American comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle (1887 – 1933) started in films at Keystone studios in 1913. We can see he was already a skilled and mature comedian in his first year in films. Although he sometimes played the role of a grown-up baby who could not control his impulses, his roles and gags would only become more sophisticated and ellaborate as time passed, and the audience always laughed and rooted for his character. His potential was already evident at the very beginning of his screen career, as we can see in this cute little film. 

Fatty is in a park with his sweetheart. A cop passes them by and sits besides a woman and his little daugther on a bench. While her mother talks to the policeman, the girl goes to play too close to the park’s lake. She slips and falls in the lake. Fatty and his sweetheat see everything. Fatty’s sweetheat makes him jump in the lake to save the girl, although he is afraid of doing so. In fact, Fatty ends up falling in the lake accidentally. Anyway, it does not matter what made him fall in the lake, as he actually saved the girl from drowning in the long run and, as an intertitle says: “It turns out to be the police commissioner’s child”. The girl is brought back to her family and Fatty is acknowledged as the hero who saved her. Being now a respected and admired man, he is invited to become a policeman and “the whole force does him honor”.

Fatty has his own uniform and it is time to go to the streets and perform his duty. However, he soon finds out things will not be as easy as he thought they would be. He is talking to his sweetheart when he sees some boys figthing. He tries to stop it, but one of the boys ended up accidentaly punching him and runs away immediately afterwards, leaving a virtually unconscious Fatty behind. Fatty is helped by his sweetheart and they both sit on a bench. Then, a group of boys start teasing Fatty by throwing stuff on him. He runs after the boys, but falls on the ground, and consequently falling behind and getting dirty. His sweetheart comes back home and Fatty decides to have a bath in the lake, leaving his cop uniform on the ground while he swims. But the worst is about to happen: The boys see him in the lake, find his clothes and decide to leave them somewhere else. After a while, his uniform is found by another guy, who takes it straight to the police station. The police officers recognize the uniform as being Fatty’s and assume he drowned. 

Meanwhile, Fatty finds himself half naked and all alone. His situation worsens when two women see him and report to the cops they had seen a “wild man”, which make the cops chase Fatty. While the chase takes place, his sweetheat is leading a search in the lake with the purpose of finding Fatty or at least a clue to his whereabouts. Fatty tries to hide in vain and is caught and arrested by the cops. Fatty’s fellow policemen mourn his death. When the cops arrive in the police station bringing Fatty with them, it becomes obvious that Fatty is immediately recognized, even though he is dressed with rags. The other cops are not happy to see him again and throw Fatty in prison, probably because they thought he staged his own death on purpose.

The film finishes with Fatty crying in his cell. His experience as a policeman did not really leave good memories. We tend to feel sympathetic for Fatty; after all he was working in a job to which he had no previous formal training and ended up being a victim of unfavorable circumstances, rather than being a corrupt schemer. It is impossible not to compare the end of this film with the consequences of Virginia Rappe scandal that would engulf Fatty Arbuckle’s life in 1921. Therefore, this end is probably more disturbing and ironic now than it was for 1910s audiences. 

This is one of the most creative silent short comedies by Hal Roach studios and one of most famous films by Australian comedian Harry “Snub” Pollard (1889 – 1962).

An eccentric inventor, creatively named Pollard, lives in a house filled with his eccentric inventions. It is interesting to see that this film was made the year after Buster Keaton’s The Electric House (USA,1922), which also depicted a house full of gadgets. Was Keaton’s film an inspiration for this one? This is something that isn’t known.

But this film features something that wasn’t in Keaton’s film. While The Electric House focused on electricity, this film focuses on oil. A group of oil executives is trying to find a substitute for gasoline that is fireproof and non-explosive. It is very interesting to see that the challenge of finding alternative power sources has gone on longer than most people would imagine. There was an attempt to find a suitable gasoline substitute, but unfortunately the final result was an explosion. After that, the oil executives got to know that inventor Pollard had invented it and contact him without delay in order to schedule a demonstration. 

Hal Roach’s short comedies were surely among the ones with funniest intertitles and this one does not disappoint the audience in this regard. After claiming that “Edison works twenty hours -sleeps four. Pollard’s hours are longer –sleeps twenty-four”. Yes, the comparison was made with famous American inventor Thomas Edison, who was still alive at that time.

