Volume II: Filmography

ON THE STROKE OF FIVE

Advertisement from The Moving Picture World, June 9, 1912.(F-460).

June 11, 1912 (Tuesday)

Length: 1 reel

Character: Drama

Cast: Mignon Anderson, Marie Eline, Mikhail Mitzoras, David H. Thompson, William Russell

Notes: 1. The release date of this film was first scheduled as May 21, 1912 and then changed to June 11, 1912. The earlier date, uncorrected, appeared in several publications. 2. The "music box" in the film was a cylinder-type phonograph of the general style made by Edison and Columbia at the time.

ADVERTISEMENT, The Moving Picture World, June 8, 1912:

"On the stroke of five is the appointed time for the destruction by bomb of a home of innocents. But the deed he would perpetrate reacts on the dastard, and he becomes a victim of the plot he had set for others. It is a wondrous, gripping, fascinating story. You are held spellbound. It gives life and thrill to any program, and can be featured big."

SYNOPSIS, The Moving Picture World, May 18, 1912:

"There was nothing particularly romantic about her love story. She was a poor girl and had two suitors, both humble working men. The man she chose was the more worthy of the two, and loved her fondly. The other man, a brutish individual of ungovernable passions, became involved in an altercation with his foreman and savagely attacked him. Through the efforts of the successful suitor he was captured and, as his reputation was bad, he was sent to state prison for a long term. When the prisoner was set free, eight years later, his first desire was to find the woman he loved and the man he hated. With very little difficulty he located them, for they had married and settled down in the quarter where they had lived most of their lives. The ex-convict rejoiced to find that his foe had met with an accident, was helplessly paralyzed, and while he still lived, could not move nor speak; only his eyes showed that he was alive. Calling at the tiny cottage, the convict gloated over his foe but was careful to conceal his feelings from the wife. In the presence of her or her little girl, he was the sadly sympathetic friend. When alone with the helpless man, he gloated over him, whispered insults into his ear. The invalid was then unable to report or complain, he could only gaze at the man, wish that his strength might come back so that he could defend himself.

"The convict found that his love for the woman still existed, and he proposed that she elope with him. She rejected his advances with scorn, and his love turned to hate. He brooded over what he regarded as his wrongs, and planned a fiendish revenge. He called at the house, pretending great friendship, presented the little girl with a music box. She was delighted, and the mother was also pleased. Then, while the two were playing with the new toy, the convict tiptoed over to the paralytic and whispered to him that the music box really contained an infernal machine, and that it had been cunningly set by clockwork to go off on the stroke of five. Then he pointed to the clock, which marked 15 minutes of the hour, bid a pleasant farewell to the family he designed to destroy, and departed. The woman and child suspected nothing wrong; the man who knew was powerless to say anything. He suffered mortal agony as time sped on, and he was unable to warn them. Finally his little daughter came over to 'cheer up poor papa,' and noticed his intense gaze. He looked from her to her blocks, which were on the table at his elbow. The two had often 'played spelling.' The girl would speak a word, then hold up blocks. When she picked the right letter, the man would blink his eyes, the little girl knew how to spell many words, having learned it in this unique way. This pastime was now put to a stern use, and the man supposed to be helpless was able to convey the warning. The woman hurled the bomb from the window in time, and it rolled down the steep hill to the feet of the ex-convict, who was waiting there for the explosion that meant the death of three innocent people. He had no time to escape, and the fate that he had meant for others became the frightful death that Providence dealt him."

REVIEW, The Morning Telegraph, May 26, 1912:

"Such originality as is displayed in the evolution of this otherwise average offering, in the scene where the husband tells his wife of the explosive contained in the music box, through the child's spelling blocks, deserves a niche in the motion picture story hall of permanent record. At the beginning the woman is loved by two men, one of criminal mind, who is sent to prison for an attack on the foreman of the works where both men are employed. The other wins her, and later he is stricken with paralysis and loses power of motion or speech, save for the flickering of his eyelids. The rival comes from prison and visits them, pretending friendship and sympathy to the wife and child, but constantly taunting the husband about his helplessness and threatening revenge. He then attempts to win the wife, and urges her to run away with him, and when she refuses he plans a terrible revenge. He brings the child a music box, which is in reality a bomb set for an explosion within fifteen minutes from the time he leaves. Unable to speak or move, the husband at last manages to attract the attention of the child by force of suggestion, and through a pastime he and the little one had invented he signifies by the uplift or wink of an eyelid which letters from her pile of blocks she must place, one after the other, and in this way informs the wife of the bomb, which she seizes and hurls out of the window just before it explodes, the missile rolling down the hill where the ex-convict had been waiting, he being the victim of his own plotting. For melodrama of the thrilling sort it could not be more effective, and as staged and acted it is remarkably fine."

Note: This review was printed in connection with the earlier-scheduled release date of May 21, 1912 for this film. Later, when the release date was moved forward, another review was printed at a subsequent date, as per the following.

ADDITIONAL REVIEW, The Morning Telegraph, June 16, 1912:

"Intensely melodramatic, this photodrama is one which will assuredly make all who see it 'sit up and take notice.' A girl is loved by two men, one of whom she accepts and marries. The other attacks his foreman and is sent to prison for a term of years, on his release revenge still being uppermost in his mind. He seeks out the pair and finds that the husband has been stricken with paralysis and can only move his eyes. Through this he is enabled to communicate with his child in a clever manner, she spelling out the words he wishes to utter with her toy blocks as he indicates which ones to place, merely through the movement of his eyes. The villain visits the family and plays the friend in the presence of the husband but tries to force the wife to go away with him. Then he contrives a bomb in a child's music box and gives it to the infant. It is set to go off at 5 o'clock, and the friend whispers this information to the helpless husband and then leaves the house and the family to be blown up. But the father manages to communicate the information to the wife through the blocks, and she throws the music box out of the house just in time and it rolls down an embankment where the villain is standing, and he is killed. The acting is splendid and the work of the husband in the big scene is especially so. The explosion is well worked up and the suspense is ably sustained."

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