act on his plan, and he leaves the child unharmed. In the final scene of the narrative, Beppo is shown placing flowers and sobbing over his son's grave. Prologue and epilogue The film employs a prologue and epilogue to frame the narrative story. In the prologue, a stage curtain rises and shows the lead actor, George Beban, in an upper class apartment wearing a smoking jacket. He sits on a couch and opens a book titled "The Italian" by Thomas H. Ince and C. Gardner Sullivan. As he begins reading, the film fades into the narrative story. In the epilogue, the film shifts from the image of Beppo kneeling at his son's grave to Beban turning to the last page of the book, closing the book and looking thoughtful. The stage curtain is then drawn closed. Some critics have suggested the prologue and epilogue were intended to demonstrate the care with which Beban, a noted stage actor, had selected a story worthy of his talents. Production Historical accounts indicate that Thomas Ince and C. Gardner Sullivan had originally titled their project Dago, but agreed to change the title at the request of the film's star, George Beban. The Italian marked the first motion picture role for Beban, who had gained acclaim as a Broadway actor and vaudevillian specializing in ethnic caricatures. Beban only agreed to join the project for a salary of $7000 and a percentage of the films profits. Ince and Sullivan are credited with writing the film's story, but film historian Kevin Brownlow has shown that the plot was essentially lifted from the earlier Independent Moving Pictures (Ince's former employer) film The Wop (1913). Though set on Manhattan's Lower East Side, the New York scenes for The Italian were shot in the immigrant quarter of San Francisco. While most accounts indicate that the scenes of Beppo as a gondolier were shot in the Venice district of Los Angeles, an account published by the Los Angeles Times in November 1914 reported that "Ince sent Beban to Italy to get special canal scenes for the eight-reel play." One of the vivid scenes in The Italian is the fight scene between Beppo and his muggers. The scene lasts five minutes on the screen, and a newspaper story reported that, for realism, "a number of the biggest men at Inceville were used in the scene." In a story on the production of