The Toast of Death
Encyclopedia
The Toast of Death is a 1915
silent era
drama
/romance
motion picture
released
by Mutual Film Corporation
starring
Louise Glaum
, Harry Keenan
, and Herschel Mayall
.
Directed
by Thomas H. Ince
and produced
by the New York Motion Picture Company, the screenplay
was written by C. Gardner Sullivan
.
Although contemporary
sources list Thomas Ince as the director, modern sources give directorial credit to Scott Sidney
.
One of the early five-reel feature length
silent movies, The Toast of Death was filmed at Inceville Studio
in Topanga Canyon near the Pacific Ocean
.
The movie marked Glaum's first role as a "vamp" and her first starring role in the new features of the day.
of the Imperial Ballet in Calcutta
, India. Her beauty and charm bring to her many admirers, among them a British soldier, Captain Drake (played by Keenan), and an Indian prince
, Yar Khan
(played by Mayall), of the Bengalese
Dragoon
s.
Although she loves Drake, Poppea agrees to marry the prince because of his title, wealth and high social standing. She keeps Drake as her lover, however, and he visits her regularly at the palace.
When the prince is ordered to transfer, he and Poppea go to live in the South. She finds the climate and culture repulsive and is bored and disgusted with her devoted husband. She then writes to Drake and begs him to come see her. Feigning illness, he takes leave from his military duties and travels to Poppea.
The prince is pleased to see Drake and receives him warmly. By accident, he discovers the adulterous
relationship between Drake and his wife. As revenge, he pours two glasses of wine and puts arsenic into one. He then tells Poppea to select which glass each man will drink. Unknowingly, she selects the poisoned glass for Drake. After the toast
, the prince watches as Drake has a horrible death. He disposes of Drake's body and forces his devastated wife, Poppea, to flee out into the desert.
review
of Sunday, August 15, 1915, reads:
Another Times review of Tuesday, August 17, 1915, reads:
1915 in film
The year 1915 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 8 : D.W Griffith's The Birth of a Nation premieres at Clune's Auditorium Los Angeles and breaks box office and film length records, running at a total length of 3 hrs 10 minutes.* June 18 : The Motion Picture Directors...
silent era
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
drama
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
/romance
Romance film
Romance films are love stories that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate involvement of the main characters and the journey that their love takes through courtship or marriage. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot focus...
motion picture
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
released
Film release
A film release is the stage at which a completed film is legally authorized by its owner for public distribution.The process includes locating a distributor to handle the film...
by Mutual Film Corporation
Mutual Film
Mutual Film Corporation was an early American motion picture conglomerate best remembered today as the producers of some of Charlie Chaplin's greatest comedies....
starring
Movie star
A movie star is a celebrity who is well-known, or famous, for his or her starring, or leading, roles in motion pictures. The term may also apply to an actor or actress who is recognized as a marketable commodity and whose name is used to promote a movie in trailers and posters...
Louise Glaum
Louise Glaum
Louise Glaum was an American actress. Best known for her role as a femme fatale in silent era motion picture dramas, she was credited with giving one of the best characterizations of a vamp in her early career....
, Harry Keenan
Harry Keenan
Harry George Keenan was an early American silent film actor.He starred in about 45 silent films mostly short between 1912 and 1916 in films such as The Highest Bid, with actresses such as Charlotte Burton.-External links:...
, and Herschel Mayall
Herschel Mayall
Herschel Mayall was an American film actor of the silent era. He appeared in 112 films between 1912 and 1935.He was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and died in Detroit, Michigan from a cerebral hemorrhage....
.
Directed
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
by Thomas H. Ince
Thomas H. Ince
Thomas Harper Ince was an American silent film actor, director, screenwriter and producer of more than 100 films and pioneering studio mogul. Known as the "Father of the Western", he invented many mechanisms of professional movie production, introducing early Hollywood to the "assembly line"...
and produced
Production company
A production company provides the physical basis for works in the realms of the performing arts, new media art, film, television, radio, and video.- Tasks and functions :...
by the New York Motion Picture Company, the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
was written by C. Gardner Sullivan
C. Gardner Sullivan
C. Gardner Sullivan was an American screenwriter and motion picture producer. He was a prolific writer with more than 350 films among his credits. In 1924, the magazine Story World selected him on a list of the ten individuals who had contributed the most to the advancement of the motion picture...
.
Although contemporary
Contemporary history
Contemporary history describes the period timeframe that is without any intervening time closely connected to the present and is a certain perspective of modern history. The term "contemporary history" has been in use at least by the early 19th century. In the widest context of this use,...
sources list Thomas Ince as the director, modern sources give directorial credit to Scott Sidney
Scott Sidney
Scott Sidney , was an American film director. He directed 117 films between 1913 and 1927.He died in London, England, United Kingdom.-External links:...
