Fortunes of a Composer

Mr. Charles Kent, by very sincere acting, holds up, in this picture, a situation that otherwise would have failed to convince, would, perhaps, have had little effectiveness. As it is, up to the last scene, which is tremendously effective, the interest in the story's outcome, while always awake, is secondary to the picture's lesser qualities, its acting, lighting, scene making and photography, which all are of high order. The story of the old composer's loss of memory and his separation from his friends, and even of the homecoming to die in the empty theater where he had just heard his great opera rendered, are not impossible; but they are not made very real. There is plenty in the picture that does ring true and the scene where the composer dies is fine. The acting all through is excellent. Mrs. Julia Swayne Gordon plays the composer's wife; Edith Halleran and Norma Talmadge play his two daughters, and do excellent work. - The Moving Picture World, June 8, 1912