An Easter Lily
“A comedy-drama that will be enjoyed by young and old.”
About An Easter Lily
Sonny Jim follows the family's African American maid to the laundry, makes friends with her daughter Lily, and shares his teddy bear. Mother Dear buys him new Easter clothes and gets the house ready for relatives. When he learns Lily has no holiday dress, he takes the white frock meant for a visiting cousin and brings Lily to church. He pulls her up the aisle into Daddy Jim's pew. Asked why, he says nobody remembered Lily at all. He is forgiven.
Cast & crew
More about An Easter Lily
Tefft Johnson directed the third Sonny Jim short and plays Daddy Jim. Elaine Sterne, later Elaine Sterne Carrington, wrote it. Bobby Connelly plays Sonny Jim. Ada Utley plays Lily. Dorothy Kelly is Mother Dear, Rose Tapley is Aunt Kate, and Charles Kent is General-Uncle. The General Film Company released the one-reeler on 10 April 1914. The surviving print is incomplete and runs 10 minutes.
Themes
Making
The National Film Preservation Foundation funded the work with a Save America's Treasures grant. Preservationists kept as much picture as the decomposed nitrate would allow. The church aisle is known from the trade synopsis, not from the incomplete print.
Music
Silent. The preserved copy has no music.
Preservation
An incomplete tinted 35mm print is at the Library of Congress, from a nitrate release print found at the New Zealand Film Archive in 2010. The transfer runs 10 minutes.
Notes
- Vitagraph built the Sonny Jim series to about 20 shorts. It ended in 1915.
- A novel using stills from the films came out the year the series stopped.
- Connelly later played in Frank Borzage's Humoresque (1920). He died of bronchitis at 13, after more than 80 films.
- The Library of Congress copy is a tinted nitrate release print found at the New Zealand Film Archive in 2010.
- Nitrate damage ate into parts of that print. The transfer was made at 16 frames per second.
- Motion Picture World supplies the church ending, which is missing from the surviving reel.
Scenes
- Sonny Jim gives Lily his teddy bear at the laundry.
- He takes his cousin's white frock so Lily can come to church.
- He hauls her up the aisle into Daddy Jim's pew.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (An Easter Lily (1914).webm)
- National Film Preservation Foundation
Quotes
Cause nobody 'membered Lily at all.
