Movies Way Back When: The Lonely Heart

By Betsy J. Green

In the “Flying A” film “The Lonely Heart,” the heroine, who must be lonely (or perverted?), caresses a toad. The studio was desperate for publicity for this 1915 movie, and the local papers must have been desperate for “news” to fill their pages – so there were five articles about the toad, or was it a frog? There seemed to be some amphibian ambiguity going on, not to mention the question of what to feed it – flies or crackers? Not surprisingly, several amphibians gave up their lives for “Art” during the filming.