From the Shadows

This two-part picture, pleasantly sentimental and poetic, is full of typically Thanhouser atmosphere and draws for us the trials and something of the triumphs of an actor's life. Opening, it shows a young actor, with his wife and baby, on tour. The wife is growing "tired of it all" and soon has run away with the actor's "friend." It took skillful handling of this incident to keep us still in sympathy with the weary woman and yet to protect the actor from losing in our respect on account of it. It is at once natural and pretty in its humanity. Twenty years pass; the baby has grown up. She and her old father are poor. While she is out getting a job as an actress, he dreams of his old successes and we see him in the chief Shakespearean roles, as Hamlet, etc. These scenes give Irving Cummings a fine chance to show his versatility. Well acted and beautifully photographed, it makes an excellent offering that is likable with no greatness or originality in it. - The Moving Picture World, June 6, 1914