Review of The Country Doctor

The heart dramas which have come from the Biograph studio have been numerous, but perhaps none has been stronger, nor has there been one which has made the profound impression which is made by this one. Ordinarily the gloom which accompanies death seems needless in a picture play, but where a drama teaches a great moral truth as this one does, perhaps it should be accepted as indicating the right view of life rather than as an amusement. It is difficult to select any one scene as typifying the tremendous struggle in the doctor's soul as he leaves his own child, ill unto death, to attend the child of a poor woman, also dangerously ill. Nature's noblemen are none too numerous, and yet, if the accumulation of noble deeds typified in this film could all be gathered in one sheaf, what a mighty power for good they would become. It is heartrending, that last scene, when the doctor leaves the bedside of the sick child, happy in the consciousness that he has performed his duty and has carried her safely over the crisis, only to find that his own loved daughter has died for want of his care. One doesn't like to think of it, and yet above all the sorrow and despair there arises the thought that he did his duty, as he saw it, and though the result was bitter, still he could do nothing else, and that alone is his consolation. With good photography and staging and the superb acting of the Biograph Company this drama develops a power that is certain to make it a growing influence wherever it is shown. Such pictures will go far toward answering the many criticisms which have been applied to moving pictures by those who apparently never took the trouble to investigate and see what the leading companies are turning out every day. – The Moving Picture World, July 10, 1909