We see Snub sleeping and his bedroom is full of hanging wires, almost as if his bed was placed in the middle of a spider web. There are all sorts of gadgets in his bedroom, including a machine to clean his feet with a feather and a razor, and a device to make his breakfast. There was even a real chicken laying eggs in a special place, so the eggs would fall directly in the pan and a toy cow that would provide him milk directly on a cup. Pollard even found a way to receive his correspondence directly in bed. 

After a round of very creative invention-related gags, Pollard opens a letter where he is informed that the president of Onion Oil Co. would like Pollard to demonstrate his gasoline substitute.

After his blanket becomes a curtain and his bed becomes a fireplace, which are quite interesting gags to be seen, Pollard gets himself cleaned, get his hat among the flowers on the table and an intertitle mentions he has “en invention for every occasion”, which is something we cannot really deny. However, we must be aware to the fact that this same intertitle warns the audience that his inventions do not always work, which is something we will see with our own eyes right afterwards. Then we see something that resembles a car in a the shape of a pencil, but much smaller than the usual size of a car, leaving a garbage can that also serves as a garage. We will soon understand how it works. 

Pollard gets a huge magnet from inside the car and sits down. When a car passes by, he uses the magnet. The magnet is attracted to a passing car, pulling Pollard’s car behind it in one of the most iconic scenes in this Australian comedian’s career. Sometimes the magnet harms the car which is pulling Pollard’s car along, which is an obvious drawback to his invention and causes him some problems with the owners of other cars. Some extra objects on the street are also accidentally pulled. This is exactly what happens when a garbage can where a police officer was sitting ends up being unintentionally pulled, which causes a chase that worthy of being shown in a 1910s slapstick comedy by Keystone Studios. But the cop has no chance to get Pollard; after all, he was chasing a car on foot and the chase is disturbed when the garbage can comes loose and the policeman trips over it and falls. The cop gets to stand up and run again but he is finished for good after falling in a culvert hole in the middle of the street after Pollard’s magnet had just pulled off the lid.

When Pollard drives by a lake he notices something unusual and approaches people to see what is happening. He realizes a guy is drowning and offers his waterproof shoes to save the guy. Yes, he had waterproof shoes inside of his car. After all, he could need them at any moment. Lol! We can also see that the car is small but it is possible to tuck many things inside of it. Unfortunately Pollard has to run away after realizing his invention was a flop and it wouldn’t really help rescuing the drowning man.

Pollard finally meets the oil executives and he claims his invention will solve their problem, so the invention is tested in some cars. They can move successfully at first, but after several minutes they explode so powerfully that the explosion impacts some nearby buildings. The damage is huge. 

Once more our dear inventor has to escape in his peculiar car while being chased by a motorcycle. Will Pollard be able to run away? Of course he will. All he has to do to avoid his pursuer is push a button inside his car and fly away. This time his invention works and the film ends with Pollard flying away towards safety. What a creative film and what a creative end!

A rural melodrama that stood well the test of time. Indeed, the impact it causes nowadays is even bigger than in the past. This film having been made already at a time when Hollywood was at the height of its art in the silent era, reflecting transformations brought by urbanization and progress, this film remains a valuable witness of a way of life gone long ago.

Having been able to build up an unique cultural patrimony, Finland has always had a very characteristic way of life, not being so much similar to its Scandinavian neighbors. Having been part of Russia until late 1910s, back to 1925, they have been an independent country for less than 10 years. Nevertheless, despite their close cultural and political contact with Russia, they got to retain their own culture. As in neighbor countries, most people lived in the countryside and peasants had their own values and beliefs. Regardless of peaceful place, there were a plenty of political conflicts and people had their share of problems.

The film portrays the conflicts of free peasants and Russian rulers. The wounds of their recent Civil War were still very recent and political conflicts and resolution of traumas among country population were still an issue back to 1920s. Russian authorities were also displayed as disrupting the tranquil, honorable and free way of life of Finnish peasants, representing the voice of oppression over those good people, who would not allow their honor to be stained so easily.

Nevertheless, despite all suffering brought by the authorities, we can see the fields, forest and nature represent spaces where the freedom of people could not be taken by anyone. They were spaces were people could feel happy without fear, being directly connected with God, with their values, honor. The interaction with nature as a whole was perfect, almost sacred. This can be reflected even in the beautiful and strong religions ethics of people and in the solidarity among themselves. This is a somehow idealized portrait, even though it’s not entirely distant from reality. Just a way to paint reality with a more beautiful paint, but a realistic one somehow.

