1913 cinema's most chaotic divorce proceedings, now with 100% more frontier justice.
In this story the young wife concerned is called upon to solve a rather momentous question. After separating from her husband, whom she has discovered to be a brute and a criminal, she is about to give herself to another man, believing her husband dead, when he appears before her fleeing from justice. Shall she deliver him to the law or surrender to his claims? She yields in one instance, but not in the other. Then justice intervenes.
Direction
Griffith inventing cinematic language in real-time, for better and worse.
Acting
Blanche Sweet's face doing ALL the heavy lifting—no dialogue needed.
Director
D.W. Griffith
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was shot during Griffith's prolific 1913 period at Biograph, where he directed over 70 shorts that year alone.
The 'fallen woman' redemption arc here became a Griffith obsession—he kept recycling this moral dilemma across decades.
US
