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Angel of the Desert
(1913) United States of America
B&W : One reel
Directed by Rollin S. Sturgeon
Cast: James McGuire (Major J.A. McGuire) [Stearns, the husband], Anne Schaefer [Mrs. Anne Stearns], George C. Stanley (George Stanley) [the prospector], Robert Thornby [the gambler]
The Vitagraph Company of America production; distributed by The General Film Company, Incorporated. / Released 6 January 1913. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / The film was released in the United Kingdom on 17 April 1913.
Drama: Western.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? Married to a sporting man, Anne Stearns, with their little child, has a varied and unsettled life. Finally, Steams locates in a western town where he opens a gambling house. He is a man of coarse instincts and mercenary nature. He insists that his wife make herself agreeable to patrons of his den and dance-hall, to popularize the resort. Their little girl is taken very sick. Stearns insists that she leave the little one and go into the barroom to meet one of her admirers. She refuses, asserting that her child demands her attention. He grabs her, drags her into the saloon and insists that she entertain his friend. She acquiesces under protest. When the drunken fellow attempts to caress her, she resists him and her husband tries to force her to submit. At this moment, a strange prospector, who has entered the room, springs to her protection, knocking down her annoyer and throwing aside her husband. He then escorts her to her home where she finds that the child, during her absence, has died. The defeated gambler follows the prospector. Stearns entirely ignores his wife after this incident and left alone, the prospector helps her bury the child and consoles her in her grief. Later, he is attacked by the gambler, whom he had opposed in Stearn’s place, and in a duel with pistols, he shoots his assailant. By a drawn jury, he is sentenced to exile, and driven into the desert. Anne, learning of his condemnation, hastily fills a canteen and follows him into the desert where she finds him already delirious from thirst. He looks at her through his death-palled eyes and she appears to him as a ministering angel coming to cool his parched lips with a cup of cold water. Anne hastens to his side just as he breathes his last and passes into the land of eternal peace and rest. With thoughts of his kindness to her and her child and fearing to return to her brutal husband, she empties the water from her canteen into the sands of the desert, preferring to die beside the man who would protect her rather than endure the insults and dangers of the husband who would demoralize and degrade her.
Survival status: Print exists in the Library of Congress film archive.
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 7 April 2020.
References: ClasIm-220 p. 41 : Website-IMDb.
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