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Under Two Flags
(1912) United States of America
B&W : Two reels
Directed by George Nichols
Cast: Herschel Mayall [Bertie Cecil], Vivian Prescott [Cigarette], Janet Salisbury [Lady Genevieve], Charles Perley [Berkeley Cecil, Bertie’s brother]
Gem Motion Picture Company production; distributed by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated. / From the novel Under Two Flags by Ouida (Marie Louise de la Ramée). / Released 9 July 1912. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / The novel was previously filmed as Under Two Flags (1912). The novel was subsequently filmed as Under Two Flags (1915).
Drama.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? Bertie Cecil is a member of England’s nobility and of the National Guardsmen. He finds particular diversion in innocent flirtations with married women. Lady Guinevere likes him in a silly sort of way, and determinedly resolves to keep the romance from her husband’s observation. Bertie’s brother Berkeley, loses heavily at gambling and asks Bertie for financial assistance. Bertie patiently but sadly explains that he cannot meet his own debts. At nine o’clock that night Lady Guinevere visits Bertie in his home. Berkeley goes to a Jew money-lender, offers a note tor sufficient money to cover the deficit, and signs his brother’s name, endorsed by a friend, Lord Rockingham. A little later the last slim vestige of Bertie’s fortune is wiped away. Rockingham’s eight-year-old sister comes to him and offers him some gold. Bertie tells her be cannot accept the money, and that when she has grown to womanhood she will know the reason. He asks tor the little enamel box in which she has carried the sold pieces as a memento, and receives it just as he is summoned by a messenger to Rockingham’s quarters. He finds Lord Rockingham and the Jew money-lender, with the forged note. Rockingham pleads with him to deny the charge, and explain where he was the night the note was executed. If Bertie speaks, he must soil a woman’s name; if he spares her, his silence must be accepted as admission of his guilt. He keeps his silence and his faith with Lady Guinevere. It is only a few minutes later, when the Jew attempts to place the handcuffs on him, that he realizes he is under arrest. However, he escapes and goes to Africa and engages under the French flag. Cigarette, soldier of France and daughter of the army, loves Bertie. He looked upon her wild dances and riotous revelries with a little disgust and a great pity. Ten years he had lived under the French flag and the African sun. But the memory of before still lived and lingered with him. To Africa came a party of tourists from England. They visited the barracks. Among the women in the party was a sweet, young, beautiful slip of a near-woman. She was to Bertie a link of the past, a vision of the happy yesterday that had died. He was, to her only a soldier of France. But somehow they became acquainted, and somehow she became interested in him. And Cigarette saw it all. When he fell wounded in battle. Cigarette dragged him from the red field to a shack in the outskirts. And through the long, black night she nursed him. Then, faintly, feebly, she heard his voice and a name. Eagerly she listened, her heart beating a prayer, the only prayer her being was ever known to make. But the whispered name was the name of the other. She choked the sob and flew from the tent, that he might never know. One day the English woman saw the little enamel box, now rusty, battered and tarnished. She saw it, and started and stared, and asked him where and how he obtained it. He related the incident, and she told him it was she! She explained that Lord Rockingham was with her in Africa, and begged him to stay until her brother returned to the house. With a sudden, startled fear he begged her not to disclose his presence, and flew from hers. Once, on a street in Algiers, he looked into his brother’s face. He greeted Bertie with a vague, trembling fear. But Bertie told him to leave Africa with his title and his honor, return to England and live his life according to them. An irresistible something drew him back to the woman. The colonel of Bertie’s regiment saw him come from the house, and in jealous rage demanded to know why he had gone there. Bertie was silent. The colonel sarcastically insinuated that the aristocrat was cold to her equals, and carried on her midnight intrigues with the blackguards of his camp. A moment after the deed, Bertie realized that he had struck him. He was court-martialed, found guilty, and sentenced to be shot on the morrow. Cigarette heard, and. frantic with grief and dismay, she ran up the street, and stopped to peer into a face. The face was the face of Bertie. She stopped him and excitedly told him all, and learned he was Bertie’s brother. To her the boy confessed all, and not waiting, she had him write his statement, snatched the paper and dashed off for the marshal’s tent. Her story was told and proved. The stay of execution of sentence was given her, and she resumed her break-neck ride. She rode into the scone of the execution just as the command was given to fire. Her shouted “Stop, in the name of France!” came a moment too late. The command had already been given, and the guns were speaking their dirge. But even fleeter than the leaden death, she hurled herself from her horse, in front of Bertie. After the first moment of dull, despairing astonishment, he realized that she had sacrificed her life for him, realized in the last chapter all the devotion and integrity of her love. Slowly he dropped his head until his lips met hers. But the long-longed-for sweet had come too late, and the victory of her love was too late to be anything but defeat. Once she smiled, a sweet, fleeting smile of triumph, and in the kiss that she had hoped and lived for, she died. In England Bertie and Guinevere sat together. Sadly they smiled at each other. They were thinking of a distant grave, the human cost of their happiness.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Keywords: Foreign Legion
Listing updated: 22 May 2023.
References: Website-IMDb.
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