The Mortal Sin (1917) User Reviews

The little actress has the ability to make her scenes convincing

[deickemeyer · 21 July 2015]

A rather conventional and more or less hackneyed plot has been given an extenuating "punch" in "The Mortal Sin," a five-reel drama, in which Viola Dana is the star, and which was produced for Metro by the Columbia Pictures Corporation. The "punch" is registered by a quite powerful climax, a climax dramatically interesting enough in its entirety to make the viewer forget and forgive the fact that he was, in the earlier reels, offered much screen material not necessary to the telling of the story. John Collins, who wrote the story and directed the picture, evidently was first inspired with the climax, and proceeded to build a story around it that fitted it. Many of the subtitles are quite preachy in tone. Mr. Collins has very wisely permitted Viola Dana to dominate the production, for it is because of the ability and personality of Miss Dana that the picture ranks at all above the average. The little actress has the ability to make her scenes convincing, and, cast in the role of the wife of a poor author, who sells herself so that her husband might live, she easily enrolls and maintains the spectator's sympathy. Her support is capable. Robert Walker and Augustus Phillips are particularly adequate. Others in the cast are Lady Thompson, Henry Leone, Louis B. Foley and Ricca Allen. The story tells of a poor clerk in a publishing house who is writing a novel. He becomes ill and his wife takes his job. The publisher covets the girl, and she, in order to obtain funds to insure her husband's health, listens to the publisher's proposal. Returning from the west, where he has gone for his health, the husband discovers his wife's unfaithfulness. He condemns her and later kills her. The husband wakes up to find that he has been dreaming, and that the dream, while just the opposite of what he has been writing, will fit well between the covers of his novel, which started the nightmare. Photographically, the picture is not all that could be desired. Production details are adequate. Released March 12. - The Moving Picture World, March 24, 1917