Forgiven in Death (1911) User Reviews (2)

What Does A Man Have to Do To Get a Kind Word Around Here?

[boblipton · 7/10 · 17 November 2016]

Broncho Billy Anderson and Brinsley Shaw both love pretty Gladys Field. To avoid hurting Shaw's feelings, she secretly weds Anderson. Soon after, the two go on a prospecting trip and Shaw picks up the mail each day and hides his wife's letters from Anderson. Then one day the Indians attack the two...

It's strong meat, and a series of seemingly random events, but that's the way a lot of strong fiction is composed to happen, from Chretien des Troyes' Arthurian romances to modern mysteries: the story often lays in working out the patterns of reality and their meaning. When you're instructed, you may not remember as well as when you work it out yourself, and the stark situations in this short film make their points clearly.

I've been looking at a bunch of Broncho Billy Anderson shorts recently restored by the BFI and made available on DVD. I am struck in general and in this particular one, at the beauty of their camera-work in compositions and subjects, particularly outdoors.

The only two who know the story are massacred by Indians

[deickemeyer · 20 February 2016]

This story has the freshness of an actual record; yet the only two who know the story are massacred by Indians. It is, however, convincing as a supposititious explanation when perhaps the bodies of the two friends were found with clasped hands and the letters of Jack's wife, dated week by week, and only one opened, beside them. Jack seems foolish; he keeps his marriage a secret for fear of hurting Ned's feelings, but none can deny that there are fools in the world. The two hold the cabin for a while against a dozen Indians. Jack is the first to be shot, and then Ned brings him the letters which he had been holding back from jealousy. When Ned, too, is wounded, Jack forgives him and they die together. - The Moving Picture World, July 1, 1911