Motography (Apr-Dec 1911)

December, 1911. MOTOGRAPHY 275 The Edison Red Cross Films By H. Kent Webster RED Cross films, as produced by Edison, are doing a great work. Not only are they interesting in themselves from a dramatic standpoint, but they also clearly portray the work being done by the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, and reveal what becomes of the pennies we spend for the little stickers used to close our Christmas letters and packages. Evidently Edison intends to make the Red Cross film an annual event, for it will be remembered that one was produced last year also and met with an enthusiastic reception. This year the film is entitled "The Awakening of John Bond," and is a true-to-life Red Cross story. The leading characters in the story are Bond, a political boss, his wife, Grace, and Nellie O'Brien, aged eighteen, living on the lower East Side of New York. The O'Briens, a large family, live in a miserably kept tenement owned by Bond, who refuses to do anything to clean up his building for fear of losing money. Bond is married and sails wtih his wife on a cruise for a wedding trip, taking with him as a deckhand George O'Brien, Nellie's brother, who has consumption. On the cruise George fails rapidly. The surgeon pronounces him in the last stages of consumption. This so arouses the sympathies of the bride that she nurses George constantly until he finds himself dying and entrusts his watch and what little money he has to deliver to his sister Nellie. As a result of this close communication with George, Mrs. Bond contracts tuberculosis from him, and is brought back to New York for treatment. On her arrival home, she sends for Nellie to give her George's trinkets and messages, and there Nellie sees and bitterly denounces Bond as the murderer of her brother, because he refused to clean up the tenement in which they lived, or to help secure a hospitaP where consumptives might receive free treatment. Bond tries to place his wife in a sanitarium, but to his horror find all the private sanitariums filled and no room for any more patients. He then appeals to the Tuberculosis Committee for aid and finds that there is |>*& ■I ^ .iW J isrzzizzz: A 'v'.f'ii He Tries to Bribe the Official. What Becomes of the Pennies We Spend for Christmas Stamps. no public tuberculosis hospital, largely because he voted against it and not only refused his assistance, but worked assiduously against it. He attempts to bribe the official to make a place for his wife. The official takes his money and gives him in return a package of Red Cross Seals. This makes Bond angry, but when he learns what the Red Cross Seal means, how every penny taken in in this way is used in an earnest endeavor to stamp out the great white plague, he gladly writes out a most substantial check to be used in the work and agrees to support the hospital bill. The secretary then shows Bond a tuberculosis exhibit and an open air school, and arranges for the placing of Mrs. Bond and the O'Brien children, who also are afflicted, in a sanitarium. The last scene shows Mrs. Bond and the O'Brien children entirely recovered, and Bond himself, happy beyond expression, and a loyal supporter of the Red Cross, accepted as the peoples' choice for the office he seeks. "The Awakening of John Bond" is not a pretty story, but it is certainly effective and well presented. John Bond is simply an average man. He is not unusually cruel or penurious. Perhaps he is not even less susceptible to the need of supporting charitable movements of a humanitarian nature than other average men. He simply rests secure in the belief that such work is done for "the other fellow" and not for him, and he refuses his assistance and support merely -for selfish reasons. Most people believe in their own immunity. John Bond believes in his. Never for a minute does he suspect that the work he has been doing against the Red Cross will rebound to his own injury and cause him ceaseless worry. Most of us are John Bonds. We do not realize the great work that societies with humanitarian motives are doing until an example of their work is brought directly to our personal attention, until it is shown that the work they are doing is not simply general, but that it is specific and actually reaches some one person, and may some day reach us. In this film, the Edison people have attempted to impress this lesson upon us. They argue that the Red Cross movement should receive the support of every