This film is part of Free

Keep the Home Fires Burning

Two sisters love the same man - one marries him, but the effects of WWI complicate their relationship

War 1916 16 mins Silent

Overview

The survival of relationships as conscription took men from their wives and children was a preoccupation for filmmakers during WWI. This modest drama was one of several produced by husband and wife team Ernest and Ethyle Batley – she directed, he was the producer and actor and their daughter Dorothy was often their juvenile lead (she plays the unmarried sister here). The plot of this one-reel film could easily have been expanded into a feature-length production, and shows ambition in its use of location footage.

As Britain's only female director of the silent era, it's a real shame that we don't have more of Batley's films. Only three survive, but who knows how she may have developed as a filmmaker in the easier post-war era, with longer films and higher production values. Unfortunately, her life was cut short and she died in 1917, mourned as a woman who "won the affection and respect of all who knew her by her kindness and her outstanding capabilities as an artist, and also as a businesswoman."