Paramount Press Books (1919)

Cast and Story of “The Marriage Price” For Use of Exhibitors in Their House Organs or for General Publicity in the Exploitation of Elsie Ferguson’s New Photoplay. An Artcraft Picture Elsie Ferguson , Beautiful Artcraft Star, Has Exceptionally Strong Photoplay, “The Marriage Price ” Story Deals With Trials of Young Society Woman Who Becomes Impoverished and Whose Sufferings Vanish When Love Enters Her Life. Helen tremaine belongs to a rich, horsey, fast set. She is practically engaged to Kenneth Gordon, a young idler. Frederick Lawton, a wealthy Westerner and a friend of Helen’s father, longs to marry her, but she never gives him the slightest encouragement. Mr. Tremaine fails. He is away on a business trip to Chicago, when his daughter receives the news of his suicide and learns that she is penniless. Evie Hitchins and her brother, Archie Van Orden, a married flirt, come to offer their sympathy. Van Orden, finding himself alone with Helen, asks her to let him take care of her. He is rich and she is very beautiful. Helen is furious at the insult. Van Orden seizes and tries to kiss her. She is struggling in his arms when Frederick Lawton enters.. Lawton knocks Van Orden down the stairs. Van Orden angrily decides to ruin the Westerner in the market. Meanwhile Lawton has asked Helen to marry him and she has refused. Kenneth tells Helen that he would marry her himself if only Wall Street hadn’t cleaned him out the week before. When he advises her to marry Lawton for his wealth, she proudly replies that she will try to take care of herself. On account of his bad luck, Kenneth seeks a job in Lawton’s office. The latter engages him to look after his Chicago interests. Kenneth meets Van Orden at the club and tells him the good news. Van Or ‘ THE MARRIAGE PRICE” The Cast Helen Tremaine, a Society Girl Elsie Ferguson Frederick Lawton, a Rich Westerner Wyndham Standing Kenneth Gordon, an Idler Lionel Atwill Archie Van Orden, a Married Flirt ....... Robert Schnable Amelia Lawton . . Maud Hosford Evie Hitchins. .. .Marie Temper The Other Woman Claricttc Anthony den now sees his opportunity to get even with Lawton. He bribes Kenneth to watch for any stray tips which may facilitate their putting one over on the Westerner in the market. Helen fails miserably in her attempt to earn a living. Several months later find her in the Martha Washington Hotel reduced to her last dime. She is weak and terribly depressed from lack of food. Lawton overhears Kenneth telephoning to Helen to meet him at the Regis, and deciding to save her from that gentleman, he meets Helen instead. They dine together and he asks her to marry him. She accepts and he takes her to his spinster sister, Amelia. On the afternoon they are to be married, he hands her a bundle of stock certificates, saying that she need not go on with the ceremony if she doesn’t love him. She replies that she has no regrets, that she has given him her word, and that she is ready to keep it. They are married. A fortnight later Kenneth returns. He runs into Helen alone in Lawton’s office, and when he learns of her marriage, he declares that Lawton tricked her into marrying him. She answers, how could that be? She didn’t have to marry for money. Her father had left her a fortune in S. W. Stock. Kenneth excitedly declares that she has certainly been hoaxed. The S. W. is all but worthless. He begs her to let him sell it for her at once. Helen gives her stock to Kenneth and he conspires with Van Orden to bear the stock in the market. Helen asks Lawton for a divorce, and he smiles grimly. That night when she is packing up to leave her husband, she learns from Amelia Lawton that the stock he had given her on the pretense that it was a legacy from her father, actually was his own. She is shocked, and when Kenneth, greatly intoxicated, appears with the news that Lawton has been cleaned out in the market, she collects her bridal jewels and offers them to Lawton in the hope that they may help him in his trouble. It then develops that Van Orden and his crowd, and not Lawton, have been ruined, the latter having turned the tables upon them. After Kenneth has sneaked out of the house, Helen, penitent, but happy, finds refuge in Lawton’s arms. 5