.
One of the early five-reel feature length
Feature length
Feature length is motion picture terminology referring to the length of a feature film. According to the rules of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a feature length motion picture must have a running time of more than 40 minutes to be eligible for an Academy Award.The term may also...
silent movies, The Toast of Death was filmed at Inceville Studio
Movie studio
A movie studio is a term used to describe a major entertainment company or production company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to film movies...
in Topanga Canyon near the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
.
The movie marked Glaum's first role as a "vamp" and her first starring role in the new features of the day.
Synopsis
Mademoiselle Poppea (played by Glaum) is the leading ballerinaBallerina
A ballerina is a title used to describe a principal female professional ballet dancer in a large company; the male equivalent to this title is danseur or ballerino...
of the Imperial Ballet in Calcutta
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
, India. Her beauty and charm bring to her many admirers, among them a British soldier, Captain Drake (played by Keenan), and an Indian prince
Princely state
A Princely State was a nominally sovereign entitity of British rule in India that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy.-British relationship with the Princely States:India under the British Raj ...
, Yar Khan
Indian honorifics
Indian honorifics are honorific titles or appendices to names used in India, covering formal and informal relationships for social, commercial, spiritual and generational links. Honorifics may be prefix, suffix or replacement types.-Prefix type:...
(played by Mayall), of the Bengalese
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
Dragoon
Dragoon
The word dragoon originally meant mounted infantry, who were trained in horse riding as well as infantry fighting skills. However, usage altered over time and during the 18th century, dragoons evolved into conventional light cavalry units and personnel...
s.
Although she loves Drake, Poppea agrees to marry the prince because of his title, wealth and high social standing. She keeps Drake as her lover, however, and he visits her regularly at the palace.
When the prince is ordered to transfer, he and Poppea go to live in the South. She finds the climate and culture repulsive and is bored and disgusted with her devoted husband. She then writes to Drake and begs him to come see her. Feigning illness, he takes leave from his military duties and travels to Poppea.
The prince is pleased to see Drake and receives him warmly. By accident, he discovers the adulterous
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
relationship between Drake and his wife. As revenge, he pours two glasses of wine and puts arsenic into one. He then tells Poppea to select which glass each man will drink. Unknowingly, she selects the poisoned glass for Drake. After the toast
Toast (honor)
A toast is a ritual in which a drink is taken as an expression of honor or goodwill. The term may be applied to the person or thing so honored, the drink taken, or the verbal expression accompanying the drink. Thus, a person could be "the toast of the evening," for whom someone "proposes a toast"...
, the prince watches as Drake has a horrible death. He disposes of Drake's body and forces his devastated wife, Poppea, to flee out into the desert.
Cast
- Louise GlaumLouise GlaumLouise Glaum was an American actress. Best known for her role as a femme fatale in silent era motion picture dramas, she was credited with giving one of the best characterizations of a vamp in her early career....
as Mlle. Poppea - Harry KeenanHarry KeenanHarry George Keenan was an early American silent film actor.He starred in about 45 silent films mostly short between 1912 and 1916 in films such as The Highest Bid, with actresses such as Charlotte Burton.-External links:...
as Capt. Drake - Herschel MayallHerschel MayallHerschel Mayall was an American film actor of the silent era. He appeared in 112 films between 1912 and 1935.He was born in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and died in Detroit, Michigan from a cerebral hemorrhage....
as Yar Khan - J. Frank Burke in an undetermined role
Reviews
A Los Angeles TimesLos Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
review
Film criticism
Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films, individually and collectively. In general, this can be divided into journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, and other popular, mass-media outlets and academic criticism by film scholars that is informed by film theory and...
of Sunday, August 15, 1915, reads:
"The Toast of Death, a stirring drama of romance, intrigue and jealousy, will be the photoplay presented at the Woodley Theater for the week beginning tomorrow. Life in India is vividly portrayed in this interesting picture.
Troops of camels, elephants and horses, India dragoons and other scenes of magnificence, among which is the one depicting the famous imperial ballet, in Calcutta, are shown. The story is of a wealthy prince of India of high social standing, who weds a ballet dancer.
Louise Glaum will play the leading part, supported by Herschel Mayall and Harry G. Keenan."
Another Times review of Tuesday, August 17, 1915, reads:
"The Toast of Death, a romance of India, is a tremendously tense story, featuring one of the ablest leading women in pictures, Louise Glaum, at the Woodley Theater this week. She plays the role of Poppea and gives a performance that is truly fascinating.
The opening act reveals this beautiful young screen actress as the leader of the imperial ballet, whose beauty and charm bring to her many admirers. Thenceforward the audience follows the story through many complicated and highly interesting situations."
External links
- The Toast of Death at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- The Toast of Death at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films