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Sundered Ties
(1912) United States of America
B&W : One reel
Directed by [?] Francis Ford and/or Thomas H. Ince?
Cast: Francis Ford, Red Wing (Rodd Redwing), Jack Conway, Grace Cunard, Frank Dayton, Ethel Grandin, J. Barney Sherry
New York Motion Picture Company production; distributed by Mutual Film Corporation [Broncho]. / Produced by Thomas H. Ince. / Released 18 September 1912. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Drama: Western.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? John Stevens, lieutenant in the regular army, U.S.A., arrives at his Southern home just before the war, when brave and intelligent men all over the land were at the parting of the ways. Every conceivable influence is brought to bear upon him to renounce allegiance and faith long established by his vocation and mature development. A mother pleads; a father reasons; a sweetheart entreats; and their welfare as well as their desires concern him deeply. They have all habitually influenced his mind, but he cannot be turned from what his own moral sense has pronounced to be his duty. He might shrink from any violation of a principle from purely benevolent purposes under ordinary circumstances and reach a decision without effort, but here is a case with much to approve on both sides, with a great preponderance of affection on the rebellious one. It takes the highest form of courage for him to renounce all that he holds dear for a principle, but his strength of character decides for him and he leaves to join the company in which he belongs at the moment war is declared. The drama of conscience settled, that of actual war begins, and its tragedies are glimpsed as the struggle between Brothers of the North with Brothers of the South becomes more bitter towards the end of that terrible conflict which exhibited as much as any period of our history the unwisdom of violence in adjusting the affairs of men or nations. Older men are drawn into the fray, and among them Colonel Stevens. We are given realistic scenes of actual warfare, artillery operations, infantry movements and cavalry charges at a time when the action nears the Stevens homestead, when father and son appear in the opposing forces. On one side the blue lines are drawing in with inflexible purpose, that of ending the bloody struggle at any cost; on the other is shown the desperate resistance of men in gray who have fought, hungered and thirsted for long years with hardly a decisive victory to animate and inspire them. The real soldiers on both sides were sick of the devastating and destroying fight, but were pressing fiercely to a conclusion from the North with consciousness of duty nobly done and resisting from the South with the almost invincible valor of those who prefer to die where they stand than yield an inch of precious territory. A detachment of Union soldiers appears near the Stevens house; they were working their way forward as skirmishers, and effect a deployment with a final line to the hostile front, but they are subject to a murderous fire at times and suddenly discover that some concealed sharpshooter is picking off the officers at headquarters with leisurely indifference of consequences. This small detail delays the movement so seriously that a squad is sent in search of the Rebel who is sending rifle ball after rifle ball into vital spots without discovery or punishment. The squad proceeds slowly and with caution through woods and thickets unfamiliar, where any one of them may be shot down by an unseen foe posted in some strategic point of impenetrable concealment. Step by step they advance, searching every mound and tree as they go, but at last they are guided by the sharp crack of a rifle, the sharpshooter has not perceived them, and creep up to dislodge the nervy warrior. It is no one else than a younger brother of John Stevens. Not having been trained in loyalty to the flag, he knows only that of family. Besides, his old dad has gone out to fight the bluecoats, and why should not he. The spirit of war fires his brave little heart; he secures a rifle used, for hunting, posts himself in a tree having a wide view of the field of action, and there he rests his gun while he picks off the flower of the opposing detachment, the one in which his big brother is doing his duty. The little boy delivers his last fatal shot when the squad of searching soldiers discovers him. They fire in volley and bring him down like a fluttering pigeon. This affords the most thrilling small incident in the drama. The boy apparently, and probably, does drop from the high perch in the branches with a fall that is enough to kill him. How he is saved to play some other part is the director’s secret, but he drops down and is apparently killed on the spot. The men bear his body away in pity; he is mortally wounded, and take him to where his brother is in action. John recognizes the boy and the poor little fellow pays the bitter price of patriotism. The intense and passionate character of the true Southerner is well shown in the ferocity of this child. Now come the scenes that followed the end of the conflict, when those who had fought nobly in vain, who had fought for their cherished ideas against heavy odds, were to enter a long period of humiliating self-denial if not actual starvation. They did not march home with bands playing and flags flying, but quietly dispersed to take up the after-burden of war in a devastated country and attempt to restore a semblance of its former beauty and fertility. The saddest stories of military history are those of the defeated, those who endured and achieved only to begin a longer and even more hopeless battle for mere existence. In “Sundered Ties,” this part of the picture is relieved by a comedy element, in which a negro butler and fat negress play the leading roles. They are both fat, though the members of Colonel Stevens’ family seem to be down to hoecake and water. Colonel Stevens is destitute and his plantation is in ruins, so he is compelled to seek aid at the house of John Stevens’ ante-bellum sweetheart. Her people are not much better off, but the fat butler and the fat cook indicate some secret source of food supply. When the Stevens family come over to dinner in a neighborly way, two feeble and discouraged old Southern people, with the family of Irene, she is the sweetheart that was, the fat butler goes out on a foraging expedition and cops a plump chicken from the coop of a more fortunate neighbor. As it goes, the fat butler gets caught red-handed while stealing a chicken for dinner, and it would go hard with him but for the timely arrival of John Stevens. The latter, having vindicated his stand and done service for his country as he had sworn to do, is returning to heal old wounds and bind up the sundered ties when he comes upon the frightened butler under arrest. He manages to liberate the fat coon by paying double for the chicken, and enters upon a secret plan to provide a feast for his own family as well as that of Irene. He buys a great supply of good things and sends them to Irene’s house by the predatory butler. There is a scene of almost Christmas rejoicing in the old kitchen when the fat cook lays hands on the first ample supply of provender she has seen since the good old days “befo de wah.” She and the gay butler make merry in their preparations while the crushed old white martyrs gather to what they expect to be more of a feast of the soul than of the body. The dinner is served amid amusement and rejoicing; we are treated to a view of simple happiness, then John Stevens appears, hesitating at the threshold. His mother is first to give him warm welcome, his sweetheart next, and the old Colonel yields in a tender final scene.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 7 October 2023.
References: ClasIm-224 p. 42 : Website-IMDb.
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