The Vagaries of Fate

District Attorney Edgar Jones convicts some blackmailers, so other members of the gang kidnap him and try to blow him up.

This is an ambitious movie for Lubin, the most conservative of the Patents Trust companies. Mr. Jones seems to have fancied himself a bit of an auteur, because he stars and directs. Unfortunately, like many another movie, the plan that the abductors have concocted is too elaborate. They divert his driver, drive him to their hideout, tie him up, show him the bomb they are going to blow him up with -- it's unconnected to the alarm clock they are using as a timer -- and go out for a beer, pausing along the way to phone Mr. Jones' new wife, who accompanies the police to a gun battle along the way.

This "I expect you to die, Mr. Bond!" attitude is still with us. Pity.

Edgar Jones stars as a district attorney who's come back from his honeymoon with Louise Huff (his real-life wife at the time). He's about to prosecute a group of crooks. But he gets a letter threatening he'll go to his grave if he goes through with the trial.

After the men are convicted, the rest of the gang goes into action. One crook gets Jones' chauffeur drunk and another takes his place. When Jones boards his car, he's kidnapped off to a shack in the country where he's bound and gagged. The crooks delight in showing him the bomb they've made connected to a clock. They give him 20 minutes to live.

But outside the rowdy crooks begin to fight and a rifle is discharged. We see the shack window it has smashed and Jones is slumped over in his chair. Alas! Eventually the cops have a shootout with the crooks and get Jones' location from the one wounded survivor. But but they get there, they find Jones alive. The bullet smashed the clock. A cop hands Jones the bullet and tells him to wear it as a charm.

Slick little 1-reeler is packed with action.

The district attorney receives a threatening letter from the friends of the blackmailers he has convicted. The story which follows is very conventional. He is captured and bound in a cabin beside a bomb to which a lighted fuse is attached. Later, of course, he is rescued. In spite of the familiar plot the suspense is well maintained. The photography is only fair. - The Moving Picture World, February 21, 1914