Their One Love
About Their One Love
Since childhood, twin sisters Madeline and Marion have shared one hero, Jack, and he has never chosen between them. When the Civil War starts he enlists and says goodbye to both. Each sister loves him and hides it. Madeline wakes to find Marion at the window with Jack's picture and decides to give him up. Marion has already guessed Madeline's feeling and decides the same. Each writes him a letter pointing him toward the other. The letters are never posted. Word comes that day that Jack has been killed. The sisters grow old together and do not marry.
Cast & crew
More about Their One Love
Jack Harvey directed the one-reel drama for the Thanhouser Film Corporation. Gertrude Thanhouser wrote the scenario. Carl Louis Gregory photographed it. Mutual Film released it on 2 May 1915. The Thanhouser twins, Madeline and Marion Fairbanks, play the sisters. Robert Wilson is Jack the soldier. Charles Emerson plays Jack as a boy.
Themes
Making
Harvey keeps the twins in the same frames with Jack so that a look meant for one sister is turned toward the other.
Reviews
Moving Picture World, 8 May 1915, called it a pretty story, exceptionally well made, and singled out the battle scenes set against the sisters at home.
Look
Carl Louis Gregory shot the one reel, alternating the war footage with the house.
Music
Silent, with English intertitles.
Preservation
A complete circulating print runs 15 minutes 18 seconds. Wikimedia Commons holds a copy.
Notes
- Reel Life printed the synopsis on 24 April 1915, a week before the Mutual release.
- Moving Picture World of 15 May 1915 noted that each sister writes Jack to take care of himself for the other, and that he receives neither letter.
- A Wikimedia file of the short runs 15 minutes 18 seconds.
- The twins were sisters off the screen and had already been Thanhouser players.
- Moving Picture World of 8 May 1915 praised the cutting between battle scenes and the twins at home.
Scenes
- Madeline wakes and sees Marion at the window, holding Jack's picture in the moonlight.
- Each writes a letter giving him to the other, and the letters stay unposted when the death notice arrives.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Their One Love 1915 The Fairbanks Twins Madeline Marion Jack Harvey Gertrude Thanhouser.webm)
