Who directed The Eternal Mother?

The movie The Eternal Mother was directed by Frank Reicher.

When was The Eternal Mother released?

The Eternal Mother was released in the year 1917.

Which country is The Eternal Mother from?

The Eternal Mother is a movie from United States.

Drama

The Eternal Mother

Name: The Eternal Mother
Director: Frank Reicher
Released: 1917
Cast: Jack W. Johnston, Charles Sutton, Maxine Elliott Hicks, Charles Crompton, Frank Mills

1917·Frank Reicher·—/10

Summary

A canvas of soot-streaked sky looms above a New England mill town where Maris—part Penelope, part Antigone—steps out of rumor and into the clang of looms, her widow’s weeds already moth-eaten by the lie that her first husband and infant daughter lie beneath foreign soil. She weds Dwight Alden, the foundry’s taciturn Vulcan, whose fortune is soldered to the brittle bones of children working the frames. From the chapel’s whale-oil gloom, a minister—half-prophet, half-moth—denounces the bondage of tiny fingers; his sermon detonates like a boiler, killing him mid-sentence and leaving Maris holding the match. One dusk, while tending a spindle-broken girl whose arm hangs like a snapped lily, she lifts the child’s face and confronts her own blood: Felice, presumed dead, now a ghost in calico. Lynch, the carnival-barker sire, slouches back into the narrative, divorce decree flapping like a race-track flag, unraveling every vow Maris has stitched since the first deception. She flees with Felice through a forest of bobbins and guilt; Alden, stripped of both wife and self-justification, tears the mill apart brick by brick, abolishing the night shift for the under-aged, installing sunlight in places that had never seen it. A final, rain-slick reunion on the depot platform: steam, forgiveness, and the faint smell of coal smoke threading the air like regret.

Synopsis

Maris, having married Lynch, a worthless man who deserts her, taking their daughter Felice with him, marries mill owner Dwight Alden after receiving notification that her husband and child are dead. Discovering that Alden employs child labor, Maris, assisted by the village minister, tries to persuade him that this is wrong, but he will tolerate no interference in his business. After violently denouncing Alden from the pulpit, the minister dies and Maris becomes interested in a child who has been injured while working overtime at the mill, only to discover that the child is her daughter and her first husband is still alive. She leaves, taking Felice, and Alden, after having a fight with the first husband, discovers that Lynch had secured a divorce. Alden seeks out Maris, tells her that he has abolished child labor and made other improvements affecting the welfare of his workers, and a reconciliation occurs.

Director