Review of The Rocky Road

A strongly dramatic film, representing what may occur through overindulgence in drink. The woman's departure into the world with her little girl, the subsequent separation of the two and the child's adoption by a farmer who discovered her by the roadside, the love- making of her own father and the beginning of the wedding, with the appearance of the mother in time to prevent it and her tragic death in her husband's arms, are all strongly dramatic and are acted with strength and fidelity, but the ending is not happy, nor is it satisfactory. Justice may be, and probably is, inexorable in real life, but to have the picture end with the mother's death just as the family is reunited is too tragic for an attractive motion picture, and this one would be improved for the average audience if the ending were changed. One doesn't like to appear to find fault with the excellent work of the Biograph Company, but in this instance the picture would be vastly improved for the average audience by the suggested change, while the dramatic force would not be injured. Perhaps its lesson, that life is indeed a rocky road for the transgressor, is impressed with sufficient strength to make it worth while. - The Moving Picture World, January 15, 1910