Duty (1914)

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Alec B. Francis | Belle Adair | Étienne Arnaud (Director)

Rest of cast:

Robert Frazer | Helen Marten

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“Duty”

Quite new, fresh and dramatic, the Éclair-Universal two-part offering, “Duty,” makes a desirable release.

Reviewed by Hanford C. Judson.

Leaving “big” productions out of account for the time, one can still find room for pride and enthusiasm over any two-reel picture that provides a good story and develops it on the screen in an artistic and human way, and more so when the picture is made in America and deals with American life. The Éclair-Universal picture, Duty, can be truthfully said to do all this. It deals, more properly speaking, with life in any country, for its theme is deep enough to get below national peculiarities and be clearly understood by spectators everywhere. Indeed, it gets its best value from this very thing, its purpose being to picture how it often happens that external peculiarities hide the true worth of a man or woman until some incident dramatically reveals a courage and a character unsuspected. Youth has its charm and joyous freshness that surround it like a perfume, and worldly splendor is flattered by its golden crown, but the true dignity of man is always inside of him. It is this inherent dignity alone that gives meaning to the perplexing thing we call life. A heavenly light inside of us. It can shine around the humblest hammer and anvil like an aureole more impressive than the grandest march that ever passed through a kingdom’s coronation abbey. Could a picture have a higher theme? Having such a theme, could a writer or producer fail of his best to make the work human, truthful and convincing? Of course, we are all human as well as di¬vine and our best work is apt to be touched with some lack that now and again keeps it from being perfect. There is little in this picture’s development for which fair-minded spectators will not make sympathetic allowance.

The center of the picture is a young woman, played by Delia Adair [Belle Adair], the wife of an earnest-minded, elderly doctor, played by Alec Francis. He doesn’t neglect her; but could hardly be expected to be, like her, an ardent devotee of the new dances — maxixe, tango and the like. It is shown that the doctor is a kindly, sane-minded man who gives his best science to helping the patients who need his services. It is also shown that among his wife’s younger friends is an artist, quite a society man, who needs money. She is an heiress in her own right and he loves money, so he pays her court. All is done in a natural way. To tell the truth, this particular situation is played, in most pictures one sees, in a way to insure the failure of the man’s scheme; it is a situation often made ridiculous. Not so here. Good manners, graceful acting and restraint are noticeable all through. M. Artand [Étienne Arnaud], its producer, is to be congratulated on his careful workmanship.

The artist has been painting her picture and has at length persuaded her that she will be happier with him. She has written a note agreeing to go with him. That evening a child is brought into the doctor’s office choking with the croup. The doctor has just loaned his last tube of serum to an associate. The only thing to save the child’s life is for the physician to draw the clotted mucous from the boy’s throat — a situation that is new (in pictures) and strong with possibility and, in this place, very dramatic. He tells his wife. whom he finds with her cloak and hat on, just what he is compelled to do and its danger to him. She tries to dissuade him; but it is his duty and he accomplishes it safely.

The change in the wife’s feeling on account of it is truthful and logical, a bit more so that her going to the studio of the artist to tell him of the change. That he should change from pleas to threats is also truthful, and we can not deny the possibility in his telling her that unless she comes to him he will blow his brains out before her, although the use of the gun in this way has been seen many times. In the struggle when she tries to get it from him, it falls in the open grate fire and presently goes off, badly wounding the man. He lies on the floor. His housekeeper comes Without the wife’s knowing it, a doctor is sent for and her husband comes. He needs a paper to write his prescription and her note to the artist is on the table. He reads it; yet, when she tells him the truth, believes and forgives her. Here the picture properly ends; but there are a few feet of still happier ending, conventional and improbable. The photography throughout, like the general staging, is excellent.

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Scene from Duty (Éclair-Universal).

Collection: Moving Picture World, June 1914