The Padre
(1911) United States of America
B&W : Short film
Directed by (unknown)
Cast: Hobart Bosworth [Father Sebastian, the padre], Robert Z. Leonard [Jose, the foundling]
The Selig Polyscope Company, Incorporated, production; distributed by The General Film Company, Incorporated. / Released 20 February 1911. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Drama: Western.
Synopsis: [From Selig promotional materials] It is the early days of California. Father Sebastian, trudging his way on foot from the Mission, his attention is attracted to the wall of an infant coming from the crest of a ridge. He finds the body of a Spanish woman. Sitting beside its dead mother, a tiny baby greets the Padre’s gaze. / Lifting the infant tenderly in his arms, the Father resumes his journey, accompanied by an Indian woman, to whom he has entrusted the care of the orphaned child. / Years pass by and we see the infant grown to manhood strong, handsome and a true worshiper; the bright eyes of a pretty Spanish maiden turn the head of our Jose, causing him to forget his duty. / How, after the Padre has warned him of the danger, he disregards the advice of the Father and leaves in the night with his inamorata; how, in their ignorance of the trails, they wander out into the terrible desert and almost die from thirst and the burning heat; how they are found by some American prospectors and nursed back to life; how Jose lays in a delirium of fever and Papinta returns to another, and the long search of the patient Padre for his adopted son, which is rewarded at last by finding him. / The settings are real and beautiful, the locations being chosen from in and about San Gabriel Mission, the sea coast, the Sierra Madre Mountains and the great desert of southern California.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 13 April 2024.
References: Pratt-Spellbound p. ? : Website-IMDb.
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