For Mother's Birthday

1907 Drama 3 minutes

Open in new tab

About For Mother's Birthday

In a poor room a mother sleeps on the floor under a blanket. Her daughter sees from the calendar that it is her mother's birthday, slips out, and picks a bunch of flowers. A hunter nearby mistakes the child for an animal and shoots. He calls for help. Peasants carry her home and lay her on the bed. The mother wakes. The girl gives her the flowers, wishes her a happy birthday, and dies.

More about For Mother's Birthday

Lucien Nonguet directed the Pathé short. The French title is Pour la fête de sa mère. An Italian Wikipedia entry gives the length as 3 minutes, or 45 meters. IMDb lists 2 minutes. Wikidata records both 1906 and 1907. IMDb's publication line is 9 February 1907.

Themes

  • A birthday on the calendar
  • Flowers in a field
  • A hunter's mistake
  • The bunch delivered as she dies
  • mother
  • birthday
  • flowers
  • hunter
  • Pathé
  • Nonguet

Background

A Pathé domestic tragedy of 1906–1907, about a child shot while picking birthday flowers.

Making

Nonguet staged the birthday errand and the hunting accident as one short Pathé drama.

Preservation

A print is on the Internet Archive.

Notes

  • Alternate French title: Pour la fête de maman. The U.S. title is For Mother's Birthday.
  • The Internet Archive identifier is silent-pour-la-fte-de-sa-mre-aka-for-mothers-birthday.

Scenes

  • The girl checks the calendar and leaves to pick flowers.
  • The hunter fires, thinking she is an animal.
  • She hands her mother the bunch and dies.

Also available

  • Internet Archive (silent-pour-la-fte-de-sa-mre-aka-for-mothers-birthday)