Falling Leaves
About Falling Leaves
Dr. Earl Headley shows colleagues patients he has cured of consumption. In the Thompson house, Winifred is dying of the same disease. The family doctor tells her parents she will be gone when the last leaf falls. Little Trixie, listening, goes out at night with a ball of string and ties fallen leaves back onto the branches. Headley, passing the garden, asks what she is doing. She takes him inside. He injects his serum. Three months later Winifred is recovering, and the doctor brings her flowers.
Cast & crew
More about Falling Leaves
Alice Guy-Blaché wrote and directed the one-reeler for Solax and used the studio's stock company. Moving Picture World carried Solax's release notes in March 1912. A short story version under her name ran in Motion Picture News on April 12.
Themes
Making
Guy-Blaché staged the cure as a practical serum, not as a miracle the child performs. Trixie's night work in the garden is what brings Headley to the door.
Preservation
A print is preserved at the Library of Congress.
Notes
- Magda Foy, billed as the Solax Kid, plays Trixie. She appeared in 26 Solax films between 1910 and 1913.
- Mace Greenleaf is Dr. Headley, Marian Swayne is Winifred, Blanche Cornwall and Darwin Karr are the parents.
- The plot borrows the dying-when-the-last-leaf-falls idea from O. Henry's 1907 story "The Last Leaf.
Scenes
- Trixie ties fallen leaves back onto the branches with string.
- Headley stops in the garden and follows her into the house.
Influenced by
- O. Henry, "The Last Leaf" (1907)
Also available
- Internet Archive (falling_leaves_1912)
Quotes
When the last leaf falls, she will have passed away.
