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The Peach-Basket Hat
Also known as {The Peach Basket Hat}, {The Peachbasket Hat}
(1909) United States of America
B&W : Split-reel / 666 feet
Directed by D.W. Griffith
Cast: John R. Cumpson [Mr. Jones], Florence Lawrence [Mrs. Jones], Anita Hendrie [the baby’s nursemaid], Violet Mersereau [the visitor with the peach-basket hat], Linda Arvidson [another visitor], [?] ? [the maid], Marion Leonard [a gypsy], Herbert Prior [a gypsy; a store customer], [?] ? [the short gypsy], [?] ? [the greengrocer], Arthur V. Johnson [a store customer; the first policeman], Mack Sennett [a store customer; a policeman], Jeanie Macpherson [a store customer], Owen Moore [a store customer; a man on the street; ], Anthony O’Sullivan [a store customer; a man on the street], Mary Pickford [a store customer; a girl on the street], Charles Avery [a man on the street], Clara T. Bracy, Mrs. Herbert Miles, Charles West, [?] Robert Harron? [the boy on the street]
Biograph Company production; distributed by Biograph Company. / Scenario by Frank E. Woods. Cinematography by Arthur Marvin and G.W. Bitzer. / © 24 June 1909 by Biograph Company [H128739]. Released 24 June 1909; in a split-reel with The Mexican Sweethearts (1909). / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Comedy.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? No more popular fad has ever struck the feminine fancy than the peachbasket hat. This is a creation of headgear that for size outstrips anything yet designed by the disordered mind of the modiste. As a “skypiece” it is a “skyscraper,” and in decoration it looks like a combination horticultural and food exhibition. Nevertheless, this mammoth “lid” was seized onto by the feminine world with the avidity of a boy for his first baseball suit. It is only natural that our friend, Mrs. Jones, should experience this obsession, and what woe it preambled! The Jones family are seated at breakfast. Mr. Jones is reading the morning paper. An account of a kidnapping by gypsies engages his attention, and he is filled with horror at the anticipation of the possible abduction of his young hopeful, a baby one year old. He tries to impress Mrs. J., but she is fascinated by the millinery “ads.” The situation for Jones becomes more tense when on going outside he sees a couple of the odious gypsies with a child. Mrs. Jones takes herself off to buy a peachbasket, leaving baby in charge of the nurse, who, being of a romantic nature, enlists the services of the gypsies to tell her fortune. Mrs. Jones returns and almost catches the nursemaid, who is quite beside herself at her near discovery. Mrs. Jones places the huge box containing the hat on the table, while the nurse, placing the baby on the floor, assists in extricating the hat from its crate. Putting on the hat, Mrs. J. goes into the next room, followed by the maid, to view the effect in the mirror. Mr. Jones now arrives, and his first thought is for baby; he cares naught for the peachbasket hat. Baby is nowhere to be seen. The nurse, in her excitement, does not remember where she placed it. Through the house they rush fruitlessly; out on the road and on after the disappearing gypsies, who are overtaken only to find that the baby the woman carries is not a Jones. The clouds of despair o’ershadow the couple in their dining-room, when suddenly the hat box on the floor is seen to move. There, under the hollow cube of pasteboard, is found baby Jones, the box having been blown by a gust of wind off the table over the child.
Survival status: Print exists.
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Keywords: Hats
Listing updated: 22 March 2023.
References: Film credits : Barry-Griffith p. 41; Eyman-Pickford p. 323; Spehr-American p. 3 : Website-AFI; Website-IMDb.
Home video: DVD.
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