The Law of Life - Production & Contact Info

The Law of Life (1916)
Short | Short, Drama

The Law of Life (1916)

Short | Short, Drama

Two men, Robert MacKenzie and Sidney Powell, love Helen. She prefers Robert and accepts his proposal because she believes him to be good. Powell has ruined a young girl Nan, and the village makes her an outcast. Helen alone remains her ...See moreTwo men, Robert MacKenzie and Sidney Powell, love Helen. She prefers Robert and accepts his proposal because she believes him to be good. Powell has ruined a young girl Nan, and the village makes her an outcast. Helen alone remains her friend. In the city Powell and MacKenzie meet. Powell hates the other man for winning the girl he himself covets. In Powell's room, Robert sees the portrait of La Carmona, a dancer, in whom he recognizes a girl whom he saved from two ruffians in the park that afternoon. Powell persuades him to come back that night to a midnight supper which he is giving to Carmona. Robert comes and meets the woman who falls very much in love with him. Robert had previously told Powell that he could not drink, for as soon as he took one glass everything faded into oblivion and he could not be responsible for what he did. Carmona coaxes Robert to take a drink to her health. He yields and does so. Then everything is forgotten. He remembers nothing until he awakens next morning, to find Carmona in negligee in the parlor of his apartment. He is stunned. He goes to Helen and confesses all, but she sadly turns him adrift. Powell meets Robert and tells him tauntingly that Helen has promised to be his wife. The men quarrel. Powell in the meantime, has met Nan and promises her that if she comes to his apartment he will marry her and she goes there. Later in the night, unable to rest thinking of Helen, Robert goes to Powell's department to ask him the details of his engagement. He finds Powell dead. An old servant accuses Robert of the crime and he is being led off when a puff of smoke blows through the portieres and a loud report is heard. The curtains are torn aside and the body of Nan falls to the ground. She tells how she entered the rooms; how Powell laughed at her proposal that he marry her; how he tried to take her into his arms, and how she finally fired the desperate shot that killed him. On the strength of this confession Robert is freed and Nan dies in his arms. Shortly afterward he leaves Carmona and goes to work in a large mill where he tries to forget. Here again tragedy is brought before him when he finds the slim body of a young girl in the river, a girl who was ruined by one of his own foremen. He begins to think deeply of his own life and to pity Carmona, whom he knows loved him deeply. So he returns to her, to find her the mother of a little child, whom she claims is his. She is very ill. Robert marries her and she dies happy. Robert now decides to devote his life to the boy. The child falls ill and a nurse is sent for. The nurse is Helen and so these two meet again and the bitterness of the past is all swept from the girl's heart at the sight of Robert's suffering and by the side of the sleeping baby they once more pledge their troth. Written by Moving Picture World synopsis See less

Contacts

+ Add

Become a member to see contact information for The Law of Life.

Cast	+ Add Cast
6 cast members

Name	Known for
King Baggot Robert McKenzie Robert McKenzie See fewer	Jim Webb, Senator (1914)
Edna Hunter Helen Willoughby Helen Willoughby See fewer	The Unchastened Woman (1918)
Ned Reardon Sid Powell Sid Powell See fewer	The Marble Heart (1915)
Elsie MacLeod Nan Nan See fewer	The Hazards of Helen (1914)
Clara Beyers La Carmona La Carmona See fewer	L'apache (1919)
Frank Smith Actor (unconfirmed) Actor (unconfirmed) See fewer	A Strange Disappearance (1915)