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The Thanhouser Collection DVD Volumes 10, 11 and 12 (1910-1916)

Contents: The Actor’s Children (1910), Young Lord Stanley (1910), The Pasha’s Daughter (1911), His Great Uncle’s Spirit (1912), The Portrait of Lady Anne (1912), The Voice of Conscience (1912), In a Garden (1912), Her Nephews from Labrador (1913), His Uncle’s Wives (1913), Seven Ages of an Alligator (1913), The Farmer’s Daughters (1913), [In de Tropische Zee] (1914), Joseph in the Land of Egypt (1914), The Center of the Web (1914), Zudora [chapter 2, “The Mystery of the Sleeping House”] (1914), Old Jane of the Gaiety (1915), In the Hands of the Enemy (1915) and Silas Marner (1916).

Presented as three volumes entitled, More Early Thanhouser, The Genius of Charles J. Hite, and Edwin and Gertrude Return, this is the latest collection of Thanhouser films, which includes the feature films Joseph in the Land of Egypt (1914) and Silas Marner (1916).

The Actor’s Children (1910), the first Thanhouser production, is a tale of an actor who is unable to pay rent for his apartment, and while seeking work with his wife, the actor’s children are cast onto the streets when the landlady rents to someone else. The wandering children are lured by an organ grinder into forced street dancing. Meanwhile, the actor receives news of a huge inheritance. The children are rescued by the police and inexplicably are taken to the office of a theatrical manager. Unable to find their children, the actor and his wife look for them in theater crowds, only to recognize them dancing on stage.

Young Lord Stanley (1910) is a melodramatic story of the disinheritance of old Lord Stanley’s young son. Cast off by his father, the young man emigrates to America where he obtains a job as a family’s horse groomer. In course, he begins to fall in love with his employer’s daughter but is fired to alleviate the possibility of her marrying a lowly groom. In England, the dying Lord Stanley forgives his son, reinstating the inheritance — surprise! The inevitable outcome is apparent.