1913 script

The New York Hat

Filming date: finished November 1912
Filming location: East Coast
Release date, 5 December 1912; reissued by Biograph, 6 November 1916
Release length: 999 feet
Copyright date: 5 December 1912

Director: D.W. Griffith
Author: Anita Loos
Camera: G.W. Bitzer
Cast: Mary Pickford (Young woman); Charles Hill Mailes (Her father); Kate
Bruce (Her mother); Lionel Barrymore (Minister); Alfred Paget (Doctor); Claire
McDowell, Mae Marsh, Clara T. Bracey (Gossips); Madge Kirby (Shopkeeper);
Lillian Gish, Gertrude Bambrick, W.C. Robinson (In shop); Jack Pickford,
Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Gertrude Bambrick (Outside church); Walter P.
Lewis, John T. Dillon, Adolph Lestina (Church board); Madge Kirby (At mother's
deathbed); Kathleen Butler, Marguerite Marsh (Window shoppers)
Produced by American Biograph

Synopsis


From Copyright Material submitted to the Library of Congress:

When Mary's mother is dying, the young minister is summoned to the bedside.
There, surrounded by the leading members of the church, she gives the minister
a small pasteboard box requesting that he open it in secret. The young
minister, after attempting to cheer up the austere father and the shy but
sincere daughter, returns to the parsonage and opens the packet. It contains a
few bills and numerous coins of various denominations. The minister also finds
a letter which reads: "My Beloved Pastor: My husband worked me to death, but I
have managed to save a little sum. Take it and from time to time buy my
daughter the bits of finery she has always been denied. Let no one know. Mary
Harding."

After her mother's death, perhaps Mary, the daughter, does not find things
going quite as smoothly, but she has been schooled all her life in repression.
Her father is the sturdy old New England character, possessed of all the
faults and none the virtues of this type. Mary's shy manners and queer clothes
cause silly comment among the young people and the older people are too busy
to bother with her.

Some time after her mother's death, at the opening of the picture, Mary is
looking in the glass in the old dining-room, and becomes dissatisfied with her
small old black velvet hat that sits on her head like a small half-baked
pancake. She summons up courage to ask her father for a new hat but is met
with an emphatic refusal. After further inspection of herself in the glass,
Mary decides to go out without any hat. Her one and only black glove, left
from her mother's past finery, she doubles over in one hand giving the
appearance of two gloves, and walks down the street in her mincing shy little
steps holding her one glove out in front of her, as if to declare to the world
that she was not without her finery. She passes two girls of the village who
receive her smiling face kindly enough, but refuse to accept her society and
smile at her odd appearance on her departure.

Now, at the local millinery store there has just been received a hat from New
York with the magnificent price of ten dollars attached. It is the sensation
of the village, and many village maids pass by with longing eyes or are
dragged away by disapproving mammas. Three gossips high in the affairs of the
church are also attracted by the hat, but after a careful inspection inside
the store, they pass to more practical conceptions in the hat line.

In the meantime, Mary passes the window and looks in. As she is gazing fondly
on the beautiful creation, the minister happens along. He and Mary admire the
hat together, and after her departure, remembering the bequest left by the
mother, he goes into the store to inspect the hat. The ladies of the church
within are immediately aroused to a high pitch of suppressed excitement. After
bidding him a polite departure as befits the dignity of his position, they at
once begin to speculate.

But Mary at home is dreaming of the marvels of the wonderful hat, when the
minister enters with a bandbox. He presents it to Mary with little comment and
goes. When Mary opens the bandbox the sight staggers her and, falling back
into the chair, it is some time before she can actually believe her dream is
true, but it soon becomes a fascinating actuality when once it is on her head
before the glass.

Next Sunday morning, as her father is leaving for church before her, she
attempts to tell him about the new hat, but he abruptly dismisses her,
presumably thinking she is repeating the request for a new hat. Accordingly
Mary dons her new acquisition, and parading her one glove, in her usual style,
marches off to church alone.

On the way, she passes and bows to other church goers in her innocent endeavor
to display the hat, but it is not until after church that the minister and
Mary really are linked in a scandal.

On her way out of church, she expects to be grandly received into society
since her new acquisition should place her on a higher social standing, but
the other young people are inclined to regard her with mingled awe and
amusement, and when she passes the three ladies on the Church Board, the
gossips at the store who witnessed the purchase, their smile of indulgence
changes to sudden and marked disapproval as they see on her head the hat
bought by the minister.

Later these three ladies meet the father on his way from church and acquaint
him with the facts of the case. He arrives home before Mary. She enters
guiltily, remembering the snubs received after church and hides her hat behind
her. He demands that she bring it forth, and in a tirade proceeds to tear it
to shreds. He leaves Mary hugging the remains of the fond creation to herself,
while he goes forth to seek reparation from the minister.

When Mary realizes this she hastens after him, and meets the Church Board on
the way to the minister's to investigate the scandal. Mary intercepts them and
arrives before them. In telling him she sinks on her knees before him and he
lifts her face to better hear what she is saying, when the board arrives
outside. The principal lady of the board peeps through the blind and sees them
in this attitude. The men and women of the Board enter and demand an
explanation.

The minister shows them the bequest of the dead mother, and they are about to
retire with apologies, when the father, having failed to find the minister at
the church, comes into their midst. He also is shown the letter, and perhaps
sees his characters in its true light for a moment.

The Board departs, while the minister is suddenly filled with desire to assume
another trust. Mary cannot believe her ears when the minister asks her to
marry him and thus hush all scandal forever. She repeats the question to her
father many times, until he tells her that it is the best way out of it and
she then accepts the minister as befits a dutiful, simple maiden.