A ballroom tragedy motion picture

Opens on a set of a sitting room, apparently off a ballroom where dancers occasionally can be glimpsed through a curtained entrance stage right. Near the entrance, a young couple in formal attire talk--perhaps angrily--as another couple exit the dancing. The second man introduces his companion--a striking woman in a risqué white gown with a low-cut bodice and bare shoulders--to the other man and then reenters the dance hall. The young man apparently rejects his female companion, who is plainer in comparison with the new arrival, and invites the woman in white to join him on a settee. The two talk closely and affectionately, as the spurned woman returns with a knife in her hand and hides in the curtain behind the sitting couple. When the two kiss, she reaches out and stabs her rival in the back. The injured woman jumps up in pain and then collapses on the floor, apparently dead. The murderess runs away as the young man rushes to hold the fallen woman.
"The scene shows the hall of a private residence with the dance progressing in the distant parlors. A young couple are seen quarrelling, and the young man discards his fiancee for another fair charmer. The rejected girl goes away in a rage, but returns just in time to witness a scene between her lover and her rival. Infuriated at the sight she draws a stiletto from her gown and stabs the unfortunate girl who has usurped her place. 50 feet"--Biograph bulletin, no. 55.
H62508 U.S. Copyright Office
Copyright: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co.; 22June1905; H62508.
Original main title lacking.
Camera, G.W. "Billy" Bitzer.
Duration: 0:50 at 16 fps.
Paper print shelf number (LC 0900) was changed when the paper prints were re-housed.
Additional holdings for this title may be available. Contact reference librarian.
Biograph production no. 3041.
Filmed June 14, 1905, in the Biograph New York City studio.
Available also through the Library of Congress Web site as digital files.
Sources used: Copyright catalog, motion pictures, 1894-1912; Niver, K. Early motion pictures, p. 22; AFI catalog: film beginnings, 1893-1910; Biograph bulletins 1896-1908, p. 219.
Early motion pictures : the Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress / by Kemp R. Niver. Library of Congress. 1985.