The Blacksmith's Love

Tom Santschi and Herbert Rawlinson go off to the Civil War. When Rawlinson is badly wounded on the battlefield, Santschi thinks he is dead. He returns home after the war and weds Eugenie Besserer, who had been Rawlinson's fiancée. However, Rawlinson is not dead. He is suffering from amnesia. He regains his memory and returns home in this Selig short film.

I have seen so many variations on "Enoch Arden" that it's hard for me to take the story seriously any more. Every time Ronald Colman loses more of his memory in RANDOM HARVEST and Greer Garson has to look at him longingly, I roll my eyes. However, this variation in the story is so well acted that I enjoyed this movie, particularly the charming way in which Santschi does his wooing while Miss Besserer smiles at his shyness.

If you wish to see this for yourself, there is a copy posted to the Eye Institute site on Youtube.

In this film the story of Enoch Arden is told over again with a variation upon the original theme which may or may not add interest, according to the views of the individual. Two men go to war. One is apparently killed on the battle field and the other is wounded. The wounded man returns home and ultimately weds the supposed widow. The man left for dead is revived and as his mind is a blank, is sent to a sanitarium. In two years he is cured, has his memory and returns to find that his former friend has married the supposed widow and that they have a child. Unlike the original Enoch Arden this one does not leave them in blissful ignorance of his presence. He makes himself known and the shock of the recognition is a dramatic scene well-acted. The woman, torn with conflicting emotions, allows old-fashioned ideas of honor to prevail, places the baby in its father's arms and goes with her lawful husband. - The Moving Picture World, September 2, 1911

The silly plot - a blacksmith returns from the Civil War and marries the sweetheart of the friend and comrade whom everyone mistakenly believes to have died but who is actually languishing in a hospital with amnesia - is tempered by signs that directors like Francis Boggs were finally learning to use visual cues to indicate a character's thoughts and feelings. The woman who plays the blacksmith's love interest is only one year younger that the actress playing his mother!