During the reign of Oliver Cromwell, Catholic worship is forbidden on pain of death. Three soldiers are arrested as Catholics and condemned to die. Cromwell decides to spare two of them and to determine which should die by chance. The guards bring the first child they meet. Whichever soldier she gives the 'death disc' to shall die. Cromwell is charmed by the girl and gives her his signet ring. By chance the child is the daughter of one of the soldiers and gives the death disc to her father, because she thinks it's pretty. The child is returned home to her mother, who learns of her husband's pending execution and of the power of the ring. She rushes to the place of execution and saves her husband by producing the ring.
Direction
Griffith already staging complex moral irony in 1909.
Writing
Cromwell's 'mercy' is crueller than execution.
Director
D.W. Griffith
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Anti-Catholic sentiment in early American cinema often masked anti-immigrant politics — this rare sympathetic portrayal is Griffith at his most ideologically slippery.
Mack Sennett appears uncredited; within two years he'd invent Keystone Cops and abandon this heavy moralism entirely.
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