User Reviews

Maurice Costello and Leah Baird are brother and sister -- but don't know it. When their mother died many years ago, she left them orphans, separated and raised in different foster homes until chance brings them together: Maurice rescues Leah from a thief and they fall in love. Will nothing save them from the sin of incest?

The sort of rampant coincidence and intention-free sin is the sort of thing that made up the public view of melodrama and which made it so easy to burlesque after it had fallen out of favor. Yet the truth is that, as with any form of entertainment, people go to have a good time. Unless the people offering the show call attention to its flaws, or the audience goes disposed to mock, the public will be pleased -- which is why I watched the musical version of SWEENEY TODD -- starring Angela Lansbury -- twice yesterday.

It's why if you go to the Eye Institute site on YouTube, you likely will enjoy the copy of this film that has been posted there. Mr. Costello and Miss Baird are fine performers and the story is well told.

The picture tells a very good, convincing story about two children (Adele De Garde and Kenneth Casey play the parts) who were left orphans and adopted by different people who lived far apart. They took different names and grew up without knowing anything about each other. Mr. Costello and Miss Baird take the grown-up parts. The man still has his mother's old silver watch. By chance, he and his unknown sister meet, fall in love and are about to be married when, at the altar, the silver watch tells the secret. Beside these players, Kate Price, Miss Gardner, Mr. Brooke, Miss Finch, Tom Morey and others have lesser parts. The photographs are good. The spectators watched it closely. One man seated near the reviewer, volunteered the remark, "Things could happen just like that" They could. The picture is a safe feature. - The Moving Picture World, March 30, 1912