David Copperfield

Thanhouser Company three-reel silent film based on Charles Dickens' story of an English lad's tribulation-filled journey to adulthood, Thanhouser released the three films over the course of three weeks beginning on October 17, 1911, one 1,000 foot reel per week.

(Reel One) The film starts with the time Aunt Betsy, an eccentric spinster, flattens her nose against the windowpane before she enters the Copperfield home, over which the stork is hovering. Aunt Betsy, in anticipation of a birth, had set her mind on a girl, because she abhors boys. When it is therefore announced that the stork has brought a boy, she vanishes from the house "like a discontented fairy." David's mother is a helpless young woman, impractical and unassertive. She married an elderly gentleman, who dies before David is born. Eight years after David's birth, she is flattered by the attentions of Edward Murdstone, who is ardent in his courtship because the widow's money is such a tantalizing incentive. David shows his dislike for Mr. Murdstone. His mother marries, however, while he is absent on a trip with Peggotty to her brother's house at Yarmouth. Here he meets hearty fish folk, among whom he finds little Emily. With the marriage of his mother to Murdstone begins a series ...

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