Talk:The Governor's Daughter

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Governor's Daughter/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jaguar (talk · contribs) 21:17, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I'll finish this one soon ☯ Jaguar ☯ 21:17, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Initial comments

• Nothing in the reception section is mentioned in the lead, therefore it falls short of summarising the article

Done. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:22, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

• "and Nell accompanies him" - we only discover that the girl is called Nell almost at the end of the section! Is this taken from a direct quote or does the audience presumably discover her name at the end of the film?

This was the official plot since the film is lost. I've made the distinction clear. And the audience had no idea of any character name unless otherwise stated... most studios did not waste time introducing the characters or crediting any roles. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:22, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

• "It is unknown what particular rail disaster was filmed, but a possible that the accident occurred in the Bronx on the night of June 1, 1910. One stalled train" - is this still referring to the same incident? And also is this backed up by a citation?

Same. Tried to resolve it, and this is the only known train accident that was in that time period and matched that description and in the immediate vicinity of the crew. The Thanhouser company was notified of fires and such by the fire department and the camera crew would come running to film the disaster. The plot of the film was written around the footage of the resulting disaster. Isn't that grand?! ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:22, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

• "The writer of the scenario is unknown, but it was most likely Lloyd Lonergan" - I checked the nearest ref (ref 5) and there was no mention about Lloyd Lonergan and this film. Is it in another citation given? Otherwise it would sound like original research

Lonergan produced more scenarios than Thanhouser shot, but almost every single one was penned by Lonergan with advising and some assistance by Edwin Thanhouser and Gertrude Thanhouser. By 1915 he was credited with 1000 scenarios... higher than the total film output of the company. Bowers also states: Lloyd F. Lonergan probably wrote nearly all the scripts for films released in 1910, but in the absence of specific verification, no such assumptions have been made. Besides, it is known that Gertrude Thanhouser, wife of Edwin, wrote some scripts during this time. [1] I have a few suspicions as to Gertrude's works... Lonergan's writings typically employed some heavy deus ex machina and he preferred to end films with these all packaged and bundled happy endings... often romantically. I'll add that additional citation if you really wish. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:22, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

• "Lonergan was an experienced newspaperman" - would you prefer journalist?

Bowers uses the term and the connotations are different... I am not greatly informed as to Lonergan's role, but he was an editor and involved in the publication and organization of the paper instead of interviews and such. Given this, I'd prefer to keep it as is. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:22, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

• "The single reel drama, approximately 985 feet long" - this should be converted into metres using the conversion template

Eh... considering the film was sold by the foot (not meters) I don't really agree with it for an American production... I could, but it seems like a conversion for conversion's sake. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:22, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

On hold

Can't believe this film is lost!! It actually made me feel a little sad as the plot sounds decent and it would have been fascinating to watch a train wreck from 1910. Anyway, well done on this article, it shouldn't take long to clarify the above. ☠ Jaguar ☠ 14:26, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

@Jaguar: You would not have seen the train actually wreck, you would see the staging for the film and the scenes play out. Then there would most likely be an inter-title and scenes of the disaster footage as captured by the crew, then the scenes with the actors to resolve the plot. The films were pretty much static tableaux with little to no camera movement. Sadly, I could not find a still from this one in the Jonathan Silent collection either... Bert Adler seems to have chosen the still for Thelma instead.... it got a larger image than usual to boot. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:31, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for addressing them so quickly! I agree with you regarding the missing citation, that should be fine. And with the metres thing, usually any form of measurement usually have their metric equivalent afterwards using {{convert|1|mi}} for example, but that wouldn't affect a GAN. Oh by the way for the ping to work it has to end with the four tidles ~~~~ within the same edit, weird I know. Anyway well done on this, I'll review a few more lost films if that's OK ☠ Jaguar ☠ 15:38, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I was looking at this GAN and I couldn't help but mention how the plot from this film is extremely similar to a scene from the TV series 24. In the scene (spoilers:), a train runs into dynamite and blows up. A guard has a suitcase locked onto his hand using handcuffs and the bad guy takes the guy's key and removes the suitcase from the guy, then kills him. Perhaps that scene was inspired from this film... -Newyorkadam (talk) 15:50, 19 March 2015 (UTC)Newyorkadam

Considering the film was lost for probably a few decades before the scriptwriter was born....very very doubtful. Nice to think so though. We just need more of the villain tying the girl to the train tracks... though some silent film stunts resulted in death.... ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:08, 19 March 2015 (UTC)