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Sunshine Sue
(1910) United States of America
B&W : One reel / 998 feet
Directed by D.W. Griffith
Cast: Marion Sunshine [Sunshine Sue], W. Chrystie Miller [Sue’s father], Clara T. Bracy [Sue’s mother], Edward Dillon [Tom, her suitor], Charles H. West [Harry, the summer boarder], Henry Lehrman [Harry’s friend], George O. Nicholls [the head of the employment agency], Donald Crisp [the sweatshop boss], Robert Harron [a sweatshop employee], Dorothy West [a sweatshop employee], Jeanie Macpherson [a sweatshop employee; and a piano store employee], [?] Jack Mulhall? [a piano store employee], William J. Butler [the piano store owner], Guy Hedlund [a piano store customer], Francis J. Grandon [a piano store customer; and a yokel], J. Jiquel Lanoe [a waiter], [?] James Kirkwood?, [?] Violet Mersereau?, [?] Mary Pickford?
Biograph Company production; distributed by Biograph Company. / From the screen story “The Old Piano” by Wilfred Lucas. / Cinematography by G.W. Bitzer. / © 17 November 1910 by Biograph Company [J147831]. Released 14 November 1910. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / [?] Attributions for Pickford’s appearance in the cast are highly suspect.
Drama.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? Sue is the sunshine of the old home, ever smiling, singing, and lifting the burden from her parents’ shoulders in their declining years. She is beloved by honest country lad Tom, who is at a loss to know how to show it, and she is too carefree to understand. He was content to sit for hours and listen to her sing and play the old songs on the parlor organ. Fate seemed to be taking good care of affairs, until one day a summer boarder pays the homestead a visit. Good looking, easy of manner, and the owner of an automobile, Sue feels quite elated when he pays her some attention. She readily consents to taking a ride with him, which meets the approval of her parents, who look upon the young man as highly reputable. Ah. Here is the time-honored trick of fate; the playing with fire, so often the beginning of the end. Some miles away from the village, the auto becomes conveniently disabled, and as it is assumed it will be some time before it is righted, the young man suggests that they go to the roadhouse nearby for rest and refreshments. So well entertained is she that the time flies swiftly and when she suggests returning home she is made to believe that it is too late to return home that night. Stunned at first by this intelligence, she awakens to the full realization of the situation and excluding the young man from the room, she passes the night alone in dreadful anxiety, for she imagines the disquietude her dear old folks are suffering. And rightly, too, for at dawn her poor old father is with faithful Tom, after an all-night vigil at the front gate sorrowfully dragging himself up to the cottage door. The young man returns to Sue in the morning and persuades her to go with him to the city, promising to marry her upon arrival. To this she consents and he installs her in a furnished room while he ostensibly goes to make arrangements for their marriage. While he is away she writes this news to her father. But, alas, the poor girl is later made to appreciate the cruel truth of the situation when the young man pretends his father objects to his marrying just at present. He, of course, reasons that she has gone too far to turn back; she fully realizes her awful predicament, for she knows how the world will regard her apparent indiscretion. Ashamed to return home, she seeks employment. In this direction she meets with the indignities often afforded the innocent by those human vultures who call themselves men. Her experience is enough to convince her of the falseness of the world she would enter, so back home she goes the same day to be received with open arms by her dear old daddy, whose searching gaze she has met with a smile.
Survival status: Prints exist in the Museum of Modern Art film archive [35mm nitrate negative, 35mm nitrate positive]; and in the Library of Congress film archive (Ed Foley collection) [35mm nitrate positive] and (paper print collection) [35mm paper positive, 16mm reduction positive]; and in the film holdings of Film Preservation Associates [35mm nitrate positive].
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 28 April 2023.
References: Barry-Griffith p. 42; Spehr-American p. 3; Usai-Griffith-4 pp. 215-217 : Website-AFI; Website-IMDb.
Home video: DVD.
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