The Salvation Army Lass
About The Salvation Army Lass
Mary Wilson (Florence Lawrence), neglected in the slums, loves Bob Walton (Harry Solter). In a saloon Harry Brown (Charles Inslee) insults her. Bob and Brown fight, Brown's gun goes off against his own chest, and Bob is sent to Sing Sing for a year. Mary is thrown out of her room and her factory job and nearly taken up by a shoplifter, then the Salvation Army enrolls her. A year later she meets Bob, just out and about to join a burglary, and stops him at nearly fatal cost to herself.
Cast & crew
More about The Salvation Army Lass
D. W. Griffith wrote and directed it for American Mutoscope and Biograph, which released and copyrighted it on March 11, 1909, as H123873. It is one reel, 926 feet. AFI lists Edward Sheldon's play Salvation Nell, which opened in New York on November 17, 1908, as the source.
Themes
Background
AFI ties the short to Edward Sheldon's Salvation Nell, a 1908 New York play about a woman taken in by the Salvation Army.
Look
G. W. Bitzer and Arthur Marvin photographed the one-reel Biograph, 926 feet.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
A circulating copy exists.
Notes
- Florence Lawrence is Mary Wilson. Harry Solter is Bob Walton. Charles Inslee is Harry Brown.
- Anita Hendrie, Dorothy West, and Herbert Prior are on the AFI cast list. The catalog also names Linda Arvidson, Charles Avery, and Marion Leonard.
- G. W. Bitzer and Arthur Marvin photographed it.
- Moving Picture World noticed the film in its March 6 and March 20, 1909 issues.
Scenes
- Brown's pistol fires into his own chest as Bob closes in.
- Mary runs from a shoplifter into the Salvation Army and is enrolled.
- A year later she faces Bob as he is about to join a burglary.
Influenced by
- Edward Sheldon's play Salvation Nell (1908)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (The Salvation Army Lass (1909).webm)
