Information
- BFI identifier23064
- Date1910 (Release)
- Production countryUSA
- Production company
- SynopsisDRAMA. A husband, given to neglecting his wife, has a dream in which the devil shows him scenes depicting his wife's unfaithfulness. This so enrages him that he repents and asks forgiveness for having neglected her. Alice kisses her husband goodbye and looks unhappy when he has gone. When leaving the house he looks back, but shrugs and goes on (38). He meets up with two friends outside a café and is persuaded to join them (58). Scene in the café (77). At home, his wife looks pensive and unhappy (92). The three men leave the café for a visit to the cinema (109). The three men, with two women friends, are seen leaving the Lincoln Theatre, where the film 'The Devil' is advertised. They persuade the women to return to the café with them (154). Interior of the café: the friends are all seated at a table in close conversation when the man receives a note from Edna, a girlfriend, asking him to take her to see 'Servant in the House' that evening. He leaves his friends in the café to return home (258). Alice hears her husband return, but he is cold towards her. In the next room he makes up his mind and begins to change his clothes for an evening out (330). Alice, looking upset, writes a letter to her husband, saying that if he persists in neglecting her by drinking and going out at night, then he should not complain if she does likewise. Her husband reads what she has written but leaves nevertheless (376). The man and his woman friend Edna seen leaving a cinema advertising the film 'The Servant in the House' (394). They go to the café, where they are seen tête-a-tête (431). Alice is seen at home; the clock shows one o'clock. She places a screen in front of the door and around her chair and settles down with a book to wait for her husband (474). The man and Edna leave the café (486). The man arrives home, but does not see his wife because of the screen. He has a drink and a cigar, rereads his wife's note and scoffs. He settles down in his chair on the other side of the screen (532). A puff of smoke appears beside his chair; the Devil materialises and talks to the man's ghost, which has risen from his body. The devil takes him into the bedroom and shows him the empty bed. Alice and her husband remain asleep as the Devil and the man's spirit leave the house (599). The Devil takes the man to the café where he sees his wife talking to another man (double exposure shows the wife asleep in her chair (630-654)). He takes out a gun to shoot the man, but the Devil stops the man and leads him away (670). He shows the man a scene of Alice kissing a man at a window; her husband is again prevented from killing her, and led on to another scene (706). Cut to Alice and her husband asleep in their chairs (712). Scenes of a masked fancy dress ball, including an acrobatic display (778). Alice is shown flirting with a lover; her husband tears off her mask and shoots her. She falls to the ground (double exposure shows her asleep in her chair) and her husband runs off (815). He enters his house and puts the gun to his temple, but a vision of Jesus appears and stops him. He shows the man the screen around his wife's chair; Jesus and the man's ghost disappear (885). The man wakes up, and remembering his dream, he pulls back the screen. He falls at Alices's feet in repentance, and she comforts him (949) [35mm]. Note: this film was re-released, or possibly remade, in 1912. (NFA Catalogue)
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Title
The Devil, The Servant and the Man (Original)
Category
Fiction- Collections
- Film / Video
- Articles
- +The Devil, The Servant and the Man
Work - 23064 - 1910 (Release)
USA - Film - Fiction
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