User Reviews

"The Bride of Hate" is a bold story by John Lynch, admirably pictured by Walter Edwards. As to the man who is responsible for the artistry of subtitle presentation only words of praise can be given. Wonderfully effective are the designs of beauty enfolding printed sentiment and conversation. They may not be always appreciated, but love of beauty is pretty general, and the harmony of effect is worth the added cost. That harmony pervades the entire release. Exteriors, interiors, it matters not, one continually senses a satisfaction to the eye. To the art of action is subtly added that of the picture in delightful composition. The story is a tragic romance of the South during slavery days in lower Mississippi. Frank Keenan represents forcefully and with dignity a true Southern gentleman of mixed ethics. The soul of honor in finance and family purity, the wealthy planter sincerely believed that the smallest taint of negro blood drew a sharp line between the possessor of it and human beings. While in a friendly game of poker on a Mississippi steamboat he won a slave who was pure white, who had been brought up from babyhood as a negro as a matter of spite. On returning to his magnificent home, he finds that the little grand-niece he adored, the last of his blood, has killed herself from shame. He extorts the name of her betrayer from an old negro mammy and finds that Paul Cranshaw, a young sport from New Orleans, whose gambling debts he has just paid. He overcomes an impulse to kill and plans a deferred revenge. The supposed negress is carefully trained in conduct and dress to impersonate a wealthy young Spanish girl and given her choice of winning the young blood or going to work in the cotton fields; the contrast is powerfully enforced. She yields to the scheme of revenge and is married to Paul Cranshaw before an aristocratic social group. No sooner has the ceremony been made legal than the betrayed planter denounces the groom before his assembled guests and laughs him to scorn for having married a negress. The young man is socially tabooed and finally driven to an ignominious death. Almost at that moment, the true identity of the supposed negress is revealed and the planter makes superb restitution by her complete social re- establishment. Quite as impressive as Keenan's fine impersonation is the subtitle theme, that of racial injustice. The story is boldly told, powerfully so at times, yet it is so well handled that it should not give offense in any part of this country. It stands in striking relief to conventional situations and is, in that respect and in beauty of presentation, a distinct contribution to the list of attractive original plays just beginning to be shown. - The Moving Picture World, January , 1917