One of the latest films released by the Biograph Company receiving special attention this week, is entitled "Rose o' Salem Town." The scene is extracted from the days of the Puritans, when witchcraft was rife in Salem, Mass. Rose, an unsophisticated girl, having lived all her young days upon the rocky shores of the Atlantic, is called a child of the sea. A young trapper meeting her at this time, becomes enamored of her and his love is most innocently accepted by Rose. A prominent Puritan, branded as a hypocritical deacon, also seeks the favors of this attractive young girl; being repulsed by her, he vows vengeance upon both herself and her mother. The old saying, "Give a dog a bad name and hang him," is verified here, for the deacon reports mother and daughter to the church as witches, and, of course, "burn them" is the inevitable verdict. Both are cast into prison. The deacon uses the fate of the mother (whose death he causes the daughter to see from her prison cell window) to press his attentions upon the daughter, but without avail. Rose in turn is also condemned after ineffectually denouncing the deacon. She is bound and tied to the stake and is just about to be burned when the young trapper, who has secured the help of a company of Mohawk Indians, makes a timely rescue and saves the girl from the terrible fate prepared for her by the religious fanatics. The scenic beauty of the pictures is evidently a feature, as they are indeed beautiful; the acting, too, is of a high order; the main question is the suitability of the plot or sentiment of the play. While it is an unfortunate truth that a species of Puritan fanaticism and witchcraft caused much suffering and gave many martyrs to the stake, history records sufficient incidents upon which a plot, illustrating (and, if needs be, exposing) the fearful superstitions of the times, and which would easily suggest groundwork for a picture of this nature. To deliberately invent the character of a "hypocritical deacon" is in exceeding bad taste, and, while many sad deaths were the result of a blind prejudice and superstition, the enactment of a foul murder as a revenge for rejected illegal love advances, is much to be deprecated and censured. It really seems that the fact of the witchcraft martyrs has been used as an excuse upon which to build an unhealthy love tragedy in a way that is not honest, showing a distortion extremely detrimental and depressing. The idea of the deacon compelling the daughter to behold from her cell window the burning of her mother, is somewhat repulsive; it would seem that the young girl should have been treated equally with the audience in allowing imagination to fill its purpose, rather than an actual view of the tragedy so mercifully saved from the public. It is not surprising that exception has been taken to this part by the public press. We can only repeat, that the history of those superstitious times would afford sufficient incidents for picture portrayal, with the necessary lessons to be derived therefrom, without the painful introduction of an unhealthy and revolting love plot which finds its culmination in a most unnerving tragedy. The ending was a welcome relief, the splendid work of the trapper and the Mohawk Indians being appreciated. - The Moving Picture World, October 8, 1910
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