling a high wall, falls and is knocked senseless. Her father carries her in his arms for some distance. Then, seeing that there can be no escape for either of them thus, he places her in the vestibule of a house, and makes his getaway alone. A young doctor and his mother discover the unconscious girl. But when they have revived her they find that she has lost all remembrance of her past life. They keep her in their home, and eventually Anna and the doctor fall in love and are married. Sometime after this, a fall from a horse restores the girl's memory. The old life of peril and adventure reasserts its attraction for her, and she is on the point of rejoining her father, who has discovered where she is living, when she realizes that stronger than love of adventure is the new love which she bears her husband."

REVIEW, The Morning Telegraph, January 3, 1915:

"In assisting her father in a robbery Anna Sanderson falls and he carries her senseless to a young doctor's doorstep, and, leaving her there, makes his getaway alone. The doctor falls in love with and marries the girl. Her mind is blank to the past, but a fall from her horse restores her memory. Her desire for excitement brings her to consider returning to her old life, but on the point of joining her father again, she realizes that her love for her husband is stronger than her love for adventure."

REVIEW, The New York Dramatic Mirror, January 6, 1915:

"Loss of memory, a change in personality, and then a struggle between the new and the old self, are utilized by Philip Lonergan in building up the dramatic situation in this two-part picture. Without being novel, the story, because of careful construction and able acting, becomes moderately interesting. The daughter of a thief - a thief herself - is left wounded on the doorstep of a young doctor's home. When she is revived her memory is a blank. Virtually adopted by the doctor and his mother, she develops a personality of much charm, in which there is no suggestion of past misdeeds. In the natural order of events she becomes the wife of the doctor, then a fall from a horse restores her memory, and with it a longing for the excitement of early days. She is on the verge of returning to a career of burglary when the personality of later origin asserts itself, and she goes home like a good little wife. All things considered - story, production, and acting - Her Menacing Past is a very fair release."

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