The Unopened Letter (1914)
—
Edward Earle | Bessie Learn | Preston Kendall (Director)
Rest of cast:
William Bechtel | Margaret McWade | Jessie Stevens | Charles Sutton | Hayward Mack | Marjorie Ellison | William West | Harry B. Eytinge | Edwin Clarke | Harry Beaumont
—
—
The Unopened Letter
Two-reel Edison feature. Released through General Film Company.
Reviewed by Louis Reeves Harrison.
The incidents of this story are contrived to lead up to an interesting situation and one of large dramatic possibilities. The situation is that of a father, an attorney of large practice, acting for defendants in a case where his own daughter, of whose existence he is unaware, is the plaintiff.
He married when in college and was obliged to keep the wedding a secret because his own father had put a ban upon any such serious step until the boy had qualified in business. Having proved his ability and been taken into the firm, he returns to the home of his young wife only to be informed that she is dead and buried.
He thereafter devotes himself to the profession of law, and twenty years elapse before it comes to his knowledge in a highly dramatic way that he has a child, plaintiff in a case he is defending.
This makes an interesting story — the author is Bliss Milford — and one that holds in spite of the treatment rather than on account of it. In many cases the way a scenario is handled brings out effects superior to the playwright’s conception. In this case the director handles his settings with good taste and his actors as if afraid they would transcend it. With a bright company, headed by Bessie Learn, composed of Edward Earle, Margaret McWade, Charles Sutton, H. C. Mack, Marjorie Ellison, Harry Beaumont, Edwin Clark, William West, Harry Eytinge and William Bechtel, pretty close to a star cast, and plenty of chance for these interpreters to exercise their artistry, their movements are directed in a way that obscures when it should clarify. This is not an auditory art but a visual one.
That the father was unaware of his child came about partly through the fact that a letter he wrote to his wife shortly after her death was returned by her sister unopened. He goes to see what is wrong and the surviving sister, believing that he has caused his young wife’s death, tells him of that but not of the child. We are willing to accept the premise that a keen lawyer would not make any further inquiry about the woman he loved and married — that is possible, though not in accord with human experience — but it was not made clear to me why a young wife would not or could not let her husband know that a child was expected and failed to notify him when the child was born. Great pains should be taken in making immediately plausible the ultimate event upon which the entire plot depends. This could have been easily done by one of many well-known expedients, sympathy aroused by the young wife’s inability to let her husband know of the great event and the whole play given the strength and dignity necessary in serious drama.
The whole trend of Edison releases is away from theatrical artificiality and toward such stories of human life as shall be credibly within the cognizance of the audience. The characters must do as human beings ordinarily would under the circumstances. This is in response to the popular demand for more logic of cause and effect.
The Unopened Letter will please because it is a good story, but its value is partially submerged by handling that clouds it at moments and that does not give full vent to what the interpreters could accomplish. Do not be afraid of intense acting for screen purposes. What may appear too intense under the powerful studio lamps becomes greatly modified when seen from a back seat in a big picture show.
—
Scene from The Unopened Letter (Edison).
Collection: Moving Picture World, May 1914