Strapping young Arthur V. Johnson makes an unlikely music teacher in this early drama from D. W. Griffith. One of his pupils is a wealthy young slip of a girl who rejects his advances, and whose father understandably takes offence at her music tutor trying to pluck her strings. Arthur, who for some reason plays a character called Herr von Schmidt (presumably because no all-American boy would ever consider blowing things up in a fit of romantic pique) impulsively joins an anarchist group (as you do) and, wouldn't you know it, his name's first out of the hat when his new mates are deciding who's next to get the honour of blowing up rich people.
Schmidt and his accomplice lurk suspiciously outside their intended victim's home for a while before the other guy sneaks into the basement with a bomb shaped like a black ball. Seeing that bomb makes you wonder whether any like that ever really existed or were merely the invention of comic strip cartoonists and early filmmakers. Anyway, it's black and round and has an impossibly long fuse – honestly, you could be in the next state before it exploded – and serves as the device by which Griffith struggles to engineer a measure of suspense that resolutely refuses to develop. Needless to say, our hero finds himself tied up next to the bomb after he discovers the home is that of the woman he loves, but everything works out for the best in the end.
This certainly isn't one of Griffith's best, even for such an early example. At a little under 16 minutes, the film contains far too much padding, and it's a little unclear why the young girl and her wealthy dad are suddenly so enamoured of our hero – he was only there because he wanted to blow things up, after all. Anyway, many of Griffith's regulars are here – Marion Leonard and Frank Powell both have sizeable roles, while Linda Arvidson (Griffith's wife), Gladys Egan, Owen Moore and Mack Sennett are among those who provide the atmosphere.