Lady Babbie

That role was loosely based on a popular character originally performed by American actress Maude Adams in the 1897 Broadway production The Little Minister, a play adapted from the 1891 novel of the same title by Scottish writer J. M.

The story involves Lord Primton (Frederick C. Truesdell), an important landowner who lives on his estate with his widowed sister (Julia Stewart) and her niece, Lady Babbie (Barbara Tennant).

To gather allies to discuss a plan of action against the tax, Primton invites his friends to a lawn party, hoping such a common social event will not arouse the suspicions of government officials.

While the romancing of Lady Babbie and the deadly confrontation were occurring, Lord Primton sent his son to England to seek the king's assistance in overturning the unfair tax and to investigate the province's corrupt administration.

After Byron is arrested for murder and sentenced to be hung, Dunmore offers him a chance to avoid execution if he agrees to find Primton, now in hiding, and bring him alive to the governor's office.

A. C. Lund's decisions to write a screenplay and then direct a film titled Lady Babbie proved timely in 1913, for other productions in the United States featuring the character were being presented in both stage revivals and on screen.

[1] That Broadway adaptation transformed the novel into a comedy, and it starred legendary American actress Maude Adams, whose 300 performances as Lady Babbie during the 1897-1898 season popularized the character to "packed houses".

[13] It therefore appears that Lund simply hoped his film could profit, at least in part, from the name recognition, literary history, and long-standing popularity of stage productions associated with the title he applied to his script or "scenario".

Filming of Eclair's Lady Babbie was done in September and early October 1913, with interior scenes shot at the company's two-year-old studio facilities in Fort Lee, New Jersey and most outdoor footage taken on location at Lake George, New York.

Given that location's 200-mile distance from Fort Lee, Eclair sought to save production time and expenses by combining needed camerawork in a single outing and shooting scenes at Lake George for "several scenarios" or different upcoming films described to be "English and Colonial in character".

While giving Lady Babbie high marks for its performances, costumes, and cinematography, the journal found the release's overall screenplay somewhat muddled:This is a rather elaborate three-reel production; its atmosphere in colonial days, the principal characters, including a governor of one of the provinces and his political enemies, and its theme, derived from the adventuresome, mettlesome qualities of Lady Babbie are well rendered by Miss Barbara Tennant, and the equally daring and adventurous Lord [Byron], her lover.

"It is seldom", writes the paper's anonymous reviewer in May 1914, "that any moving picture house is accorded the opportunity to present a photo-play equal to 'Lady Babbie,' the Eclair three-reel drama, featured today at the Regale theater".

It is probable that any footage from used reels that were returned to Eclair disintegrated over time like the vast majority of motion pictures produced in the silent era, falling victim to the highly unstable nitrate-based film stock on which they were printed.

One of the scenes filmed at Lake George, New York: Lady Babbie's fiancé confronts her and Lieutenant Byron