From the Submerged

• E.H. Calvert
• Ruth Stonehouse
• William Walters
• Joseph Allen Sr.
• Mildred Weston
• Fred Wulf
• Charles Hitchcock
• Dolores Cassinelli
• Bryant Washburn
• Billy Mason

The man, a poor vagrant, is about to cast himself into the river when he is stopped and started upon the right road by the poor girl. He discovers his father is advertising to learn his whereabouts, returns home, is forgiven and finds a fortune at his command. Some time later he is engaged to the rich girl and a slumming party is made up one night. They visit Chinatown and pass the well-known bread line, at which the rich girl sneers and laughs.

Realizing how little of real life she knows, the man, disgusted with the social whirl of her class, dons his old attire and wanders down by the river for a breath of fresh air. Here it is that the poor girl, more wretched and ragged than ever, comes to cast herself into the black waters. As she had saved him once, so now does he prevent her from carrying out her design, recognizes her and leads her tenderly to his beautiful home as his wife for all time.  —Synopsis (1912) from The Moving Picture World[2]

Remembering the scene on the bridge, superimposed

Scene in the park from under the bridge

Standing in the bread line

Director Theodore Wharton, started out as a director for Pathe Freres, before moving to Essanay. He was regarded as being a pioneer in the film industry, making an impression on his colleagues for his innovative use of superimpositions; as seen near the end of the movie where Calvert remembers his encounter with the young woman on the bridge, with a flashback shot of the meeting superimposed above his head.[3]

The film was shot on location in Chicago, with scenes filmed in Lincoln Park, along the Chicago River, and on Argyle street in Uptown, Chicago, across from Essanay Studios, which produced and distributed the film.[3][4]

The film's ending scene where Calvert saves Stonehouse from going into the water, was ironically shot beneath the "suicide bridge",[lower-alpha 1] which has since been destroyed.[3][4]

Barbara Tepa Lupack writes in her book, Silent Serial Sensations: The Wharton Brothers and the Magic of Early Cinema, that the story is one of "loss and redemption". She said the film is especially notable, quoting Michael Glover Smith, for the film's "social criticism, the ironic juxtaposition of wealthy and poor characters, the bread line scenes, and the use of an internally rhyming structure." She also noted the film's beginning and ending with suicide scenes in the same park, and that when you combine all these elements from the film, it shows the "influence of D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking A Corner in Wheat from 1909."[6][3]

Lupack says the most "indelible scenes, though, are those that depict the humanity of the suffering and hungry men in the bread line, who are quick to give away their own food to those who need it even more than they do, in a stark contrast to the self-centered and self-absorbed wealthy partygoers who exhibit little humanity for their own".[6]

Film critic Michael Grutchfield also says the film is about redemption, and "urban poverty" as well. He argues that the story "contains a message about the worth of every human life". He also states that slumming parties are a "common element of many movies about social issues", and according to him, "rich people really did like to visit crime and poverty ridden areas as tourists at the time, and many social reformers criticized the practice".[4]

In 1912, the Evening Capital News remarked that the "story has a strong heart appeal, not from the sentimental angle only, but from the sympathetic as well. It brings us in touch with the people in the bread line, and with pampered society folks who have never known the pinch of want. It shows us that poverty begets sympathy and that wealth has the tendency to breed selfishness and apathy, when those who possess it fail to keep in touch with their less fortunate creatures".[7]

The film was released to theaters and nickelodeons on one reel, on November 12, 1912.

In 2007, the film was published along with 47 other films, in a box set consisting of 4 DVDs, titled Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900–1934. The compilation was released through the National Film Preservation Foundation, as part of their Treasures from American Film Archives series. The box set includes a 200-page illustrated book with film notes and credits[8]

The film is also archived at the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; the Library of Congress; the British Film Institute in London; and the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.[8][9]

• 
  Being rescued on the bridge at beginning of film
• 
  Slum partying, she's laughing at the poor people, he decides to break up with her afterwards
• 
  Arriving home after getting married, realizing her husband is wealthy

• 1912 in film
• Silent film
• Silent films category
• Silent film actors

Books and magazines

• Chalmers, J. P., ed. (November 9, 1912). "Essanay – From the Submerged". The Moving Picture World. New York City: Chalmers Publishing Company. 14 (6).
• Lupack, Barbara Tepa (April 15, 2020). "Seeking Old Opportunity". Silent Serial Sensations: The Wharton Brothers and the Magic of Early Cinema. Cornell University Press. pp. 30–31. ISBN 978-1-5017-4820-2.
• Olden, John (December 1912). Brewster, Eugene V. (ed.). "From the Submerged". Motion Picture Story Magazine. Vol. 4, no. 2. Brooklyn, New York. pp. 61–68.

Newspapers

• "At The Picture Shows". Evening Capital News. Boise, Idaho. November 17, 1912. p. 5.
• "The Essanay Co. – From the Submerged". Alton Evening Telegraph. Alton, Illinois. November 30, 1912. p. 8.
• "The Orpheum". Evansville Courier and Press. Evansville, Indiana. December 5, 1912. p. 3.
• "Amusements". The Meriden Daily Journal. Meriden, Connecticut. December 9, 1912. p. 7.
• Phillips, Michael (July 22, 2007). "When Chicago Created Hollywood; 100 Years Ago, Essanay Films Made The City A Moviemaking Center". Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Illinois. ProQuest 420597748.

Online sources

• Baer, Geoffrey (January 21, 2013). "The Sad Story of Lincoln Park's 'Suicide Bridge'". WTTW News.
• Bennett, Carl (October 18, 2010). "Silent Era: Progressive Silent Film List". Silent Era. Archived from the original on December 19, 2022.
• Grutchfield, Michael (June 2, 2017). "From the Submerged (1912)". Century Film Project. Archived from the original on June 2, 2023.
• Smith, Michael Glover (October 1, 2012). "The Secret History of Chicago Movies: From the Submerged". White City Cinema. Archived from the original on November 10, 2012.

• This article incorporates text from these sources, which are in the public domain: The Moving Picture World; Motion Picture Story Magazine; Evening Capital News; Alton Evening Telegraph; Evansville Courier and Press; The Meriden Daily Journal

• Kobel, Peter; Library of Congress; foreword by Martin Scorsese; introduction by Kevin Brownlow (February 28, 2009). Silent Movies: The Birth of Film and the Triumph of Movie Culture. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-06959-5.
• Selzer, Adam; Smith, Michael Glover (January 20, 2015). Flickering Empire: How Chicago Invented the U.S. Film Industry. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-85079-7.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to From the Submerged.

• From the Submerged watch the film at Internet Archive
• From the Submerged at FilmAffinity
• From the Submerged at IMDb
• Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film (1900–1934) at Internet Archive