Though there's nothing remarkable about this fruity Italian melodrama from the great pre-WW1 days of Turin film-making, it holds attention well enough in the sharp, tinted Eye copy, even if the Dutch Inter-titles are a barrier to most.
The heir is enraptured with a young chubby Jacobini (later the elegant diva of MADAME COLIBRI and ZHIVOY TRUP /The Living Corpse) and steals the deed to the family estate for a money lender, sending his parents out the gate homeless. Maria uses her wiles on the top hatted usurer to get hold of the deeds and moves in but she repulses his advances and he pursues her blazing away with a revolver, to be arrested in the street.
Filming is adequate - mainly busily decorated interiors with shots cropping at the feet, occasionally edited wider or closer. Inter-titles are sometimes used to cover those transitions. The acting, for which the Italians were then noted, is emphatic with lots of hand gestures and grimacing.
Set piece is a lively masked ball. We've even got a train entering a station. This is one for the specialist in early film.
The heir is enraptured with a young chubby Jacobini (later the elegant diva of MADAME COLIBRI and ZHIVOY TRUP /The Living Corpse) and steals the deed to the family estate for a money lender, sending his parents out the gate homeless. Maria uses her wiles on the top hatted usurer to get hold of the deeds and moves in but she repulses his advances and he pursues her blazing away with a revolver, to be arrested in the street.
Filming is adequate - mainly busily decorated interiors with shots cropping at the feet, occasionally edited wider or closer. Inter-titles are sometimes used to cover those transitions. The acting, for which the Italians were then noted, is emphatic with lots of hand gestures and grimacing.
Set piece is a lively masked ball. We've even got a train entering a station. This is one for the specialist in early film.
