In the Hands of the Enemy (1915) User Reviews

Entertaining little WWI era adventure

[MissSimonetta · 8/10 · 2 March 2020]

I've been binging Thanhouser shorts for the past month and just loving them. Forget the long-parroted idea that only DW Griffith was making worthwhile drama in the 1910s. Here, the compositions and editing are quite sophisticated, far from the tableaux style of the earlier part of the decade. Overall, IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY is a tight, suspenseful little spy film about a mother and son duo trying to sneak a secret message past enemy lines. The mother is the real star of the show, a resourceful and clever woman who outwits rather than outfights her captors when she and her boy are inevitably discovered.