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The Pink Opera Cloak

1913 silent film directed by Hardee Kirkland

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 9, 2026
Entity authorityQ3988729
Source-derived summary

The Pink Opera-Cloak, also as The Pink Opera Cloak is a 1913 American silent film drama produced by Hardee Kirkland. The film stars Adrienne Kroell, Lillian Logan, Rose Evans and Carl Winterhoff. The film status is uncertain but a release flier survives which is now at the Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, it was part of the Charles G. Clarke collection.

Plot

Ella Markham (Adrienne Kroell) pretty and young is left penniless and along in the world through the death of her father. She is advised to seek work in Chicago and arrives in that big city with many misgivings but a stout heart. She secures employment as demonstrating model for a fashionable modiste. Laura Keene (Lillian Logan) and her mother (Rose Evans), ambitious social climbers, enter the shop in quest of an opera cloak. Ella displays and sells them as expensive pink garment. They ask her to deliver it at their home and Ella leaves with a package. As she is leaving the Keene residence, Ella passes handsome John Foragan (Carl Winterhoff) who is calling on the Keenes.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Pink Opera Cloak” is 1913 silent film directed by Hardee Kirkland. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Pink, Opera and Cloak, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1913—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1913-01-01. For this dossier, Pink, Opera and Cloak is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1913 silent film directed by Hardee Kirkland” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3988729. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1913.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Pink Opera Cloak”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Pink Opera Cloak primary sources, The Pink Opera Cloak archive and Pink research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Pink Opera Cloak”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from The Pink Opera Cloak” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.