If you read the IMDb summary of this film AFTER you see "The Cricket on the Hearth", you might just think 'wow...that sounds like a great movie and I wish I'd seen it!'. This is because the movie by D.W. Griffith is completely incomprehensible. It could have used a lot of intertitle cards as well as a slower place. As it is, it's like a series of clips from a much larger story that only make sense if you read the story first! Griffith really rushes so fast that I found myself completely baffled. I am curious what audiences at the time felt. Had they ALL read this story? Did they feel so confused? Could they tell the characters apart? And, why if the man went off to sea for three years does it appear that he never actually left--but just left to go to the pub?! It's a giant mess of a film.