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A Million Bid
(1914) United States of America
B&W : [?] Four or Five? reels
Directed by Ralph W. Ince
Cast: Anita Stewart [Agnes Belgradin], E.K. Lincoln [Loring Brent], Charles Kent [Sidney Belgradin], Julia Swayne Gordon [Mrs. Belgradin], Harry Morey (Harry T. Morey) [Geoffrey Marshe], Gladden James [Harry Furniss], George Stevens [Sharp], Donald Hall [the French artist], Kate Price [Squires]
The Vitagraph Company of America production, by arrangement with Broadway Star Features, Incorporated; distributed by The General Film Company, Incorporated [Special Features Department; Broadway Star Features]. / Scenario by Marguerite Bertsch, from the play Agnes by George Cameron (Gladys S. Rankin Drew). Production supervised by Albert E. Smith. Cinematography by William T. Stewart (William T. Stuart). / © 26 November 1913 by The Vitagraph Company of America [LP2192]. Premiered 7 February 1914 at the Vitagraph Theatre in New York, New York. Released April 1914. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / This film was part of the premiere bill at Vitagraph’s opening of the renamed Criterion Theatre, the Vitagraph Theatre, in New York, New York. The film was rereleased in the USA by [?] Greater Vitagraph, Incorporated, and/or V-L-S-E, Incorporated?, on 4 April 1917. The play was subsequently filmed as A Million Bid (1927).
Drama.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? The story concerns a mercenary and managing mother and her daughter, Agnes. The young lady loves a youthful doctor, but a match is frustrated by the mother, who seeks to marry the daughter to the highest bidder. The mother’s extravagance ruins the father, who, being in ill health, succumbs to heart failure. With poverty staring them in the face, the mother takes Agnes abroad, finally forcing her into a marriage with an Australian millionaire. To do so, the mother intercepts all letters between Agnes and the young doctor, with the result that each feels that the other has ceased to care. The millionaire and his young wife, while on their honeymoon on his yacht, are shipwrecked. He is dealt a terrible blow on the head, and it completely destroys his memory. The young wife is saved and returns to America, while her husband is picked up by a French fisherman. His memory gone, he does not recall his previous existence in America. Agnes and the doctor renew their love affair and finally marry, excellent proof having been furnished that her former husband had drowned in the shipwreck. There is no opposition to the marriage now, as the mother also had perished in the catastrophe. Five years later, the young doctor has become a famous brain specialist. To him, Agnes’ former husband comes for an operation in the hope of restoring his lost memory. The two men, never having met, fail to learn they are both married to the same woman. She discovers it, however, and with her happiness at stake, does not tell her surgeon-husband the truth, but attempts to dissuade him from operating on her first husband, fearful that the operation will prove successful and her first husband regain his lost memory and recognize her as his wife. The humanity in the surgeon surmounts his wife's pleas, but the patient fails to withstand the operation and Agnes’ happiness is assured, despite the terrible situations which confronted her. // Additional synopsis available in AFI-F1 n. F1.2942.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Keywords: Amnesia - Death - Families: Mother-daughter relationships - Widows - Yachts
Listing updated: 7 December 2024.
References: AFI-F1 n. F1.2942; Slide-Early p. 16; Tarbox-Lost pp. 193, 194 : Website-IMDb.
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