Looking for Mabel Normand
Madcap Mabel Normand
Mabel Needs Mending
Marilyn Slater
Looking for Mabel
“The Mender of Nets” is a classic D.W. Griffith, Biograph melodramatic story, which shows the 
In this 16 minuets, Johann Gottlob Wilhelm ('Billy') Bitzer the cinematographer found Mary Pickford and Mabel Normand fighting for the affection of Charles West before his camera, Bitzer took breathtaking pictures. Mary really doesn’t fight with Mabel, as she is 
the “mender.” The whole film is available on the internet. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5g6th_the-mender-of-nets_shortfilms
The opening title cards reads 1910 but it was made during the 1912 season of the Biograph Company in
The story is of the loves of a young fisherman (Charles H. West), the first love, the girl dishonored (Mabel Normand) and the more virtuous love (Mary Pickford). When Mabel 
finds that Charles wants to move on and their relationship has ended, Mabel isn’t ready and her brother ( I can’t locate his name) wants to kill Charles for the humiliation of Mabel. Mary understands that Charles has an obligation to Mabel and pleads for Charles’ life. Mary, the Mender, 
convinces Charles to return to Mabel and Mary returns to mending her father’s nets. The actor playing Mary’s father was Charles Hills Mailes http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/marypickford1910.htm
Mender of Nets
Biograph Company
Director: D.W. Griffith
Cinematography by G.W. Bitzer
Release Date:
Genre: Romance
Runtime:
It maybe that when the listing of Arthur Johnson as supporting Mary Pickford in “The Mender of Nets” the copy-writer was just mistaken and the actors do look a lot alike, at the time the original actors were not identified. In 1912, Arthur Johnson was not working with D. W. Griffith in California, so Charles West, did the deed.
Arthur Johnson
