The Mission Waif (1911) User Reviews

The days of old California, a subject always welcome to American audiences

[deickemeyer · 3 April 2016]

The excellent settings of this film, all of them with but two or three exceptions taken from nature directly, entitle it to rank as a notable production. It represents a creditable and ambitious effort to bring to mind the days of old California, a subject always welcome to American audiences and always full of the air of romance. A little girl, the sole survivor of an Indian attack, made upon some settlers traveling across the plains, is found and adopted by a band of Mission Fathers. Under the fostering care of the fathers the girl grows to early womanhood, but, no doubt, by virtue of some special dispensation is left to be the helper and companion of the priests, who not only minister to the spiritual wants of the Indians and settlers, but till the soil and do all their own work. Into all this peace and serenity comes a wounded bandit, closely pursued by settlers. The fugitive claims refuge in the convent and obtains it. His arrival at the gate and the scene in the stillness of the cloister's vestibule, where the young ward of the fathers listens in enraptured silence to the priest's sweet playing of the violin, are decidedly effective and will appeal to every audience. The further story shows how the robber's identity is disclosed by a scar, how the girl, though in love with the man, turns from him, when she finds out who he is and how the robber leaves the sheltering walls of the convent. On his way to his next destination, the robber uncovers an ambush of Indians and hastens back to the convent to give notice of the approach of the hostile red men. The priests and the girl take refuge in an underground passage. While the robber is bravely defending the convent against the Indian attack, the girl has succeeded in escaping the vigilance of the Indians and getting word of the danger to a nearby settlement. The settlers hasten to the rescue and the girl finds her unfortunate lover dead. - The Moving Picture World, August 26, 1911