Somehow we can remember of the “good country people” being so many times portrayed in American life and literature, but with a very important difference. The peasant and rural way of life was already changing little by little in main American cities back to 1920s, while it was much more untouched in Scandinavia at the same decade. Thus, this film, rather than being a reconstruction of a country life that was starting to face, was in fact a witness of how people actually lived. This is something that brings a realism to this film that is impossible to be ignored. The nostalgia it inspires is something that only increases the high emotional impact of the film in the audience.

However, the audience must pay attention to one thing that might be one of weakest points of the film: There are many characters, all of them are important to the development of the story. It’s important to pay attention to their names and in some of their personality traits, otherwise it becomes difficult to keep track of the plot.

For non Scandinavian audiences, not only the time references are different, but also cultural references are quite different from what they are used to, which sometimes gives the impression that people are watching a “folkloric” movie.

But, once again, what makes a film like that so special? After all, back to the silent era, in many countries the majority of population lived in the countryside and rural areas. Consequently, rural values were still nationally and culturally valid, opposite to urban values that were considered alien and even somehow wicked. An example this thought can be seen even in the more-urbanized United States in its film Sunrise ― a song of two humans, directed by F. W. Murnau, which was made in 1927 at the very end of American silent era.

It has been said that urbanization has begun relatively late in Finland in comparison with most Central European countries. So, the production of films emphasizing rural values, considered legitimate among most of population members, was also a way of praising their own national values and at the same time discussing themes that many people would feel related because it was part of their daily lives. We must also not forget that manual work was still very much present in the lives of people in the entire silent era compared with subsequent decades.

Although it is a melodrama in all senses, acting is not very stagy and it is even subtle and natural at some moments, despite some other moments of acting that resemble the stage. However, the performances have a natural effect in the overall, specially in comparison with some films made in Denmark and Russia back to 1910s, which had a much more stagy acting.

All in all, this film stood well the test of time and its appeal just gets bigger. It is a must see, specially when compared with Hollywood films of the same era. Both Scandinavian and American silents are very good and it is very fun to compare them both and see their similarities and differences.

Back to a time when flirting on the beach was not something common yet and women in bathing suits was a new phenomena. The style of girls on the beach had a close resemblance to the Bathing Beauties of Mack Sennett studios, which signals a spoofing of the rival studio by Larry Semon, of Vitagraph Studios. The style of this film is very different from usual films by Semon, which were usually very cartoom-like (Semon used to be a cartoonist in real life) and with expensive special effects. It is also uncommon to see a studio spoofing each other. 

In this film, we see a mix of usual 1910s gags, like people running and falling on water from a pier together with more uncommon gags, like the one where Semon flirted with a woman by holding her hand behind na unbrella and all that the audiences could see were shades of the hands, among other interesting stuff. The pace is also slower than those of traditional slapstick comedies, even when total chaos happened. 

It is also noteworthy to see that the initial gag of a guy hidden on the sand with a “monocle” was also used in other 1920s shorts, specially by comedian Billy Bevan, with quite funny effects. The gags were also innovative for its era, making the most of sunny beaches, beautiful girls and flirty guys. 

Another remarkable thing is the insensitive jokes on both black and chubby people, back to a era when being politically correct was not a habit. The gag towards the black woman and how offended Semon was upon realizing he was flirting with her and her answer in a intertitle with a clearly substandard English is even disturbing for nowadays’ standards. 

The plot itself is very simple and it revolved about Semon trying to impress the father of his sweetheart by staging a fake robbery, but unfortunately a real crime happened and he had to solve this problem. 

This cute, weird comedy provides lots of fun and it is the witness of the culture of a era when attending the beach to swim and getting a tan was slowly becoming more common and how it could still be daring for some people. A lifestyle that was gone a long time ago, but quite enjoyable anyway.

A typical film by Keystone studio with misunderstandings, chases, the Keystone cops, flirting, a park and physical gags, but it is as hilarious nowadays as it was 100 years ago. Although the Keystone studios was active for 21 years (from 1912 to 1933) with a wide range of comedies, from one reelers to feature length films and from rough slapstick to situational comedies, this studio became more famous for its output in 1910ies, which usually included the aforementioned elements. 

The police chief had a beautiful daughter and one day, when he said good bye to her and went to work, we could see that in a nearby house a woman ordered her husband to walk their dog. We could see that the woman was rather bossy and that the husband was not exactly happy in his household. 

