The Sins of the Mothers
Cast & Crew
Ralph W. Ince
Anita Stewart
Julia Swayne Gordon
Ralph W. Ince
Earle Williams
Lucille Lee
Film Details
Synopsis
Because Mrs. Raymond's husband commits suicide after suffering financial ruin due to her heavy gambling debts and she notices that her daughter Trixie shows a tendency for gambling, she sends Trixie to be educated in a convent. Years later, when Trixie desires to become a nun, her mother induces her to leave the convent and experience society life for a year. Trixie soon develops her taste for gambling and incurs heavy debts. Norris Graham, her childhood sweetheart, pays the debts and marries her. Trixie promises to stop, but she soon loses her servant Dovey's money at the track and pawns a necklace to repay more debts. After Dovey is arrested for stealing the necklace, Norris makes Trixie confess. Mrs. Raymond sells her secretly owned gambling establishment to Anatole De Voie and takes Trixie on a trip. When she returns, Trixie loses more money at De Voie's, and when Norris, now the district attorney, raids the establishment, Trixie is accidentally shot and killed. Her staring skull haunts her mother.
Director
Ralph W. Ince
Cast
Anita Stewart
Julia Swayne Gordon
Ralph W. Ince
Earle Williams
Lucille Lee
Mary Maurice
Paul Scardon
Film Details
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Elaine Sterne won the Vitagraph New York Evening Sun scenario contest with the scenario for this film. She was awarded $1,000. Some 3,500 people submitted scenarios for the contest. Sterne also won a contest to write the scenario for the film Without Hope (see below). Lucille Lee, also known as Lucille Lee Stewart, was Anita Stewart's sister. This film opened at the Vitagraph Theatre on December 27, 1914. V-L-S-E, Inc. released it nationwide on June 14, 1915. The film was re-released by Vitagraph in December 1919 in a version edited by Mr. and Mrs. George Randolph Chester. For this version, Elaine Sterne is credited with the story, and Donald I. Buchanan is credited with the scenario. Mrs. Raymond's first name is "Trixie" in this version, and her daughter's name is "Ruth." The daughter does not die in the end, as she does in the 1915 version. After her confession to Norris, his love helps her overcome her passion for gambling. When her friend Alice invites them to go slumming, Norris refuses to go, but insists that Ruth go. After Alice takes her to a gambling resort, Ruth demonstrates that she no longer wants to gamble. Norris then confesses that he was testing her. The re-release was copyrighted by the Vitagraph Co. of America; December 19, 1919; LU14549.
