User Reviews

This is an interesting short drama dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis, which was a problem of considerable importance in its time. It was made with the participation of members of the health science community, so as to ensure that its information and its implied advice were sound. Although the specific disease is fortunately no longer such a threat in large parts of the world, many of the points that the drama makes are still relevant as applied to some of the diseases that are more common today.

The story follows three main characters, a brother, a sister, and a friend, all of whom contract the deadly disease. Their stories are all slightly different, in terms of how and when they become ill, how the disease is diagnosed, and the kind of treatment they seek. The cast perform in a generally straightforward manner, knowing that the life-and-death drama inherent in the story is enough to carry the movie as you gradually learn what happens to each of them.

Some of the most significant points of the story can be applied with equal importance to many medical concerns of the present. The importance of an early and accurate diagnosis, the fear of not being able to afford proper treatment, the value of supportive friends and family, and other such things are all still of obvious relevance in tackling contemporary health concerns.

The movie itself is solid if unspectacular, but its constructive message and the fact that it still has some real pertinence combine to make it a rather interesting drama.

The third of pictures made by the Edison Company with the Red Cross and the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis (now the American Lung Association), along with "Hope" (1912) and "The Temple of Moloch" (1914), that I've seen now, "The Lone Game" demonstrates how far American filmmaking had come in just three years. This one is far more polished than the other two and from the start, too, with the opening of an iris medium close-up that is matched with a subsequent longer shot. Arguably, there are too many iris shots, but this was common during the era--maybe because of the fondness for them by D.W. Griffith's cinematography Billy Bitzer. Anyways, there's also a flashback sequence as told by a character to another. It sets up a triptych outbreak of three tuberculosis cases. And, if the story weren't telling enough as to the picture's message, the film concludes with a lecture-within-the-lecture of an audience purchasing the Red Cross Seals to contribute to the anti-TB charity. The scene takes place during the charitable Christmas season, which also happened to be when these films were released.

I've been reviewing these films to look back at past pandemics while living during the current one in 2020. This one in particular contains an always-timely message regarding wealth and the treatment of illness; the inequality of which is only overcome by such charity, as we see in the fates of the three characters in the film. Although I have my doubts as to the efficacy of the treatment here of being read and fed to while lying in an open-air bed, but, then again, this was decades before antibiotic interventions were discovered. Besides disparity in treatment based on wealth and generally uncertain medical care without a real cure, if that weren't prescient enough of today's pandemic, one of the unfortunate characters is even prescribed a counterproductive medication for malaria.