The Portrait of Lady Anne
About The Portrait of Lady Anne
Florence La Badie plays Lady Anne and the modern girl who looks like her. A century earlier Anne quarreled with a suitor, William Russell's part. He went to war and was killed. She married someone else, had a child, and died grieving. The descendant keeps Anne's full-length portrait and the dress from the painting. At a costume party she wears the dress, quarrels with her boyfriend, Harry Benham, and finds an old note in the pocket. From the balcony she sees him dancing with a woman who is Anne, stepped out of the frame. She puts the dress back on, goes downstairs, and makes up with him. Anne returns into the portrait.
Cast & crew
More about The Portrait of Lady Anne
Lloyd Lonergan wrote the scenario. Thanhouser released the one-reeler on July 23, 1912, through the Film Supply Company of America. Wikidata credits Lonergan as director. Carl Bennett's Silent Era list leaves the director blank. Justus D. Barnes plays Anne's father. Carl M. Leviness is also billed.
Themes
Background
Thanhouser was releasing one-reel dramas weekly in 1912. This one uses a colonial portrait and a costume party as the frame for a ghost.
Making
The trick is a double: the portrait figure leaves the frame and dances while the living girl watches from the stairs. Thanhouser used that substitution in a domestic interior rather than a fantasy set.
Preservation
A print survives. A 2015 account of Florence La Badie's films discusses this one as extant.
Notes
- La Badie plays both the dead belle and the living descendant.
- Moving Picture World described the portrait hanging in the place of honor in an old colonial house.
- The note in the dress pocket is a hundred years old and confirms the story that Anne died after sending a suitor away.
- Russell's suitor is the one killed in the war. Benham is the modern boyfriend.
- A 2015 account of La Badie's career treats the film as a surviving print.
Scenes
- The descendant finds the old note in the pocket of Anne's dress.
- She watches her boyfriend dance with the woman who has left the portrait.
- Anne steps back into the frame after the couple makes up.