Augustus Phillips is a church minister with a sick son. He's told he needs a specialist's care and his local doctor says he thinks he can get the Great Man to do it for only $500. Phillips has only $76 in the bank, so he applies to community pillar Robert Brower to lend him the money. Brower refuses him. Phillips is in despair when he receives a charitable donation of $500 for the church, made out to his own name. Will he fall into temptation? And if he fall, can he earn forgiveness?
It's a simply plotted story, directed for speed and earnestness by Charles Brabin, and pretty restrained on its own terms for Edison, where they were shifting from a stagier style of pantomime that obviated the need for many titles, to the subtler style creeping through cinema. Keep a look out for the ending shot, dramatically side-lit. Brabin liked those, and it's quite lovely.
It's a simply plotted story, directed for speed and earnestness by Charles Brabin, and pretty restrained on its own terms for Edison, where they were shifting from a stagier style of pantomime that obviated the need for many titles, to the subtler style creeping through cinema. Keep a look out for the ending shot, dramatically side-lit. Brabin liked those, and it's quite lovely.
