Less Than the Dust
(1916)
93 mins | Drama | 6 November 1916
Cast:
Mary Pickford, David Powell, Frank Losee [ More ]Director:
John EmersonWriter:
Hector TurnbullCinematographer:
George W. HillProduction Company:
Mary Pickford Film Corp.The 26 August 1916 Moving Picture World announced that Mary Pickford had become a motion picture producer, incorporated as Mary Pickford Film Corp., with offices at 729 Seventh Avenue in New York City and temporary studios on Long Island. Less than a month later, a full-page article in the 16 September 1916 Motography reported that the company had produced Less Than the Dust, its first film, as the first release by Artcraft Pictures Corp. of New York City, which would henceforth distribute her films. Artcraft had already set up fifteen exchanges from coast to coast. The article included a poem that inspired scenarist Hector Turnbull's title, and which introduces the film itself: "Less than the dust beneath thy chariot wheel, Less than the rust that never stained thy Sword, Less than the trust thou hast in me, Oh Lord, Even less than these!" Advertisements identified the poem as a part of "India's Love Lyric" by Laurence Hope. Artcraft announced that Less Than the Dust would be available by early October, but it was not released for another month.
According to the 30 September 1916 Moving Picture World, filming was completed the previous week, and editing was set to begin at once. Before filming began earlier, "a complete replica of a city of modern India was erected on Long Island....Temporary barracks and commissary were constructed for the hundreds of extras who were used for several weeks."
Less Than the Dust opened the week of 6 November 1916 at eighty theaters, including the Broadway Theatre in New York City, according to the 18 November 1916 Moving Picture ...
The 26 August 1916 Moving Picture World announced that Mary Pickford had become a motion picture producer, incorporated as Mary Pickford Film Corp., with offices at 729 Seventh Avenue in New York City and temporary studios on Long Island. Less than a month later, a full-page article in the 16 September 1916 Motography reported that the company had produced Less Than the Dust, its first film, as the first release by Artcraft Pictures Corp. of New York City, which would henceforth distribute her films. Artcraft had already set up fifteen exchanges from coast to coast. The article included a poem that inspired scenarist Hector Turnbull's title, and which introduces the film itself: "Less than the dust beneath thy chariot wheel, Less than the rust that never stained thy Sword, Less than the trust thou hast in me, Oh Lord, Even less than these!" Advertisements identified the poem as a part of "India's Love Lyric" by Laurence Hope. Artcraft announced that Less Than the Dust would be available by early October, but it was not released for another month.
According to the 30 September 1916 Moving Picture World, filming was completed the previous week, and editing was set to begin at once. Before filming began earlier, "a complete replica of a city of modern India was erected on Long Island....Temporary barracks and commissary were constructed for the hundreds of extras who were used for several weeks."
Less Than the Dust opened the week of 6 November 1916 at eighty theaters, including the Broadway Theatre in New York City, according to the 18 November 1916 Moving Picture World, which praised the film's "East Indian environment...One of the scenes shows a street in an Indian city with all the color and ever changing views of an Eastern thoroughfare. Other scenes are the British garrison, the great stone temple and the pool of the sacred waters."
Modern sources have identified Emmett Flynn as an assistant director.
According to the Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Database, this film is extant.
Radha, "a waif of the Bazaars," a lower-caste Hindu girl of unknown parentage, is scorned and ridiculed as a castaway, treated as if she were "less than dust," but other street urchins of her Indian village love her. She learns English from a religious street figure called the Babu, and while visiting him, Radha meets and befriends British Captain Townsend, who buys her a copy of the book Less Than the Dust, and Other Indian Love Lyrics, and inscribes it to her "from her new friend Richard Townsend." The officer soon receives word to go back to England to tend to the estate of an uncle who has just died. Then, Ramlan, the sword maker who raised Radha, is arrested for taking part in an anti-British uprising, and before he goes to jail, he tells Radha the true story of her birth: her real father, British Captain Brooke, died of an opium overdose, and her destitute mother then entrusted her to Ramlan. After learning about her background, Radha is sent to England to claim her rightful inheritance from the estate of her late grandfather, who is also Richard's uncle. Richard is delighted to discover that his Hindu friend is really a white woman, and after dividing the estate with Radha, who by now has "improved" herself at a finishing school, he brings the fortune back together by marrying her, and also arranges for Ramlan to be ...
Radha, "a waif of the Bazaars," a lower-caste Hindu girl of unknown parentage, is scorned and ridiculed as a castaway, treated as if she were "less than dust," but other street urchins of her Indian village love her. She learns English from a religious street figure called the Babu, and while visiting him, Radha meets and befriends British Captain Townsend, who buys her a copy of the book Less Than the Dust, and Other Indian Love Lyrics, and inscribes it to her "from her new friend Richard Townsend." The officer soon receives word to go back to England to tend to the estate of an uncle who has just died. Then, Ramlan, the sword maker who raised Radha, is arrested for taking part in an anti-British uprising, and before he goes to jail, he tells Radha the true story of her birth: her real father, British Captain Brooke, died of an opium overdose, and her destitute mother then entrusted her to Ramlan. After learning about her background, Radha is sent to England to claim her rightful inheritance from the estate of her late grandfather, who is also Richard's uncle. Richard is delighted to discover that his Hindu friend is really a white woman, and after dividing the estate with Radha, who by now has "improved" herself at a finishing school, he brings the fortune back together by marrying her, and also arranges for Ramlan to be freed.
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