A 12-minute silent film about a magnifying glass destroying lives. No, really.
The dead man's decentralized life is exemplified in a half-finished will and an incompleted invention of a printing press. The mother impresses upon her two sons the power of concentration by a magnifying glass held to the sun's rays. One accepts the lesson and finishes the work of the father. The other becomes the tool of the rival printer. His lesson was to come through experience and the suffering of others.
Direction
O'Sullivan packs a feature's worth of betrayal into 720 seconds.
Acting
Harry Carey's face when he realizes mom was right.
Director
Anthony O'Sullivan
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during the rise of industrial trusts, this Biograph short channels Progressive Era anxiety about small inventors crushed by corporate competition.
Harry Carey would become a Western legend; here he's a mama's boy in a three-piece suit. The arc of stardom is wild.
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