"A Chapter in Her Life" (1923) is the story of how a young girl (played by Jane Mercer), the offspring of a former, now fully-recovered, alcoholic father and a very sincere Christian Scientist mother, is sent to stay with her grandfather for a while as her parents go across the ocean on a voyage. She runs into a household she nicknames "Castle Discord", made up of her disillusioned and crusty grandfather, Claude Gillingwater; his daughter-in-law, Frances Raymond (whose husband, Gillingwater's other son, is now dead), who is still trying to climb socially and financially, though she's an old crone; her daughter, Jacqueline Gadsdon, who's in love with a poor, but good man, Fred Thomson, but a daughter whom her mother is trying to pair up with the local doctor, Robert Frazer. Everybody seems discontented and unhappy and mean. The other pair in the film are the housekeeper, Eva Thatcher and her son, Ralph Yearsley - she miserably disillusioned by all of life, but especially by her horribly alcoholic son who constantly is eating spring onions to hide his alcoholic breath!
The gist of the story is how young Jane Mercer brings charity, hope, meaning and love into the household through the playing out of the tenets of a Christian faith as presented in the books she knows, those, no doubt, of Mary Baker Eddy. Though the books are never mentioned per se (although we see them from a distance, yet the titles are not clear), we see the tenets of Eddy throughout the film. For example, Mercer refuses the doctor's help, including taking medicine, when she's sick. All of this sounds perhaps sickeningly sweet, but it's actually beautifully realized. Directed by Lois Weber, herself a former street corner evangelist (though not a Christian Scientist per se), this film is actually the second time Weber had filmed the book Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life by Clara Louise Burnham, the first having been made in 1915 (now a lost film).
The film is the second film on the two-film Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber, the other "Sensation Seekers". Definitely worth the search. Won't be for everybody, but it truly embodies the type of story that Weber liked to tell on film, and though it may seem sappy to many today, is actually touching and well done. I've seen it described as "boring" by a few, but I found it anything but. Also has a wonderful complementary score.
The gist of the story is how young Jane Mercer brings charity, hope, meaning and love into the household through the playing out of the tenets of a Christian faith as presented in the books she knows, those, no doubt, of Mary Baker Eddy. Though the books are never mentioned per se (although we see them from a distance, yet the titles are not clear), we see the tenets of Eddy throughout the film. For example, Mercer refuses the doctor's help, including taking medicine, when she's sick. All of this sounds perhaps sickeningly sweet, but it's actually beautifully realized. Directed by Lois Weber, herself a former street corner evangelist (though not a Christian Scientist per se), this film is actually the second time Weber had filmed the book Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life by Clara Louise Burnham, the first having been made in 1915 (now a lost film).
The film is the second film on the two-film Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber, the other "Sensation Seekers". Definitely worth the search. Won't be for everybody, but it truly embodies the type of story that Weber liked to tell on film, and though it may seem sappy to many today, is actually touching and well done. I've seen it described as "boring" by a few, but I found it anything but. Also has a wonderful complementary score.