User Reviews

This is not a very satisfactory picture. It isn't up to Selig standard except in its photography and scenery. The background is Southern California, and its Franciscan missions, and is very beautiful. The story is slight and not very well conducted. The play seems to have been designed either to picture a deeply religious nature who throws off the claims of the external world for monasterial life, a hero indeed, or one who is weakly sensitive and flies from the world. The hero is a duke and has a government, as many Spanish dukes had. He wants to become a monk; his uncle, who rules through him, doesn't want him to, so uses villainous means to hinder him. The uncle, it is suggested, has power over him, but supposing the uncle succeeds in keeping the youth from the monastery, it would be a dumb wit that couldn't see through this uncle's wiles. If the uncle was on the paternal side and had legal authority over the young duke, one would think that he would jump for joy at having the boy take religious vows of celibacy. The story is not convincing on the one hand, and fails to make the duke seem heroic on the other. - The Moving Picture World, July 1, 1911