“A two-reel number featuring Mignon Anderson and Morris Foster. It pictures the making of big guns in an American plant, the girl’s father and brother being in the business. Views of this industry are of timely interest and these are well photographed. The girl dislikes the business intensely; later her brother goes abroad to sell the guns. He is killed in battle by the very munitions of warfare he helped to sell. The duel scene was nicely staged. The number is on the whole very interesting though it has no great dramatic strength.”
REVIEW by Louis Reeves Harrison, The Moving Picture World, July 17, 1915:
“The recoil of brutal avarice upon those who live for profit, irrespective of principle, constitutes the theme of A Maker of Guns, and the treatment deserves commendation because of the sincere effort made to back up the theory with the semblance of fact. We are given a view of large pieces of ordinance and process of manufacture during the early scenes of a play, supposedly in the factory of Martin Wright. In fact, big guns of various models and caliber, from mortars to 14-inch breech-loading rifles, are shown in the process and manufacture, while Martin Wright goes over the works in company with his son and his daughter. It is the nature of things that the son should be enthusiastic over the scientific construction involved and that the daughter should be affected by their destruction of human life promised by the huge engines of war—woman is a creator of beings, man a creator of things.
“The son goes abroad after war and is declared in Europe and sends special envoys from clashing nations to negotiate for control of his father’s output of cannon. These envoys meet at the house of Martin Wright and bid against each other in the presence of his daughter for weapons calculated to kill or maim all that woman has done to perpetuate the raids. The daughter objects on principle to her father’s participation in the slaughter, but her objections are overruled, and the deal is made with one of the envoys. Martin Wright’s son, meanwhile, remains abroad, becomes infatuated with a beautiful dancer, and embroiled in a duel on her account and finally, in proof of his devotion, joins a foreign legion in defense of her country. His return home is awaited with growing anxiety until, one day, news is brought that he was killed in battle by one of his father’s guns.”