However, the daughter of the police chief had a sweetheart, who left her a note asking her to meet him in the park. The neighbor walked his dog in the park and got enchanted by the girl and, even though he was married, he tried to be too close to the girl. Her sweetheart arrived, saw that the unknown man was making advances towards his girlfriend and kicked the stranger out. 

However, the married neighbor did not give up and he hired some tough guys to help him kidnap the girl by putting her in a big bag and run away with her (the gag of kidnapping a girl by throwing her in a big bag would be subsequently repeated in other films by this studio, such as The Grab Bag Bride, shot in 1917, among others). For this purpose, the neighbor left a note in the girl’s house asking him to meet him in the park, pretending it was her boyfriend who left it there.

But the neighbor’s wife found out there was something wrong and went outside looking for her husband and the tough guys approached her, thinking she was the girl and ended up kidnapping the wife by mistake. The girl’s boyfriend saw the kidnapping and he thought it was his girlfriend who had been the victim and he called the police (in this case, the Keystone cops). The girl arrived at the place and, after witnessing all mess, she thought her boyfriend was in danger and a chase involving nearly all characters of the film started. 

There was the expected happy ending, with the Keystone cops catching the criminals and causing lots of destruction during the chase. The chase was noteworthy for having involved as many means of transportation as possible, which is a cool historical witness of the modernization of transport in the 1910s, when horses shared the outdoors space with cars and streetcars. 

When the chase was over, the married neighbor realized he had kidnapped his own wife by mistake and fainted because he knew there would be serious trouble to him both in and out of home. The girl and her boyfriend were happily reunited and her father to admit that her boyfriend was a brave young man and approve of their relationship.

This film may seem predictable for nowadays’ audiences, but its gags were full of action, innovative and funny for its era and still retain their charm, mostly for the competence of the comedians and the freshness of seeing all those physical gags being performed without stuntmen, grounded on the physical skills of the actors engaging in gags that still relied on improvisation and intuition. This created films with universal appeal, which could be understood by nearly everyone, regardless of culture and it explains why those films are still so funny nowadays. 

This early film by Keystone studios is more famous for its historical context than its rather simple plot and it is amazing how much history this split reel can have (A “split reel” was a film shorter than a one reeler, which means it lasted less than 11 minutes). It portrays a era when the leisure options of working class and middle class citizens were changing and it was still relatively new to go to the beach to swim. Bathing suits were also a new phenomena and still a bit frowned upon. So, seeing Mabel in a trampoline, jumping on the water in such relaxed way was something really groundbreaking because many women have just started to enjoy their free time this way.

Mack Sennett already directed and acted in comedies in his prior studio, Biograph, the same studio that gave D. W. Griffith to the world. But in Keystone studios, Sennett got to put his own style in the comedies, with characters making broad gestures, showing lives of working class citizens in a fast pace, lots of physical gags and risky stunts, without the melodrama touch of his films at Biograph studios.

Another interesting characteristic of the output of Keystone studios was making fun of well-established social institutions, specially authorities (the Keystone cops being the most famous example of it) and romantic relationships, like marriages, for instance. The latter would be even more deeply spoofed in situational comedies of 1920s of both Keystone studios and other ones.

Mack and Mabel were sweehearts, but Mabel had not met Mack’s parents yet. Thus, Mack had the idea of playing a trick on his flirtatious father by asking Mabel to vamp him (which would mean to seduce him in nowadays’ terms) while everyone was on the beach in a sunny day.

Nevertheless, one of intertitles implies that Mack’s father was not exactly a faithful husband (“Mack’s Papa, a faithful husband when locked in at home”) and he predictably got too carried away with Mabel until the moment Mack tells him she is his own girlfriend.

Another noteworthy thing are the dexterous stunts of Mabel Normand in the trampoline and how skilled she was as a swimmer. This film is a really precious witness of a society whose urbanization was happening really fast for the era’s standards and of the new world of entertainment and delight that was being opened to people beyond the borders of the countryside. Without mentioning that this film could have been the inspiration for the famous Sennett’s Bathing Beauties, that would be released by the studio some years later. 

If not all that glitters is gold, not everything that looks ugly is really hideous. The film starts with a invocation to nature and the bucolic life of the countryside of a Scandinavian spot. The countrymen wore those typical peasant clothes and lived in typical landscapes of forests, lots of spaces of untouched nature and rivers.

