The Two Brothers

Bad lad Dell Henderson gets himself thrown out of the family when he disrespects churchgoers in front of his mum, and falls in with bandits while a feud simmers between him and his dutiful brother. A comparatively exotic locale and some decent action scenes in the last few minutes help this otherwise ordinary short from D.W. Griffith stand out from the dozens of other shorts he was churning out at the time.

Arthur Johnson gets drunk and his brother, Dell Henderson, tries to stop him from making a fool of himself. Alas, he fails, and their mother kicks him out. Johnson decides to take his revenge on the source of his woes: Henderson.

I've got a brother and this is a bit overblown, but accurate. I suppose if you're Hispanic and in a movie in a melodramatic era, this is how you might behave. Me, I just sulk.

Griffith shot this movie during one of his winter expeditions to southern California. He used the local landscape, setting some of the scenes in now-vanished scenes, including an adobe building. Although his company's acting is broader than usual for this period, which can be attributed to how he thought Hispanics behave and his crowd scenes make sense, although they would continue to improve. He had only been directing for two and a half years at this point.