Only in the Way (1911)

Genre

drama film, silent film

Country

United States

Runtime

12 min

Rating

4.0 of 10 from 1 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A grandmother moves in with her son's family. The son's wife gives an ultimatum that the grandmother must leave. Their crippled daughter runs away to the retirement home where her grandmother was sent, which leads the parents to reconsider.

sentimentalmelodramaticquietrestrainedheartfelttensehopefulfamily-focused

What happens

Only in the Way is a 1911 American silent short drama film produced by the Thanhouser Company. The film focuses on a grandmother who seeks the support of her only son and makes herself comfortable in his house. The grandmother is welcomed and befriended by Marie, her crippled granddaughter. The son's wife cannot bear to live with her mother-in-law and delivers an ultimatum to her husband: "Either your mother or I must leave this house!" The husband decides to put his mother in an old folks' home and the wife informs her she is to leave immediately. Little Marie is upset that her grandmother has to leave because she was "only in the way" and decides that as a cripple, so was she. Marie pens a letter to this effect and runs away to the old people's home. The parents frantically search for Marie and discover the note. They rush to the home and are relieved to find Marie safe and the family departs together with her grandmother. The film was released on January 31, 1911 and was met with generally favorable reviews. Walton of The Moving Picture News was critical, noting the similarities to a film released four days prior by the Gaumont Film Company. The film survives in the Library of Congress. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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