Released November 07, 1915
Role: Cho-Cho-San
Co-stars: Marshall Neilan, Olive West, Jane Hall, Lawrence Wood, Caroline Harris, M.W. Rale, W.T. Carleton, David Burton, Frank Dekum, Caesere Gravina
Prod/Dist Co: Famous Players Film Company/Paramount Pictures
Director: Sidney Olcott
Screenwriter: Based on the 1898 novella by John Luther Long
Cinematographer: Hal Young
Filming Location: New Jersey, New York City
Note: Broadway producer David Belasco was the first to dramatize Long’s story for his 1900 stage production.
Original review from Variety (Nov. 12, 1915):
For many moons it has been stated, and repeated, in the motion picture fraternity that Mary Pickford was a wonderful artist along certain lines, but that said lines were limited and quite circumscribed. This statement had become so familiar that it was generally accepted as a fact. Well, you Doubting Thomases and Unbelievers, go to the Strand this week to see her in the Famous Players’ (Paramount) production of ‘Mme. Butterfly’ and disabuse your minds of any such idea once and for all. … Words are useless to describe the beauty and artistry of it all – the production, the photography … and above all else, Mary Pickford. The Famous Players has never turned out a finer feature – nor indeed has anybody else.