User Reviews

Col. Jasper Ewing Brady, the author of "Lifting the Ban of Coventry," the three-part military drama recently released by the Vitagraph Company, evidently cares little for the accepted rules of play-making, and the conventional "happy ending." It is also equally certain, to judge by his work, that he cares a great deal for truth, loyalty and high ideals of conduct in the characters of his photoplay. "Lifting the Ban of Coventry" follows the career of a young West Pointer, who is cast off by his fiancée, and who, while under the influence of liquor, marries an inmate of a western dance-hall. Up to this point, the story follows the beaten track, but with the awakening of the soldier to the step he has taken, Col. Brady gives the youth of the land a lesson in true manhood assuming the responsibility of its act. In place of the cowardly and theatric device of placing a loaded revolver to his head and contemplating suicide, this young ofiicer wastes no time in self-pity, but gives the woman who bears his name her rightful place at his side and protects her by every means in his power. For this he is "sent to Coventry" by his brother officers. Six years later his wife dies, leaving him a flve-year-old daughter. The scene at her deathbed, the suggestion of how her husband's cheerful acceptance of his duty has given her an insight into the beauty of life, and filled her heart with a pure love and devotion for him and their child, is one of the finest moments ever put into a photoplay. In not yielding to the popular clamor for a "happy ending," and having his hero killed upon the field of battle, Col. Brady has again let "even-handed justice" decide the issue. The woman who so lightly threw aside her youthful sweetheart and learns to regret her act, is made to pay the penalty in solitude and in tears. What the French call the scene a faire, in this case, the one between the wife and the former sweetheart, is omitted. The two women never meet, but the child of the one becomes the charge of the other. Cant and rant have no place in this play, and the people of it do not move and have their being by right of dramatic license and the demands of stage technique. In making of this splendid melodrama high praise must be accorded Director Wilfrid North for his sympathetic and intelligent treatment of the theme; to Darwin Karr for his manly and convincing impersonation of the young officer; to Julia Swayne Gordon as the wife; to Lillian Walker as the cadet's sweetheart; and to Rose Tapley, Harry Northrup, Ned Finley, Helen Costello, and the rest of the cast for their effective acting. - The Moving Picture World, April 10, 1915