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The Great Sacrifice
(1913) United States of America
B&W : Two reels
Directed by [?] Raymond B. West and/or Thomas H. Ince?
Cast: Robert Stanton [Jim Ward, the Confederate brother in gray], Ray Myers [Jack Ward, the Union brother in blue], Herschel Mayall [Silas Green], Clara Williams [Edith Blake], Winnie Baldwin [Helen], Francis Ford [Abraham Lincoln]
New York Motion Picture Company production; distributed by Mutual Film Corporation [Kay-Bee]. / Produced by Thomas H. Ince. / Released 3 January 1913. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Drama.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? Jim Ward, a southerner, is engaged to Edith Blake, and escorts her to a dance on Christmas Eve. His brother, Jack, hangs a sprig of mistletoe on the veranda and entices the girls underneath it, when he kisses them. Edith has just fallen a victim to Jack’s trap and he has clasped her in his arms, when Jim, ignorant of the true state of things, looks out. Angry and hurt, he goes home without a word and thereafter avoids Edith, who is puzzled at his actions, but too proud to ask an explanation. She accepts the attentions of Jack, who falls in love with her. The war breaks out and Jim is among the first to answer the call for men, being made a Hententot. Thrilling scenes of battle are shown in which Jim takes part. Jack marries Edith and stays at home, and, the family fortunes having dwindled on account of the war, he is unable to meet a mortgage held by Silas Green. Green makes a demand for payment, and as he leaves Jack’s home he is captured by northern soldiers, who draft him into the service. His cowardly heart revolts at the prospect of risking his life, and he offers to purchase a substitute. Accordingly, he persuades Jack to take his place, agreeing to cancel the mortgage. It thus happens that Jack is seen fighting under the stars and stripes, while Jim is battling under the confederate emblem. In a sensational charge the federals capture a number of prisoners, among them Jack, who is brought before his own brother. Jack is placed in a hencoop, which has been improvised into a jail, and overpowers his guard. He escapes by changing uniforms with the confederate, and making his exit in the midst of tremendous excitement during a crushing attack by the federals. A bomb drops onto the hencoop and in bursting destroys it, killing the confederate guard whom Jack had locked in. and mangling his features into an unrecognizable mass. Jim sees the body and believing it to be his brother, is greatly affected by the pitiful sight. The bruised and battered corpse is sent home for burial, and Jim regrets his enmity, forfeiting the great wrong he thought his brother had done him. Clad in the confederate uniform, Jack is captured by the federals and placed in prison. The war ends and Jim goes home, where he effects a reconciliation with Edith, who is the mother of his brother’s child, and marries her. The release of prisoners occupies considerable time, and Jack, with long, unkempt hair and heard, anxiously awaits the day of freedom. When he is finally set at liberty, he makes his way home and sees his little girl, accompanied by the old Negro mammy, going to the graveyard. They do not recognize him, and he learns that they are laying flowers on the grave they think is his. Questioning them he is horrified to learn of Edith’s marriage to his brother, and for the first time he understands his brother’s animosity toward himself. As night falls he peers into the window and notes with sinking heart the love existing between the trio, his wife and child and his brother. To reveal himself would cast desolation upon three lives; to remain silent would hurt but himself. He resolves to make the sacrifice. Going to the tavern he learns that Silas Green is foreclosing the mortgage on the home, taking advantage of Jack’s supposed death. He determines the save the property, but is in a quandary as to how to do it without divulging the fact that he is alive. He resolves to secure possession of the mortgage, and effecting an entrance into Green’s house, finds the document. Green, awakening, rushes at the intruder with a pistol and fires. Jack and Green engage in a desperate struggle. A stable man, hearing the shot, grabs a rifle and runs to the house, just as Jack throws his antagonist from him and hurls him through the window. The startled stable man fires at the form, which he thinks is that of a burglar, and Silas Green receives the charge. Jack makes his escape, and the picture closes with him standing in the road, looking longingly back toward the little town sheltering the woman he loves, and for whom he has made such a great sacrifice.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 4 April 2020.
References: ClasIm-224 p. 42 : Website-IMDb.
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