Of the over 30 one-reelers Mary Pickford made in Cuba for Carl Laemmle’s Independent Motion Pictures Company, A Manly Man is one of few that survives today. Pickford plays Lola, a young Filipino woman who falls in love with Duncan (William E. Shay), a Caucasian man sent to her village on business. After Lola risks her life nursing his fever and saving him from a knife attack, Duncan marries her and resists the temptation to return to his American fiancée. Directed by Thomas Ince and co-starring Pickford’s first husband Owen Moore, A Manly Man was later reissued under the title His Gratitude (1914). —Sloan DeForest
Director: Thomas H. Ince. Production: Independent Moving Pictures Co. of America. Distribution: Motion Picture Distributors and Sales Company, Universal Film Manufacturing Co. Producer: Carl Laemmle. Cinematographer: Tony Gaudio. Cast: William E. Shay, Mary Pickford, Owen Moore, Isabel Rea, Charles Arling. 35mm, b/w and tinted, silent, approx. 12 min.
Restored from a 35mm nitrate print of the re-titled 1914 reissue version, His Gratitude. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Film Technology Company, Inc.
