What Happened to Mary

What Happened to Mary
Still with Miriam Nesbitt, Mary Fuller, and Marc McDermott
Directed by Ashley Miller
Charles Brabin
Screenplay by Bannister Merwin
Story by Edwin Bliss
Starring Mary Fuller
Marc McDermott
Production
company
Distributed by General Film Company
Release date
  • July 26, 1912 (1912-07-26)
Running time
 12 1 reel episodes
Country United States
Language Silent (English intertitles)
Title card from an episode of the serial. Note that there is no question mark present in the series title.

What Happened to Mary (sometimes erroneously referred to as What Happened to Mary?) is the first motion picture serial made in the United States.[1][2] Made by Edison Studios, the action serial starred Mary Fuller in twelve one-reel episodes released monthly beginning July 26, 1912 to coincide with the serial story of the same name published in McClure's The Ladies' World magazine. What Happened to Mary was performed as a stage play and published as a single-volume print novel. Therefore, it is an early example of a multiple-media marketing campaign. The scripts were written by Horace G. Plympton and directed by Charles Brabin.

Cast

Production

This serial came to be after the editor of The Ladies' World, Charles Dwyer, met Horace G. Plimpton, manager of Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope Company. He was interested in the concept of the story and the plan for an installment each issue. A few days after the meeting he suggested making a film version of each installment. The parallel release of magazine and serial installments should support each other.[3]

The cover of The Ladies' World (1912) advertised "One Hundred Dollars For You IF You Can Tell 'What Happened to Mary" The first chapter of the story was printed in that issue with a competition. The closest correct guess at the events of the next twenty minutes of the story, in 300 words or less, would win $100. This was won by Lucy Proctor of Armstrong, California with the answer that Mary is rescued by a young man in his car. This solution was printed in the September 1912 issue.[3]

Although they would later become synonymous with the medium, and though the heroine did participate in perilous action sequences, no chapter-ending cliffhangers were employed in this production. A sequel (which did include a question mark in its title) was released in 1913 called Who Will Marry Mary?[3]

Episodes

The serial consisted of twelve one-reel episodes released from July 26, 1912 to June 27, 1913:

  1. The Escape from Bondage
  2. Alone in New York
  3. Mary in Stageland
  4. The Affair at Raynor's
  5. A Letter to the Princess
  6. A Clue to Her Parentage
  7. False to Their Trust
  8. A Will and a Way
  9. A Way to the Underworld
  10. The High Tide of Misfortune
  11. A Race to New York
  12. Fortune Smiles[4]

A stage version written by Owen Davis and featuring Olive Wyndham as Mary premiered the Lyric Theatre in Allentown, Pennsylvania on March 4, 1913[5] before opening at the Fulton Theatre in New York on March 24, 1913.[6] The 1913 novelization by Bob Brown incorporated material from the play, the film, and the Ladies' World stories.[7]

References

  1. ↑ Malcolm-Smith, George (19 January 1933). "The Observation Post". The Hartford Courant. 96 (Daily ed.). Hartford, Connecticut. p. 7 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ↑ Klepper, Robert K. (1 January 2005). Silent Films, 1877-1996: A Critical Guide to 646 Movies. McFarland & Company. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-7864-2164-0.
  3. 1 2 3 Stedman, Raymond William (1971). "1. Drama by Instalment". Serials: Suspense and Drama By Installment. University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 3–8. ISBN 978-0-8061-0927-5.
  4. ↑ Bennet, Carl (22 May 2012). "What Happened to Mary?". The Progressive Silent Film List. Silent Era.
  5. ↑ Staff Writer (February 28, 1913). "What Happened to Mary". Allentown Democrat. Allentown, Pennsylvania – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ Thorold, W. J.; (Jr.), Arthur Hornblow; Maxwell, Perriton; Beach, Stewart (1913). Theatre Magazine. 17-18. Theatre Magazine Company. p. 130.
  7. ↑ Brown, Bob (1913). What Happened to Mary: A Novelization from the Play and the Stories Appearing in the Ladies' World. Grosset & Dunlap, Publishers.
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