A new parson must be elected in a village in 17th century Norway. Sofren was applying for the vacant post after having struggled hardship for years. His sweetheart Mari had remained faithfully by his side and waited for him during his years of difficulties. Mari’s father will not allow Sofren to marry her until Sofren is truly a parson. Sofren’s two rivals to the post had the utmost faith that they would win based on their beautiful clothes and education they received in Copenhagen, which implied that those fellows had a more sophisticated background than Sofren’s. Anyway, the competition was fierce, specially because the education did not prevent Sofren’s opponents from being either too boring or too ridiculous and the congregation did not find their sermons particularly interesting.

The congregation had appointed five wise and trusted men to decide who would be chosen as the new parson and Sofren was chosen. But there was a problem, which was the fact that according to the laws of the parish, Sofren was supposed to get married to Dame Margerete, who was the widow of last parson and much older than him. And Dame Margerte insisted on her right to be married. To make things worse, Sofren had heard she might be a witch and it would be the fourth time that Dame Margerete was marrying in such circumstances. She was not marrying due to sentimental reasons, but merely because it was her only way to keep the house and managing it, as she felt she was too old to leave the household she got so attached to.

Sofren and Mari decided it would be better if he married the widow, so he could become parson and when the widow died he would marry Mari. Meanwhile, Mari would live with them pretending to be Sofren’s sister and help with the house tasks. Sofren also tried to be “the master of the house” and give the orders there, but unfortunately to him the widow made it really clear that he would not be in charge of the household matters.

Time passed, Dame Margerete had not died yet and Sofren did not have any close contact with Mari, specially because the widow (who was now Sofren’s wife) had both her eyes on his whereabouts.
But one day Mari unexpectedly had a domestic fall and seriously hurt her leg. More time passed and Sofren grew fond of Dame Margerete because she had taken care of Mari day and night with lots of care. Surprisingly, Dame Margerete implied she knew that Sofren and Mari were not siblings and she also told them that she lived in similar circumstances with her first husband before they both got married.

Finally, the widow passed away, Mari and Sofren eventually got to marry and the memory of Dame Margerete was fondly kept in their minds for a long time afterwards. A sentimental end to a film that is a mix of comedy, folklore (specially in the dancing scenes), romance and drama. A romanticized view of peasantry life. Good use of landscapes and photography in a subtle humor frame, different from the marks slapstick x situational comedies, which were so much used in Hollywood at that time. The jokes are not necessarily meant to make the audiences laugh but to highlight that people could be more sneaky than they looked like at first. The most funny moments were provided by Sofren and his wide range of reactions throughout the film (sadness, happiness, gratitude, despair, etc)

The so-called silent era officially spanned from 1895 to 1927, even though those dates are still controversial, from the first films being shown by Lumière brothers, Thomas Edison, etc. until the release of The Jazz Singer (USA, 1927), which is considered the first talkie. Let’s just not focus on other landmarks and use those dates to delimit the silent era.

Many people claim they cannot understand silent films properly. Nevertheless, films made at the end of silent era (after the main American studios like Universal, Fox, Paramount, etc were founded) are easier to understand, as narrative structures were already consolidated. Films like The Big Parade (USA, 1925), Ben Hur (USA, 1925), Wings (USA, 1927), Sunrise (USA, 1927), Metropolis (Germany, 1927) and so on and so forth, can be much more technologically advanced than we can expect. In other words, their stories are told according to standards that can be comparable with modern films.

However, when we see the films produced in first years of silent era, until around 1915, when D.W. Griffith revolutionized film making with the highly controversial The Birth of a Nation (USA, 1915), we realize they are much more difficult to understand. It happens for some reasons, one of them is that it took a while until cinema got to develop its own “language” and “grammar,” so films were really connected to popular forms of culture, such as vaudeville, circus, magic, fair attractions, magic lantern, which were very popular ways people had fun in the end of XIX century, beginning of XX century. Such representations were opposed to more classic forms of art, such as literature and painting, theatre, etc.

Therefore, it really comes as no surprise that in those first years films were not shown in places where they were the only attraction, they shared the same space as other types of mass distraction, such as vaudevilles and burlesque shows. Mass media was advancing, so, for instance, newspapers had been much more common since XIX century already, news were spread more easily, novels were being read by more people and in many countries urbanization was advancing, which represented a small revolution in the typical peasant life. So, films were a result of all those changes brought about by industrialization and technology. In other words, a completely new world opened up for people and they felt deeply insecure at first.

