The real surprise for me was seeing the wonderful character actor J. Farrell MacDonald so young!
If you check his credits everyone who lists his 327 films as an actor start with his appearance in The Scarlet Letter (1911) which premiered April, 11 in 1911.
Now I did a little detective work and The Scarlet Letter was produced by the Independent Moving Pictures Co. of America (IMP). This is the same company that made The Dream which premiered January 23 of 1911 (nearly three months before his first previously know film appearance.)
The next film on the program was also an Imp production, Sweet Memories released 27 March 1911. This then would make MacDonald's second film, and it too before the recognized Scarlet Letter which premiered in April of that same year. I find all this interesting and his history now needs to be rewritten.
Now you may ask me if I am sure it was J. Farrell MacDonald? Well I know him from his work (see below) and if you have never heard of this fascinating man look up his biography.
After appearing in eight films in 1911, he became a director for IMP, then Biograph (learning from D. W. Griffith), before he was hired by no less than L. Frank Baum to run his movie studio making films based on Baum's OZ books! It was while making The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914) that he hired and introduced two little known actors by the names of Hal Roach & Harold Lloyd! (He directed Roach three times in 1914 alone and they became fast friends. And he met Lloyd back in 1913 when he made Rory o' the Bogs (1913))
MacDonald would go on to direct 46 films before 1919 when a fellow director, John Ford encouraged him to switch to acting full time. He started his career in the Ford stock company appropriately with Roped (1919) and would appear in 25 films for John Ford. Later he would make three films for Frank Capra and eight film for Preston Sturges,
Some of the classic films he helped make all the more special by appearing in them are: Sunrise (1927); Show Boat (1936); Sullivan's Travels (1941); Meet John Doe (1941); The Palm Beach Story (1942); The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944); A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945); It's a Wonderful Life (1946); My Darling Clementine (1946) and Unfaithfully Yours (1948).
"The Dream" was introduced by Christel Schmidt who was there to set up the 10 early Mary Pickford short films screening that night, all from 1909 to 1911 and to sign & sell her lovely new book on Pickford, Queen of the Movies. If you ever have the opportunity to see a Mary Pickford film on the big screen please do, she really knew how to act. And Schmidt's background stories and quotes from noted historians and Pickford herself surely add to the occasion.