One point of interest in this otherwise extremely soppy little film is the evidence it provides of the persistence of the "facial". The "facial" was a genre inherited from the music-hall and café-conc' where the concentration was on the facial expressions of the actor or actress who might for instance be getting drunker or drunker or reading a letter and so forth. Certain vaudeville stars specialised in this kind and it was, in theory at least, ideal material for film, where the expressions could be shown in greater proximity than was possibly in the theatre. On he other hand, it was already a rather tired genre before films began. Nevertheless it fitted well into the two-minute format of the earliest films and was quite commonly used in the early days and could sometimes lead on to some interesting experimentation (as in James Williamson's The Big Swallow).
By 1916, when films were now any length up to two hours or more and could accommodate complex narratives, one might have supposed it to be something entirely in the past but very little ever disappears entirely in cinema and occasionally short films mgiht still be made whose primary focus was on facial expressions. This film is a case in point. It is all in flashback, a story being told by an elderly poet to his adopted daughter about his love, as a young man, for her mother. The story (the mother runs off with a playboy with the usual frightful results) could not be more hackneyed and uninteresting and all the interest of the film focuses in point of fact on the telling of the tale, the contrast between the wrinkled, characterful face of the old man and the particularly smooth and pure face of the girl(played by Viola Smith, later better known as Vola Vale) and on the reactions and interaction of the two as the story is told, which constantly interrupt the story.
If further evidence is required that this was the main purpose of the film, you have only to look at the ages of the two principals (the only two actors credited in the copy I have seen) which are completely wrong in relation to the story. She has grown up from a baby to a twenty-year-old (the actress was actually nineteen) while he has seemingly gone, over the same period of time, from being a man in his twenties to a veritable ancient of about seventy (the actor was actually sixty but is made up to look older). But of course the story is neither here nor there. What the director wanted (and got) was the two contrasting faces of reader and listener.
By 1916, when films were now any length up to two hours or more and could accommodate complex narratives, one might have supposed it to be something entirely in the past but very little ever disappears entirely in cinema and occasionally short films mgiht still be made whose primary focus was on facial expressions. This film is a case in point. It is all in flashback, a story being told by an elderly poet to his adopted daughter about his love, as a young man, for her mother. The story (the mother runs off with a playboy with the usual frightful results) could not be more hackneyed and uninteresting and all the interest of the film focuses in point of fact on the telling of the tale, the contrast between the wrinkled, characterful face of the old man and the particularly smooth and pure face of the girl(played by Viola Smith, later better known as Vola Vale) and on the reactions and interaction of the two as the story is told, which constantly interrupt the story.
If further evidence is required that this was the main purpose of the film, you have only to look at the ages of the two principals (the only two actors credited in the copy I have seen) which are completely wrong in relation to the story. She has grown up from a baby to a twenty-year-old (the actress was actually nineteen) while he has seemingly gone, over the same period of time, from being a man in his twenties to a veritable ancient of about seventy (the actor was actually sixty but is made up to look older). But of course the story is neither here nor there. What the director wanted (and got) was the two contrasting faces of reader and listener.
