Francis Ford is a research chemist. He has invented a new explosive. Oriental Peter Gerald wants it. So he sets his ward, Mae Gaston, to play on Ford, reigniting his alcoholism.
First let's clear up the matter of who wrote and directed this. The IMDb claims that Ford's younger brother John co-directed it and co-wrote it. The younger Ford later denied this, and the records at Universal bear this out. In addition, there is no indication in the visual elements that John had any hand in this; set design and framing show no indication of the visual sophistication, the reframing of the images that For was already putting into his images. And the story is a psychologically complex one, far from the younger man's metier.
For this is a complex story, with a strong subtext of the power of the rational, Western mind to triumph over the irrational, Eastern powers of the body. Ford conquers his alcoholism by an act of free will, and in doing so, sets Miss Gaston free from Gerald's domination. It's certainly not a subtle subtext. Film makers of this period, having recognized that they were working in an entirely new form of art, tried all sorts of techniques and motifs, using already hoary camera techniques like double exposure to show fraught states of mind. Francis Ford's story is bold, and while modern techniques in story telling are subtler in their uses of such matters, he tells the story exuberantly.
Francis Ford entered the movies in 1909 for Gaston Melies, who was producing westerns in Texas for France's Star Films. By 1914, he was working for Universal, where he and Grace Cunard were major stars for the company. Besides acting, he also directed almost 200 movies. He gave that up with the coming of sound, and remained an actor in roles large and small until his death in 1953 at the age of 72. He appeared in just shy of 500 movies.
