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Photograph: Silent Era image collection.
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She Stoops to Conquer
(1914) England
B&W : Three reels / 3060 feet
Directed by George Loane Tucker
Cast: Henry Ainley [Marlow], Jane Gail [Kate Hardcastle], Gregory Scott [Jeremy], Charles Rock [Hardcastle], Wyndham Guise [Tony Lumpkin], Christine Rayner [Constance Neville], Gerald Ames [Hastings], Lewis Gilbert [Sir Charles Marlow], Stella St. Audrie [Mrs. Hardcastle], Nelson Ramsey [the landlord], Fay Compton [a barmaid]
The London Film Company production; distributed by L. Gaumont and Company [British]. / Scenario by Bannister Merwin, from the play She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith. / Released March 1914. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / Compton’s film debut. The film was released in the USA in July 1914.
Comedy: Historical.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? Mr. Hardcastle, an old-fashioned country gentleman, has designs to marry his daughter Kate to young Marlow, the son of his old friend Sir Charles Marlow. Letters on the subject have passed between Hardcastle and Sir Charles, and it has been arranged that young Marlow shall pay a visit to the Hardcastles, with the hope that the two young people will develop a mutual interest that will fulfill their parents’ wishes. As it happens, young Marlow, though hale fellow among men and quite at his ease with women of the humbler classes, is shy and embarrassed in the presence of ladies of means and position. He dreads the visit to the Hardeastles, but is persuaded to go by his friend, Hastings, who is in love with Mrs. Hardcastle’s niece, Constance Neville. Hastings volunteers to accompany young Marlow in order to be near his own fair one, and thus to seek opportunity to defeat the plan of Mrs. Hardcastle, who intends that Constance Neville shall wed her own son by a former marriage, Tony Lumpkin, a loutish, prankish young man. When Hastings and young Marlow stop at a tavern to inquire the way to Mr. Hardcastle’s house, they fall in with Tony, who is carousing with the frequenters of the tavern. Tony plays a practical joke: he directs them to Hardcastle’s house but tells them that it is an inn kept by a man who poses as a gentleman. Hastings and Marlow go to Mr. Hardcastle’s house, and, thinking the place an inn, lord it about and give blunt orders in a fashion that drives their bewildered host almost to distraction. Hastings is first to discover their mistake. He comes face-to-face with his beloved Constance and she sets him right. He decides, however, to keep young Marlow in the dark, for he knows that his friend will take the first excuse to depart when he has once learned the truth about the supposed inn. So Hastings tells young Marlow that Miss Neville and Miss Hardcastle happen to be stopping in the house. Young Marlow is then introduced to Miss Hardcastle, but he is so overwhelmed by shyness that he dares not raise his eyes to look at her, and he escapes from the tete-a-tete as quickly as he can. Later, however, meeting Miss Hardcastle in the housewife’s dress which her father requires her to put on every evening, he mistakes her for the barmaid, and at once, with all confidence, develops an interest in her. She does not at first undeceive him, but rather leads him on, for she recognizes his merits. When it is obvious that, because of the supposed difference in their stations, there can be no further relations between them, she at last tells him that he is in Mr. Hardcastle’s house, and that she is a poor relation of the family. Young Marlow professes his love for her, but he is extremely disturbed by the realization of his unmeant rudeness to Mr. Hardcastle, whose genial reassurances, when the mistake has been explained, barely induce the young man to remain in the house. The sudden arrival of the senior Marlow helps to clear the situation, but there is still some confusion due to the fact that young Marlow does not yet suspect the true identity of Miss Hardcastle. Meantime Hastings, with the assistance of Tony, who is quite out of sympathy with his mother’s plan to marry him to Miss Neville, has planned to elope with his fair one. Tony gets Miss Neville’s jewels out of his mother’s apartment and hands them over to Hastings, who gives them to young Marlow to care for. Young Marlow at once places them in charge of Mrs. Hardcastle, whom he supposes to be the “landlady.” Thus Miss Neville has to give up the idea of taking her jewels with her. The elopement is later frustrated by Tony’s stupidity in asking Mrs. Hardcastle to read him a note sent to him by Hastings. Mrs. Hardcastle, in a high dudgeon, sets out with her niece by carriage to place the girl in charge of a relative, but Tony, who accompanies the carriage, so manages that after a boisterous journey the carriage stops in a pond near the place where it started, and while Mrs. Hardcastle, thinking they are many miles from home, is hysterical over imaginary danger from highwaymen. Miss Neville slips from the coach into the waiting Hastings’ arms. She decides against eloping, however, and induces Hastings to take her back to the house. The confusion as to young Marlow’s attitude towards Kate Hardcastle is finally cleared up when his father and Mr. Hardcastle, after witnessing from behind a screen a tender love passage, suddenly appear and make young Marlow aware of Kate's true identity. Happy relationships are quickly established, and Hastings and Constance, returning at the moment, are forgiven by Mrs. Hardcastle.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: (unknown) [United Kingdom]; Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 14 November 2022.
References: Gifford-British n. 04673 : Website-IMDb.
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