Review of The Modern Prodigal

A modern application of the old story of the prodigal son, representing a young man of these times going to the city, there to fall a victim to its alluring snares. Escaping in prison garb, he seeks his home, and, like the prodigal of old, eats ravenously the husks which are thrown to the swine. He saves the sheriff's child from drowning, but the sheriff does his duty and arrests him. However, the sheriff's wife, yielding to her maternal instincts, allows him to escape and return to his own mother. For dramatic reasons, perhaps, it is well not to quarrel with the author for putting the onus of the young man's downfall upon the city. It had to be placed somewhere, yet is hardly fair to thus again brand the city as a region of crime and a home of criminals. - The Moving Picture World, September 10, 1910