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The Wives of Men
(1915) United States of America
B&W : Two reels
Directed by J. Farrell MacDonald
Cast: Alan Hale [the chief engineer], Helen Bray [the chief engineer’ wife], G. Raymond Nye [the blast foreman], Gretchen Hartman [the blast foreman’s wife]
Biograph Company production; distributed by The General Film Company, Incorporated. / Released 22 June 1915. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Drama.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? When it became evident that the construction work was going badly because discipline had relaxed under the blast foreman, who was a hard drinker, the chief engineer was summoned from the Eastern office to take charge. On his first day he had a set-to with the foreman and discharged him. The brute went home, maltreated his wife and crippled son, and drank himself into a stupor. Cautioning the boy to secrecy, the wife went to plead with the engineer for her husband's job. The engineer’s young bride sided with her, and the foreman was ordered to report for work. But the generous action merely served to augment his hatred of the engineer. One day the engineer’s wife, her heart touched by the fortitude of the crippled boy, took him to the hospital. The doctors gave hope, and in time he was discharged as cured. Some time later two little strangers came to camp, one in the engineer’s home, the other in the ex-foreman’s lowly shack. But with the first came the Angel of Death, and when the mother asked for her baby the engineer feared for her life should she learn that the child was dead. The nurse suggested a wildly impossible scheme, and in desperation the man caught at the idea. He implored the humble mother, by her gratitude to his wife, to let her have her baby. But at last she consented. Her husband placed a horrible misconstruction upon her visit to the engineer’s home, and wild with drink, went in search of the man, armed with a revolver. In a lonely place he came upon him, standing beside his disabled motor car. He raised the weapon and fired. Then he reeled backward in death; for a second shot had sounded from the hillside, where crouched a workman, who had a grudge against the ex-foreman. The wife, following with fear in her heart, arrived too late, and broke into uncontrollable grief, for she had saved this poor clay. Gently the engineer led her away to his home where his young wife was crooning happily over the child. With a great yearning the real mother reached out to her baby, but drew back in time. She had paid the price of gratitude.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 13 September 2023.
References: Spehr-American p. 4 : Website-IMDb.
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