The Servant Girl's Legacy

Name: The Servant Girl's Legacy
Director: Arthur Hotaling
Genre: Comedy
Released: 1914
Duration: 8 min
Cast: Mabel Paige, Oliver Hardy, Edward Lawrence, Eloise Willard, Marguerite Ne Moyer

1914 Comedy 8 minutes Directed by Arthur Hotaling

About The Servant Girl's Legacy

Mandy Spragg, a servant, turns down Cy, the gardener. A telegram says she has inherited her uncle's fortune, and the family she works for, plus several young men, start courting her. A second telegram cuts the sum to $25. The new friends leave. Cy stays, and Mandy agrees to marry him. A third telegram corrects the inheritance to $250,000. The suitors come back. Mandy stays with Cy.

Cast & crew

More about The Servant Girl's Legacy

Arthur Hotaling directed and the film was made by Lubin's Jacksonville unit. Epes W. Sargent wrote it. It was released on November 28, 1914, as a split-reel comedy of about 600 feet, sharing the reel with the unrelated Sargent comedy You Can't Beat Them.

Themes

a fortune that rearranges a household
suitors who leave at $25
the gardener who stays
inheritance telegram
servant girl
Oliver Hardy
Mabel Paige
split reel
Jacksonville
Dawson City

Making

Hotaling's Jacksonville company turned out split-reel comedies on a weekly pace. This one uses three telegrams and a gardener who does not change his mind.

Music

Silent.

Preservation

The only known nitrate print, recovered at Dawson City and now at the Library of Congress, was restored in 2020 by the Library of Congress and Lobster Films.

Notes

Mabel Paige plays Mandy Spragg. Oliver Hardy, billed as Babe Hardy, plays Cy Whitfield.
Ed Lawrence and Eloise Willard play the employers. Marguerite Ne Moyer and Frances Ne Moyer play their daughters. Raymond McKee and Royal Byron are two of the suitors. Bert Tracy is the messenger.
It is one of the Lubin comedies Hardy made in Jacksonville in 1914 and early 1915, before the Hardy-Laurel pairing.
The reel was among more than 500 found in 1978 in a sealed swimming pool under a hockey rink in Dawson City, Yukon, preserved by the cold.
The Library of Congress and Lobster Films restored it in 2020 from the only known nitrate print.
Rob Stone, writing in 1996, called it the most readily available of Hardy's Lubin comedies.

Scenes

The first telegram turns the employers and the young men polite.
The second telegram says the inheritance is $25, and only Cy remains.
The third telegram names $250,000, and Mandy still chooses Cy.

Also available

Blu-ray: Laurel or Hardy: Early Solo Films of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy