What the Doctor Ordered
About What the Doctor Ordered
Mack Sennett plays a hypochondriac living among orange groves. His doctor sends him to the mountains for the air. He goes up to Mount Lowe, gets into trouble on the heights, and decides he wants the groves back. Eddie Dillon is caught in the snow during the trip.
Cast & crew
More about What the Doctor Ordered
Silent Era credits Frank Powell as director. Other listings credit Mack Sennett, who plays the patient. Percy Higginson photographed it. Dell Henderson is credited with the writing on some cast sheets. Biograph shot it at Mount Lowe and released it on 5 August 1912, on a split reel with The Tourists. The negative is 617 feet. Copyright is 7 August 1912. Mabel Normand, Jack Pickford, and Edward Dillon are in the Silent Era cast. General Film distributed it.
Themes
Making
The company went to Mount Lowe for the mountain air the doctor prescribes, instead of faking the trip on a lot.
Look
Percy Higginson photographed the Mount Lowe exteriors and the orange-grove opening.
Preservation
A print survives and is on the Internet Archive. Public domain in the United States.
Notes
- The Internet Archive identifier is silent-what-the-doctor-ordered.
- A viewer note calls it a comedy of sunny California and has Dillon nearly dying in the snow while the orange grove is still in sight below.
- A print exists. Public domain in the United States.
- It is a Biograph split reel, not a Keystone short.
- IMDb lists the short at about 10 minutes.
Scenes
- The doctor orders Sennett out of the orange grove and up the mountain.
- Dillon is stranded in the snow on Mount Lowe.
- Sennett decides he would rather go home.
Also available
- Internet Archive (silent-what-the-doctor-ordered)
