The Awakening of Ruth

Shirley Mason lives on an island with her father, Joseph Burke, who has wasted his years searching for the pirate's treasure supposedly buried there. One day, George J. Forth shows up on his yacht, wins Miss Mason's heart and promise to wait, and then heads back to New York and his father's financial firm. A year later, Burke shoots himself by accident. Ruth fetches the Reverend William T. Hayes and Doctor William Strong, but they are too late to save the old man, and he is buried. Strong offers to marry her, but Miss Mason turns him down, remembering her promise, then tells them she has found the treasure in a cave, and offers to share it. When Strong gets the chests open, he discovered nothing but old gunpowder, but tells her there is a fortune therein, which will have to be disposed of quietly. He gives her money out of his own pocket, claiming it's an advance on their wealth, to go to New York so she can study singing.

It's the latest of the Kickstarter-funded restorations done by Ed Lorusso, with a lively score by Donald Drazin. It's not a terribly involved story, but Miss Mason, the youngest of the three Flugrath sisters (Edna Flugrath and Viola Dana were the elder two) offers a charming and lively performance in the lead role under the direction of Edward H. Griffith, one of twelves movies he directed in his first year behind the megaphone. Handsome photography of both the island and of Manhattan by Fred Brace show off the settings and the performers in a solid movie for 1917, which still charms in a well preserved copy from the Library of Congress. With Sally Crute and Jessie Stevens, it shows solid movie-making technique during an understudied period.

Plot has Shirley Mason starring as Ruth Hoagland, a wild child who lives on an island off the coast of Massachusetts with her deranged father who is obsessed with finding a pirate's treasure. One day a rich young man is sailing near the island and Ruth interferes with his rudder.

They become friends and he says he'll return. She dreams of romance, but he never returns. When the old father dies, Ruth is visited by a doctor and a vicar and they take pity on her and devise a plan to get her to New York so she can pursue a career as a singer.

Familiar faces among the co-stars include Jessie Stevens (the aunt in THE APPLE TREE GIRL) and bad girl Sally Crute (BLUE JEANS, THE COSSACK WHIP). The male leads are played by George Forth and Donald Hall.

While the film takes place on the fictional Hoagland Island off Bayport, Massachusetts, other scenes are shot in New York. The coastal scenes were actually filmed on the coast of Maine.

Directed by Edward H. Griffith, based on a story by Lucien Hubbard, the film features some nifty superimposed scenes. Sweet and sentimental story.