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Photograph: Silent Era image collection.
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The Oyster Dredger
(1915) United States of America
B&W : Two reels
Directed by Lon Chaney
Cast: J. Warren Kerrigan [Jack, the oyster dredger], Vera Sisson [Vera, the heiress], William Quinn [Quinn, the lawyer], [?] Lon Chaney?
Victor Film Company production; distributed by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated. / Produced by Lon Chaney. Scenario by Lon Chaney. / Released 14 June 1915. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / Universal release number 0576. The film was marketed in the USA with one-sheet, three-sheet and six-sheet posters. The film was released in Canada on 21 June 1915. [?] Spehr-American p. 100 does not list Chaney as acting in this film.
Drama.
Synopsis: [The Universal Weekly, Volume VI, Number 24, 12 June 1915, page 18] J. Warren Kerrigan is featured in “The Oyster Dredger,” a Victor two-reel drama, written and produced by Lon Chaney, which will be released June 14. Mr. Kerrigan is supported by Vera Sisson and William Quinn. The photoplay introduces us to Mr. Kerrigan in the guise of an oyster dredger. In the early scenes the oyster dredger is shown at his livelihood. In the distance Vera, an heiress, is riding in her motorboat. / Vera sees the handsome young dredger working his tongs on the ocean bed and orders the mechanic who is running her boat to bump the dredger’s craft. Jack, the dredger, is thrown overboard while Vera speeds onward. Jack, angered by what he believes is the malicious mischievousness of a rich girl, nurses his desire to be revenged upon her. / The next day Vera again goes riding in her motorboat. While cruising around the lake, occasionally running in close to Jack’s craft, the motorboat breaks down. Jack laughs at the discomfiture of his tormentor of the day before but decides to go to her help. He hands her an oar but she playfully attempts to pull him off his balance into the water and, now thoroughly angered, he starts to row off without helping her out of her difficulty. / Vera begins to cry, however, and Jack is keenly susceptible to her tears. He rows alongside the motorboat again and takes her into his own boat. He then rows off while Vera’s mechanican repairs the motorboat engine. Jack takes Vera to shore and, after landing her, immediately returns to the dredging grounds, paying no attention to Vera’s attempt to thank him. When she sees that her thanks is scorned Vera inwardly rages. Upon returning to her hotel, she has not recovered from her pique and on the impulse of the moment writes a note to her lawyer requesting him to bring all the documents which relate to her property to the hotel for her inspection. When Quinn, her lawyer, arrives Vera tells him that she intends to transfer all her property to the young oyster dredger. / “He must be made to believe that he is the lost heir to the property,” she counsels her lawyer. / Quinn draws up the necessary documents for the transfer and two hotel employees are called in to witness the transaction. Both are sworn to secrecy. Jack arrives home from the oyster beds and soon after receives a visit from the lawyer, who tells him that he is the heir to property valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars. After the lawyer has left him, Jack literally walks on air. He sees himself in evening clothes at a reception to which Vera, his tormentor, is also invited. She attempts to renew her acquaintance with him, but Jack, in his mind’s eye, merely surveys her from head to foot and turns superciliously away. Meanwhile, Vera, anxious that she may undergo the daily experiences of the handsome young dredger with whom she has fallen in love, rows out to the beds and fills several large cans with oysters. / Jack gives up his old shack and engages a magnificent suite in the hotel which Vera has just left. Vera, on the other hand, makes her home in Jack’s vacated cottage. Looking from his suite in the hotel, Jack sees Vera tugging away at the heavy oyster cans and smiles to himself to see the tables reversed. / In the interim, Vera’s lawyer, a rascal at heart, realizes that without his word to support her story, Vera is powerless to regain her property. The lawyer pays a visit to Vera in her hut. She has just returned from Jack’s home, where, seeking admittance to find out how her plan of preparing Jack for a life in society has succeeded, she has been scornfully told to use the servants’ entrance at the rear of the house. As the lawyer enters her hut she is crying. Quinn asks her how she likes her new home. She announces that she intends to take her property back in view of the cruel way Jack has treated her. The lawyer then tells her that he loves her and attempts to kiss her. Vera throws him aside and slaps his face. The lawyer leaves in anger, vowing vengeance. He goes at once to Jack’s home and explains to the young oyster dredger just how he happened to come into possession of the property. He also tells him that if he so wishes there is nothing to keep him from keeping the property which has been transferred to im. Jack realizes, for the first time, what Vera has done for him, and at once determines to give up the property transferred to him. / He goes to his old hut where Vera tells him of the insult she was forced to submit to at the hands of her lawyer. Jack angrily leaves for a saloon in the fishing village where the lawyer spends his spare time. The latter backs away from the husky young oyster dredger and finally steps backward off the pier at the rear of the saloon and falls to his death into the ocean below. Jack and Vera are married soon afterward.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 26 December 2009.
References: Spehr-American p. 100; Weaver-Twenty p. 76 : UnivWeekly-19150612 pp. 18, 34.
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