Duel Scene, 'by Right of Sword' (1904) User Reviews

Fairly decent little flick.

[JoeytheBrit · 6/10 · 20 August 2009]

I'm not sure why this little movie has received such a low vote from the voters here at IMDb. It's not a bad film - and is, in fact, much better than a lot of the tedious material being churned out by the likes of Edison and Biograph back in the early years of the 20th Century. It's actually an excerpt from the novel by a chap named Marchmont in which the hero, a fellow with the heroic name of Hamylton Tregethner attempts to dissuade a fellow soldier from insisting on a sword duel for some unexplained offence. The other chap - whose trousers are so tight when he turns his back to the camera it looks as if he isn't wearing any - insists on duelling however, only to storm off in a huff after Tregethner nicks him on the arm. Ralph Stuart cuts quite a dashing figure as the hero.

Some Nice Tense Action

[Michael_Elliott · 6 August 2015]

Duel Scene, 'By Right of Sword' (1904)

This is a fairly interesting film from Biograph (years before Griffith obviously) that has a bearded man and a clean-shave man getting ready to duel with swords when a third man speaks up. Whatever he says or was trying to do isn't clear but soon the two men are fighting. The lack of title cards makes it rather unclear as to what the third man was trying to but perhaps it was to stop the fight or for all I know he was trying to get it going. Either way, the set design here was actually pretty good as was the sword fight once it finally happened. I thought the action was fairly intense and helped make it entertaining.