User Reviews

The title of this picture suggests a story founded on some psychic phenomenon like telepathy, or some spiritualistic communication from the dead. In one sense, it does picture the communication as coming from the dead mother to reunite the obdurate father and the weak and erring son, but that interpretation is not forced upon us; what happens seems also like coincidence. The picture is very wisely conducted and powerful. The producer knew just how far he could go and carry his audience with him, and stopped at the right line. Ghosts never really "get over" as ghosts. The painting of the mother on the wall is shown as taking on an uncanny reality, but it is still a painting; the expression doesn't change (a weak producer would have made it do so), nor does it move. The rose falls by accident from the vase beneath it to the boy's feet. It was a rose from the mother's bush. The father that morning had placed it there, an anniversary offering. When the father, hearing a noise, comes into the darkened room, it is the rose in the boy's hand that softens him. In this picture Miss Julia Swayne has given us one of her finest and most beautiful portrayals. It is a fine success. The lad also succeeds in being boyish all through and his part is made unusually convincing. This picture is one of the Vitagraph life portrayals and it is worthwhile very truly. - The Moving Picture World, November 18, 1911