|
The Sage-Brush Gal
Also known as {The Sagebrush Girl}, {Sage Brush Girl}
(1915) United States of America
B&W : Three reels
Directed by Rollin S. Sturgeon
Cast: Mary Ruby [Liza Filkins, a star of the coffee house], George Kunkel [Bill McTwirk, a gambler], Major J.A. McGuire [a miner], William Burke [Ted, the miner’s nephew], Myrtle Gonzales [Mary, Ted’s sweetheart], George Holt [Trigger Jim], Dan Duffy [Bud Peters, the sheriff], Otto Lederer [an old man], Patricia Palmer
The Vitagraph Company of America production; distributed by The General Film Company, Incorporated [Broadway Star Feature]. / From a story by Frederick Chapin. / Premiered 23 November 1914 in New York, New York. General release, 16 January 1915. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Drama: Western.
Synopsis]: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? The story of “The Sage-Brush Gal” is told by an old timer, a derelict of the days of ’49 to an automobile party stopped on the road by a blow-out. Liza Filkins, queen of a coffee house at Amador Junction, California, is the object of universal admiration. Among her numerous admirers is Bill McTwirk, known as the “square” gambler and her most persistent suitor. Although Liza will have nothing to do with him, Bill keeps up courage until the arrival of Ted, a young Easterner, who, leaving a sweetheart at home, comes to work tor his Uncle Sam Johnson, a mine owner, led immediately falls in love with Liza, who returns his affections, little dreaming there is a girl back East. The young Easterner, who is somewhat of a weakling, is enticed by the allurement of the camp’s sporting life and starts to gamble. Bill McTwirk, owner of the gambling house, tries to prevail on him to quit, for Liza’s sake, but the fever is in his veins and he refuses. In order to continue his gambling, Ted steals money from his uncle, and even used money entrusted to his care by Liza, money she had saved to pay tor an operation on her invalid mother, to satisfy his craving for the game of chance. A run of bad luck puts him in ill humor, when he falls in with Trigger Jim, a typical “bad man,” suspected of rustling cattle who coerces Ted into giving up the combination of the mine office safe, which contains $10,000. To add to his troubles he receives a letter from the East, in which his sweetheart upbraids him for his neglect, and Liza quarreling with him, gives back the engagement ring, and demands her letters, among which she finds the one from the Eastern girl. Trigger Jim is suspected of the theft of the money but there is no proof until Liza overhears him offer Ted half if he will help him cross the border. Ted agrees, but determines to return his share of the money. Liza tells the sheriff and Johnson of her discovery, but stipulates that Ted be allowed to go back east to his sweetheart, who needs him badly. She discovers the hiding place of the money by a trick and in trying to regain it from an isolated cabin, where Trigger had cached it, is saved from death at Trigger’s hands by a landslide which kills Trigger, Liza escaping the tons of rocks that demolishes the cabin, by a hair’s breadth. Bill McTwirk, disgusted at the turn of his love affair, determines to go back home and wrecks his home preparatory to leaving. As he is standing in the midst of the wreckage, Liza comes to thank him for bringing a famous city surgeon to cure her mother. She realizes that Bill is the one she really loves and gives him to understand that if he would ask her, she would gladly become his wife. Just a little later wedding bells ring out joyously in Amador Junction, while back in New York, a loving, trusting girl is made happy by the timely arrival of her lover and protector. The tire is fixed as the story is finished. The automobile party proceed on their way, while the old timer is seen shaking his head in retrospection of a good story well told.
Reviews: [The Moving Picture World, 30 January 1915, page ?] A Broadway Star feature, in three parts, written by Frederick Chapin and produced by Rollin S. Sturgeon, picturized by Doris Schroeder. A strong western drama produced at the Vitagraph theater, New York City, now being released on the regular service. It is a most meritorious production.
Survival status: The film is presumed lost.
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 14 November 2022.
References: ClasIm-223 p. 56; ClasIm-225 p. 44 : Website-IMDb.
|
