The Bond of Music (1912) User Reviews

The Lure of the Viola da Gamba

[boblipton · 5/10 · 24 September 2016]

France and Germany are at war! Even so musician Charles Kent doesn't care; he sits in his room, calmly playing music. When German spy Earle Williams seeks refuge, Kent lets him hide in his bedroom. Later, when the German troops march in and smash his viola, Kent finally resists and the Germans prepare to shoot him.

Although this movie is nominally about "the bond of music", it offers a pretty rough view of German soldiers; in a few years, Griffith would show Prussian officer smashing violins as a savage indictment. Despite Kent's semi-comic portrayal of the musician, it seems more an indictment of German savagery than of war itself.

A handsomely tinted print of this film can be seen on the Eye Institute site on Youtube.

The military scenes are perfect

[deickemeyer · 29 January 2017]

Generally speaking, there are three things that art, if it fails to treat reverently, does so at its peril. These three are religion (anybody's religion), love and patriotism. In this picture, the "bond of music" and the love of a musician for his favorite pupil count more with the old master than his patriotic duty to his country. His pupil was a spy. It was just before the Franco-Prussian war. He helps this pupil to elude the authorities and in later scenes the pupil comes back at the head of an invading army which destroys the city. The picture, except for this weakness, if in this case it is one, is very well done, in fact is tremendous. The military scenes are perfect. The destruction of the city seems very real. - The Moving Picture World, September 14, 1912