Ireland, the Oppressed

An Irishman is a good lover and a good fighter and the world loves him on both counts. Pictures dealing with oppression in Ireland strike a ready chord and are likely to be acceptable nearly everywhere. They stir indignation and this would be their drawback were they not, as this one surely is, relieved by loyalty and heroic self sacrifice. This picture is not a love story. It deals with a priest who gets into trouble for daring to take the part of the penniless tenants, thrown out into the cold by their pitiless landlord. It shows how the "White Boys" jumped into a squad of redcoats and rescued him, how he was fed in the hills, sold for the reward by an informer, and helped at the last moment to escape by a girl, who paid the penalty of seven years in prison. All this is pictured as a tale told by an old man at a modern Irish harvest party. We find in it lovely Irish scenes, and its story is clearly developed and very effective. Jack Clark plays a lad who takes the lead in the rescue; Alice Hollister, the girl, his sweetheart, who sacrifices herself to save the priest; Sidney Olcott, the priest, and he is also the picture's producer. J.P. McGowan plays the major, in the same makeup that he used in "Kerry Gow." Robert Vignola plays the informer. - The Moving Picture World, December 28, 1912