Neptune’s Daughter (1914)
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Collection: Motion Picture News, October 1914
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“Neptune’s Daughter”
Universal’s seven-reel subject featuring Annette Kellermann a strong and beautiful picture.
Reviewed by George Blaisdell.
There is something new on the screen. It is a marine fantasy, an interweaving of the real and the mythical, a craftsmanlike blending of the spectacular, of the sensational, of the dramatic, and above all of the pictorial. Neptune’s Daughter, the seven-reel production of the Universal Company now showing at the Globe Theater in this city, takes us far out of beaten paths. It was photographed under the brilliant sun and in the clear atmosphere of Bermuda — in gardens framed by the hand of man and in primitive wood, on beach and on cliff, in ocean waters above the earth and in stalactite-mirroring caved pools beneath it.
The story comes from the pen of Captain Leslie T. Peacocke, of the Universal staff. It is written around the superb figure of Annette Kellermann, the famous diver and swimmer, artistic and accomplished dancer, and also, it is fair to add, acceptable actress. Captain Peacocke is not content to rest his plot upon the aquatic or terpsichorean skill of his chief subject. He goes further and tells a story that is independent of her and doubly strong by reason of that fact.
Producer Herbert Brenon surrounds Miss Kellermann with a strong cast. Nearly all the players are members of Mr. Brenon’s Imp Company. William E. Shay is King William, William Welsh is King Neptune, Leah Baird is Princess Olga, Mrs. Allen Walker is the Sea Witch and Mr. Brenon is Roador the Wolf. Edward Mortimer is Duke Boris, Lewis Hooper is Count Rudolph and Millie Liston is the jailer’s mother. And there is wonderful little Katherine Lee, the mite who plays Angela, the mermaid sister of Annette, who by her portrayal centers upon herself the chief interest in the first quarter of the story.
The locale is in King Neptune’s realm and in King William’s. The action has to do with the ruler of the water and his subjects and with the ruler of the land and his dependents. It is through Annette, the daughter of Neptune, that the two divisions of the tale cross. When Angela is caught in the fishermen’s nets and meets her death, Annette swears vengeance. The Sea Witch gives her a charm by means of which she is transformed into a mortal. In this state she meets the king incognito and falls in love with him. When she receives an invitation to dance at the king’s ball she goes prepared to carry out her oath. She learns the identity of her lover and realizes she cannot fulfill her mission; she returns to the waters as mermaid. Not for long, however. To see the man she loves she again makes use of the charm and returns to the society of mortals, this time to stay.
There is a wealth of incident in Neptune’s Daughter. The story of intrigue at court is convincing and well portrayed. The transition of Annette from the dominions of Father Neptune to the world of mortals and vice versa is so skillfully treated that it seems the perfectly natural course of events. Right at the beginning of the story we see the mermaids on the beach. Off at a distance old Father Neptune suddenly appears in a little coral ring, his trident in one hand and horn in the other, and sounds the recall. The mermaids wriggle into the water and swim out to him, little Angela with her arms about Annette’s neck. There are many of these views of the sea.
On the dramatic side are the pathetic death of Angela, her discovery by Annette and the bearing of the limp-armed little body to grave Neptune; the farewell of Annette and Neptune, and the recognition by Annette of her lover in the king she is about to slay, the supreme moment of the story. Of other strong situations there are many — the revolt of the fishermen and then the guards; the imprisonment of Annette, her subsequent binding hand and foot and hurling into the ocean from the top of a cliff and her successful struggles to free herself; the combat between Roador and Annette, the sensational fall from the cliff of the two in deadly struggle and the battle under the water in which Roador is drowned; the spectacular sword fight between the king and Annette on one side and Boris and Rudolph on the other.
It is in the pictorial quality, however, that lies the factor that will bring to Neptune’s Daughter its greatest houses and its longevity, for beyond question it is a picture that will live. Let us ignore the marvelous views of the great Crystal Cave, with its weird stalactites reflected in the glassy waters of this underground pool, and for the illumination of which Electrician O’Donnel installed lamps and ran a four-mile-long supply wire. Nor will we make extended reference to the scenes of the story enacted here. What cannot be overlooked is the “Dance of the Morning Glories.” Annette is a veritable elf as she lightly and swiftly glides about the clearing, the sun’s rays striking through the trees and falling upon the troop of amazed little girls circling about her. No wonder the king, looking on from a distance, falls in love with her.
There is one other scene that particularly will live in the memory. Annette, a mortal, feels the lure of the water. Behind a bush in the forest she discards her peasant dress. Out darts a white-tighted figure. From a vegetation-faced cliff over an inland bit of still water Annette performs the evolutions that have thrilled her audiences in settings far different. Over the top of the edge on the second side of the walled water peer the same group of wonder-eyed little girls. Annette eventually discovers the presence of the “peeping Toms,” as the sub-title describes them, and chases them away into the woods.
A striking picture is the meeting of the king in his peasant garb and Annette by the tree in the shady wood. Another is where the just transformed mermaid comes to the palace of the king and discovers him in danger from the misled people. Behind her is a bank of foliage, but in the center background is a circular natural window through which can be seen in the great distance the rays of the sun reflected on the dancing waves.
Why continue to enumerate? For there are many other scenes worthy of mention, the dancing of Annette at the king’s ball, for instance, or the view of the soldiers drawn up in front of the king’s palace. Real soldiers they are, and they look it; the great structure behind them is Government House.
Mr. Shay is excellent as the king; by his work in this picture he will materially add to the extending number of his admirers. So, too, will Mr. Welsh as grave old Father Neptune. Miss Baird was queenly as Olga. As the mermaid she deserves credit for her spunk, as she is not a swimmer. Mr. Brenon has a right to more than ordinary congratulation for his success in Neptune’s Daughter, for to the making of it he gave much of his blood as his company gave much of its treasure. It was in enacting the spectacular and thrilling under-water tragedy with Miss Kellermann that he met such severe injuries through the breaking of the glass side of a great tank.
The writer witnessed the first exhibition of Neptune’s Daughter to the public, on the afternoon of Saturday, April 25. The photography is notable, and he is bound to add the projection matches it. The Universal has not made the mistake of suspending the operating booth from the ceiling. Seating space was sacrificed in the balcony; the result is a nearly flat throw and a rock-steady one.
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- Scene from Neptune’s Daughter (Universal)
- Crystal Cave, Bermuda, in Neptune’s Daughter
- The King Falls in Love With the Wood Nymph
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Collection: Moving Picture World, May 1914