The Seed of the Fathers
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Seed of the Fathers |
,_advertisement.jpg) | |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1913 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Stanner EV Taylor |
| script | Stanner EV Taylor |
| production | Marion Leonard |
| occupation | |
| |
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The Seed of the Fathers , occasionally, The Seeds of the Father , ( German : The seed of the ancestors ), a -lost American melodrama of the director and screenwriters Stanner EV Taylor from the year 1913 , produced by Stanners wife, the actress Marion Leonard .
action
The Seed of the Fathers tells the story of a mother confronted with her son's descent into crime . After seeing her father betrayed his country in the American Civil War and her husband spending the rest of his life in prison, she sees no other way out than extended suicide .
At the beginning the film shows the son in his stately appearance. Because of her bitter experiences with father and husband, the mother went to great lengths to bring up her son. He knows how to differentiate between right and wrong, but often spends the evenings away from home. One evening, when he comes home particularly late, his mother wants to stay up to wait for him. But she nods off, and when she wakes up again the son has arrived and is drunk in his room. In his belongings the mother finds a revolver , a crowbar , a flashlight and a letter giving details of the son's machinations.
She sits down at her desk and leaf through old letters without realizing that her son is already wanted as an accomplice of a murderer. In flashbacks, she looks back over the past forty years, starting with her youth. Blurry pictures show her as a 16-year-old whose father goes to war as an officer and soon serves on the General Staff . he lets himself be seduced by a young spy and reveals his unit's battle plans. The inevitable defeat follows, but no suspicion falls on the traitor. At the next attempted treason, he is convicted and shot as a spy. When this news reaches home, his wife dies of grief.
Fifteen years later, the orphan is happily married herself. But after a few years, her husband gets tired of her and takes a lover. While the family's bills remain unpaid, he generously presents his beloved with jewels and other valuable items. In order to be able to afford all of this, the husband steals from his employer. When discovered, he kills a colleague and is sentenced to life imprisonment.
After indulging in these gloomy memories for a while, the mother grabs the revolver, walks into the room with her drunken son and tenderly hugs him one last time. Then she closes the door and window and lowers the blinds. In the next shot, a policeman suddenly stops in the street, alarmed by a shot. The mother is shown leaving the son's room gun in hand. The police officer on the street is reinforced by a colleague. They confer briefly and enter the house to arrest the son. There they first find the body of the mother and then that of the son.
Production notes
The Seed of the Fathers is one of the films produced by Marion Leonard and her husband Stanner EV Taylor with the joint venture Monopoly Film Company. It was advertised by the Monopoly when it was released on July 10, 1913, as the longest film made in the United States from an original screenplay.
The Seed of the Fathers is a three-act play on six rolls of 35mm film with a length of 1,800 meters. The Library of Congress regards it as a lost film .
criticism
The Moving Picture World published a synopsis and brief review in its July 12, 1913 issue. The reviewer described the plot as consistently captivating and praised Leonard's excellent acting, not without pointing out that many of the other actors also deserved praise for their performance.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c George Blaisdell: "The Seed of the Fathers" (Monopoly) . In: The Moving Picture World , Volume 17, No. 2, July 12, 1913, p. 207, digitized .
- ↑ The Seed of the Fathers in the Internet Movie Database (English) , accessed on January 11 of 2019.
- ↑ The Seed Of The Fathers / Marion Leonard (motion picture) . Library of Congress's American Silent Feature Film Database , accessed January 11, 2019.