Sensationalism also started being more widespread, especially because it did help sell more newspapers (some things don’t ever change, huh?). but it was not only that. The grotesque sensationalism was not only connected with economic exploitation, but it was also a way of people representing their feeling of vulnerability and insecurity in this new urban environment.

Thus, many references of early films can be seen in elements of popular culture like current jokes, news, songs, famous plays, novels, etc. So, the audience somehow already knew the plot. Some films that represent this trend are Uncle Tom’s Cabin (USA, 1903); Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son (USA, 1905); The Whole Dam Family and the Dam Dog (USA, 1905), etc.

Everyday life was shown in many short films since the first short films were shot by Lumière (for example:  Démolition d’un mur (1896), among others) and Edison. An aspect of private life that was particularly highlighted was public spaces, as in films like The Great Train Robbery (1903) and Romance of the Rail (1903). One might say those very early silents are hard to understand by nowadays’ standards, but we must keep in mind that cinema has evolved very fast, particularly in its first 3 decades.

Something that can be easily noticed in those films is that life at that time compared with the one we have nowadays clearly revolved around manual labor, both to men and women.

This can be easily noticed, in slapstick films in general, such as Mabel Normand’s films by Keystone Studios. She was a rather athletic actress, who did most of her own stunts, which was not uncommon in early Hollywood and already in 1910ies we can see a long list of daredevil stars who did so. At that time not even domestic duties were a piece of cake. Many women used entire days to simply wash their clothes, for example. We also may not forget that in countries like the United States, in the first years of cinema, especially until 1915, when feature films established themselves, most of the audience of those short films were laborers and immigrants, the ones who were more involved with that manual labor.

Those events were not only related to rural life and habits, but also to news and urban life. An example of technology being readily shown in films is that trains were commonplace throughout the silent era, from Leaving Jerusalem by Railway (1896) to standard Hollywood productions like The General (1926). After all, cinema itself was a result of fast industrialization that started in the Northern Hemisphere as of middle XIX century, so it is natural that it portrays the wonders of recent inventions.

Let’s take a look at one of Normand’s films and briefly analyze some factors. In the short film A Dash Through the Clouds (1912), Normand in the beginning of the film enters an airplane that is rather fragile for nowaday’s standards.

Those films were somehow important for women’s rights, especially because women were commonly depicted as brave and intelligent enough to be out of trouble due to their own ingenuity, rather than being rescued by a protective man. An example of this new type of heroine can be seen in the serial The Hazards of Helen, released between 1914 and 1917. Even though in other films women were still portrayed as fragile little creatures who fainted at every little difficulty, we can consider it good progress towards acknowledging women could be as skilled and strong as men. Evidence of that is the featured image of this article. Despite being usually shown as a Victorian beauty, a little girl, always kind and fragile, Actress Mary Pickford (1892-1979) in real life was a real pioneer and responsible for many aspects of film making and the first female superstar Hollywood ever produced. But that is another story.

The Thanhouser studios had a very nice output of drama films, but the studio unfortunately lasted only a bit over one decade. It was found prior to 1910, which puts this studio among one of the first cinema studios founded in the United States. 

A young orphaned girl is romantically interested in her guardian, who was a friend of her father. As the girl’s father was dying, he left his daughter to be taken care of by his friend, who took the orphaned girl to the home of his own mother. Time passed, the girl became part of the family and ended up having feelings for her guardian, although he had no idea about it. 

However, guests came from the city, another girl showed up, the orphaned girl’s guardian got a intense interest in the visiting girl and the orphan girl was jealous. 

After a car accident where both girls were injured and shared the same hospital room, the orphan found herself alone with the other girl and a bottle of medicine. After acting impulsively, she tried to kill the other girl with the medicine. The doctor witnessed everything and allowed the orphan to think she had killed the girl, so she could learn a lesson. 

Time passed and the orphaned grieved immensely, but after a while she realized that the visiting girl was still alive. Not without having regretted deeply the attempted murder of her rival. 

Although this film has some stagy acting and overacting at its climax, it remains a beautiful, delicate film.

The biggest irony of this film is that actress Florence La Badie (1888-1917), one of main stars of the studio, who played the visiting girl, ended up dying in a car accident in real life with 29 years old at the peak of her fame and her death was openly mourned by her fans. Perhaps, it was this precocious death which made La Badie being nearly forgotten by subsequent generations even though she was a highly popular star in her own era.