Summary
Set against the smoldering backdrop of the American Civil War, 'Held by the Enemy' functions as a sophisticated psychological tableau rather than a mere historical reenactment. Rachel Hayne, a Southern widow whose life has been hollowed out by the attrition of conflict, finds her domestic sanctuary repurposed as a Union stronghold. The arrival of Colonel Prescott introduces a complex romantic friction, a chivalric intrusion that challenges Rachel's ingrained allegiances. This fragile equilibrium is shattered by the resurrection of the past: her husband Gordon, long presumed a casualty of the front, emerges from the shadows as a desperate Confederate spy. His capture transforms the Hayne estate into a site of harrowing moral litigation. The narrative reaches its crescendo in a hospital ward where the boundaries between life and death are manipulated in a frantic gamble for survival. When Surgeon Fielding, driven by professional malice and unrequited obsession, attempts to expose a conspiracy of feigned death, the film pivots into a macabre irony that resolves the emotional deadlock through a literal and final expiration.
Synopsis
During the Civil War, young widow Rachel Hayne is among those "held by the enemy" when her old family home is within the lines occupied by the Northern troops. Protected by Colonel Prescott from looters and the unwelcome attentions of Surgeon Fielding, Rachel begins to fall in love with the gallant Yankee officer. Their romance is disrupted when Rachel's husband Gordon, long reported dead, is captured as a spy and condemned to death. When Gordon is wounded during an attempted escape, Rachel's loyalty impels her to try to save him by feigning his death. As Gordon's stretcher is carried through the hospital, Fielding demands an examination of the body, charging that Prescott is involved in a plot to smuggle the spy out of the hospital alive. General Stanton lifts the cover from the body, only to find that death has really come, freeing both Rachel and Prescott.
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