Drunkard Charles Hill Mailes is out hunting with son Bobby Harron, when he shoots himself. Kindly Lionel Barrymore invites him into his house, but the guest is soon pawing at grand daughter Mae Marsh and kicking a puppy. Barrymore thrashes him comically. When recounting this while bellied up to the bar, Maine's grows enraged and settles on vengeance. He breaks into Barrymore's house to find a keg of gunpowder. He sets a fuse and walks away chuckling. Then Miss Marsh and her little brother come home and settle in for lunch in the front room, while the fuse burns in the back....
It's not one of D.W. Griffith's better-written Biograph shorts by any means, but it has a couple of things going for it. FIrst is the assure manner in which Griffith intercuts between the people in the front room, and the fitful burning of the fuse in the back. The other is the beauty of the print. The copy I saw seems to have been pulled from an original camera negative, and the beauty of the winter landscape as shot by Griffith's usual cameraman, Billy Bitzer, makes this good to behold.
It's not one of D.W. Griffith's better-written Biograph shorts by any means, but it has a couple of things going for it. FIrst is the assure manner in which Griffith intercuts between the people in the front room, and the fitful burning of the fuse in the back. The other is the beauty of the print. The copy I saw seems to have been pulled from an original camera negative, and the beauty of the winter landscape as shot by Griffith's usual cameraman, Billy Bitzer, makes this good to behold.