As an acquaintance of the extended Sinclair family, I've had the opportunity to watch this film that they had transferred from some old reels in their possession. While it was kind of difficult to tell if what we viewed represented the entirety of the movie, I got the gist of it. I think it lasted around an hour although I stepped out at one point.
I am no expert on silent film, but it seemed to be about what one would expect from a film of the era as far as the acting, scenery, etc. It was a bit over-acted from a modern perspective and of course you have to fill in the blanks since the story is told visually with place cards showing dialogue and story line now and then. For me, it was a bit slow with no audio of any kind, such as music during the scenes. You could definitely tell that areas of the film had degraded over the years, but some scenes looked as good as the Charlie Chaplin clips I've seen on TV, etc.
Having read the book many years ago, it did follow the story quite faithfully from what I recall. It had the wedding at the beginning, all the factory work of course, and the meeting of the workers union towards the end. Mr. Sinclair was supposedly involved to a degree in the making of the movie and the family was delighted to see their great-grandfather or great-uncle shown at one point in the film.
While I recall the book being fairly grotesque and seedy, especially for its time, the movie was much less detailed, only hinting at the horrors of the meat factories in its visuals. However, you still knew exactly what was going on. It did paint a sad story that one could take as melodramatic if it were not based on actual experience. And, it points to hope at the end of the movie.
