The Eye of Conscience (1911) User Reviews

As I Lay Dying

[boblipton · 6/10 · 17 October 2016]

With his friend dying, Hobart Bosworth takes his opportunity to steal the man's goods. Once that happens, though, he begins to imagine he is being watched in this well-performed short film from Selig Polyscope.

Bosworth became a film actor when ill health forced him off the stage. He became one of the earliest star-directors of the cinema, and released his films, first through Selig and later through Paramount. After the end of his starring career, he continued as a busy character actor through his death in the 1940s. He adapted well to changing styles of story and performances. With this early one, we can see him emoting fit for the stage. He would soon learn that the camera could see deeper into a performer's thoughts with its own techniques.

The Eye of Conscience review

[JoeytheBrit · 7/10 · 22 June 2020]

Hobart Bosworth does a good job of expressing the guilt of the honest man driven to crime by circumstance in this decent thriller from Selig. It's shot through with a nice atmosphere of sleaze and desperation, and the eye peering through a hole in the wall of Bosworth's hotel room is genuinely creepy. There is one major continuity error though: the grey-haired landlady of the boarding house who is dressed in a drab old dress when she shows Bosworth into his room turns into a smartly-dressed woman with black hair once they are inside the room!

Some of the best acting of the week

[deickemeyer · 22 November 2015]

A simple story of a robbery. The dramatic strength lies in the gradual awakening of the conscience and the effect it has upon the thief. As the enormity of his crime is borne in upon him stronger and stronger he becomes a nervous wreck, startled at every little noise, and nearly going insane when he discovers an eye looking at him from the transom. Investigation discloses that it is only the eye of a mask, but the effect was quite the same as though it had been the eye of a person. It was the eye of conscience. The closing scene is different from some of these stories, showing the thief returning the money without detection. It is a film of unusual power and contains some of the best acting of the week. - The Moving Picture World, March 11, 1911