The Vicar of Wakefield - 1910

One reel version of Oliver Goldsmith's classic 1766 novel.
The Vicar of Wakefield: One reel of approximately 1,000 feet, released December 17, 1910.
Print source: Nederlands Filmmuseum, 13 minutes 20 seconds.
Original music composed and performed by Raymond A. Brubacher thanhouser.org/​people/​Rayb.htm.
Adapted from the novel by Oliver Goldsmith. Cast: Martin J. Faust (the Vicar of Wakefield), Frank H. Crane, Anna Rosemond, William Garwood, Marie Eline, Bertha Blanchard, Lucille Younge, William Russell.
Edwin Thanhouser, and Lloyd F. Lonergan who wrote or supervised screenplays for hundreds of Thanhouser films, often turned to classic plays and novels for quality source material. The Vicar of Wakefield was an enormously popular English novel for 150 years, offering a complex but accessible mix of Georgian English characters, situations, mores and manners. All this had to be simplified and distilled down to one reel of story, which was done better by Thanhouser than any other studio could have done.
In 1910 virtually all movies were developed in the director’s mind, improvised during filming, and made into a narrative by the film editor. Theater veteran Edwin Thanhouser and journalist Lonergan were possibly the first movie professionals to begin each new production with a complete screenplay (which they called a “continuity”). Within a year after its first release, the studio had a reputation for the best-developed stories in the business.
Also contributing was Gertrude (Mrs. Edwin) Thanhouser who helped on the scenarios and film editing.

Source: www.thanhouser.org
For futher information on films by Thanhouser, visit the site above. Let’s keep memories of this great studio alive.