How Men Propose
About How Men Propose
Three roommates each go out to propose, and each, unknown to the others, asks Grace Darling. She accepts, takes the ring, and gives him a photograph she slips from a frame, replacing it before the next caller. At home the men lay the pictures side by side and see they match. They return to find her gone. A letter, left with the maid, says she writes for a magazine and was only collecting material on how men propose.
Cast & crew
More about How Men Propose
Crystal Film Company produced the one-reeler and Universal released it on 20 July 1913. Trade credits usually give the writing and production to Lois Weber and the direction to Weber and Phillips Smalley. The Library of Congress lists the director as unknown, and possibly Weber. Anthony Slide and Shelley Stamp leave the short out of their Weber filmographies.
Themes
Making
Margarita Fischer's Grace Darling is the earliest starring role of hers that has turned up on home video. Weber and Smalley appear in the short, and most copies still carry Weber's name.
Preservation
A print survives and circulates in the public domain.
Notes
- Margarita Fischer plays Grace Darling. Chester Barnett, Phillips Smalley, and Lois Weber also appear, all uncredited.
- Between proposals she puts a fresh photograph into the frame and, during the second visit, holds up two fingers toward the camera.
- The third man starts to faint when the other two show him the matching pictures.
Scenes
- Grace swaps a new portrait into the frame as soon as each man leaves.
- The three photographs, laid on a table, are the same face.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-how-men-propose)
