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Photograph: Silent Era image collection.
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The Snow Girl
(1915) United States of America
B&W : Three reels
Directed by Frank S. Beresford
Cast: Brinsley Shaw [Harry Drake], Glen White [Ned Hurley], Mildred Manning [Nell Gregg], [?] ? [Romaine], [?] ? [Gregg, Nell’s father], [?] ? [the halfbreed guide], [?] ? [Scarface]
The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated, production; distributed by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated [Laemmle]. / Scenario by Frank S. Beresford. / Released 16 June 1915. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / Universal release number 0582. The film was marketed in the USA with three-sheet and six-sheet posters, and two versions of one-sheet posters. The film was released in Canada on 23 June 1915.
Drama: Northwoods.
Synopsis: [The Universal Weekly, Volume VI, Number 24, 12 June 1915, page 29] Real tobogganing, skating and iceboating scenes are featured in “The Snow Girl,” an unusually realistic and thrilling three-reel Laemmle drama of the North woods, which will be released on June 16. The wintry scenes were filmed during the last heavy snow storm of the season in the Adirondacks just at the time the Winter Carnival was at its height at Saranac Lake, N.Y. Scenes from this carnival are included in the film and the whole feature will make an especially appropriate release for the hot weather. Brinsley Shaw, Glen White and Mildred Manning are featured in the photodrama, which was written and produced by Frank S. Beresford. The story of the drama follows: / Harry Drake, agent for the Romaine Pulpwood Company of New York, while exploring the great North woods for a new pulpwood forest, runs across a high waterfall in the midst of a very valuable tract of pulpwood and, learning that it belongs to an invalid who lives alone on the place with his daughter, he plans to get the property away from them. / Romaine, the notorious timber shark, conspires to rob Gregg and Nell by means of a fake deed, which is represented to Gregg as a lease for the waterpower rights. / Nell’s sweetheart, Ned Early [i.e., Hurley], who runs an artistic camera shop in the village, sees Romaine and Drake looking over the falls and, suspicious of their actions, he calls on Nell to warn her. / The conspirators are already there and Gregg is about to sign the deed when Ned discovers that it is a deed instead of a lease as represented. He exposes the trick. Romaine and Drake retire in disgust. / Nell upbraids Ned for interfering with their plans, as she and her father are in urgent need of cash. As she does not understand the difference between a deed and a lease, she is very bitter. Ned offers to loan her some money, but she disdains him. Ned, hurt, leaves her and Gregg alone. / Returning to the hotel, Romaine and Drake try to think out a plan to achieve their ends. The next day Nell comes to town. Romaine sees her and tells Drake to follow her and get her into his good graces. / Drake does so and he and Nell walk toward her home. Passing Ned’s studio, he comes out and meets them. Nell snubs him, which cuts him to the quick. Following them he overhears them on the bridge and tries to explain to Nell that Drake was trying to rob her father. She refuses to listen. A quarrel takes place, when Drake interferes and he and Ned grapple, Ned nearly throwing him from the bridge. Drake returns, beaten, to the hotel, while Ned and Nell go toward home. / Drake meets his half-breed guide on the hotel steps. The guide has seen the quarrel, and a sudden desire for revenge prompts him to offer the guide $50 to put Ned out of the way. / The guide follows Ned and Nell. When Ned returns, he decoys him to the edge of the high falls with a cry of distress and, as Ned looks into the gorge, the guide shoots him staff from his hand and Ned plunges over the edge of the cliff. / The carnival at Saranac begins and Nell is the “Lady of the Snows.” Drake is very attentive and as Romaine sees that Drake is winning her confidence he proposes that Drake elope with her to Canada and desert her, while he, Romaine, puts pressure on Gregg, forcing him to sign away his property. Nell allows Drake to attend her at the carnival. When she finally learns that Ned has been missing several days she is sorry that she has treated him so badly and broods over it until she in conscience stricken and loses all interest in the carnival sports. She asks Drake to take her home. They start. In the meantime Ned has been rescued and carried to a leanto for shelter by an Indian trapper, Scarface. He recovers slowly from the shock of his terrible fall and finally feels well enough to return to the village. / On the way he and Scarface visit the spot where he landed to recover his camera, and there they find the broken staff which plainly shows the mark of the bullet. They climb to the top of the gorge and find the tracks of the guide and trail him toward his mountain cabin. / Nell and Drake have reached the forest near the guide’s cabin on their way to her home. Drake proposes marriage to her and asks her to elope with him to Canada. She is on the verge of consenting when she thinks of Ned. She repulses Drake and starts for home. In front of the guide’s cabin Drake feigns a sprained ankle and lures her into the cabin. He then bribes the guide to decamp. Suddenly Ned hears Nell scream and , rushing into the cabin, grapples with Drake, and in the struggle is knocked out. Drake escapes, leaving Nell behind. Ned and Nell make up and start to town. / Drake, in escaping, has joined the guide and, together, they arrive at the hotel in the dog sledge. Drake tells Romaine of the position he is in and, getting money from Romaine, Drake and the guide make a dash for Canada. / Romaine, feeling that the jig is up, sneaks from the hotel to make his way to New York. Ned and Nell arrive in town and relate their adventures. Their friends go after Drake and Romaine and capture the latter. / In the early hours of the next morning wolves follow Drake and the guide, and they are devoured. Greggs bestows a paternal blessing on Ned and Nell, and all are again happy.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 21 May 2012.
References: UnivWeekly-19150612 pp. 29, 34.
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