The Code of His Ancestors (1916)

movie

Country: USA
Genres: Drama, Short
Release: 1916-06-09
Director: Raymond L. Schrock
Writers: Catherine Carr , Harry Dittmar
Language: None | English
Stars: Ben F. Wilson , Dorothy Phillips , Charles Ogle , Jack Newton , Lois Alexander
Runtime: min
Awards: N/A
AKA: The Code of His Ancestors , The Code of His Ancestors (United States of America)
Plot: Dorothy Belmore, a southern beauty, is loved by two men, Stephen Carter and Preston Moore. Dorothy is urged by her father, who is in financial straits, to marry Stephen, who is heir to a large estate. Moore, though practically without money, is an experienced business man of middle age. He goes to New York, promising to return for Dorothy as soon as he has made enough money to marry her. After his departure, Dorothy yields to her father's wishes. Dorothy accepts the devotion of her husband as a matter of course, but secretly idealizes the memory of Moore. Stephen's father dies and it is then discovered that he has been speculating in the Cotton Exchange and has lost nearly everything except the family homestead. Stephen takes possession of the family estate, where for lack of funds, he and Dorothy live alone, with an old southern mammy. Five years elapse, and Stephen finds it a hard struggle to keep up the home. Dorothy is not particularly happy, but devotes herself like a good mother, to her five-year-old by, called "Sunshine." Moore, meanwhile, has prospered in New York, and upon his first visit to his southern home, he meets Stephen, who, unconscious of Moore's love affair with Dorothy, invites him to pay him a visit. Moore accompanies him home, cherishing a secret intention of revenge on the man who has married the girl he loves. In the evening, Moore is seated alongside of Dorothy, who is playing for him on the piano, while Stephen, who has his back turned to them, is talking to his boy. While glancing in the mirror, Stephen sees Moore squeezing Dorothy's hand. Thereupon he leaves the room, but looking back through the curtain, he sees Stephen kiss his wife, and overhears him tell her that Stephen is a coward to let her live in poverty. Moore urges Dorothy to elope with him. Dorothy consents to do so as soon as her husband is out of the way. Stephen, utterly overcome, stands before his father's portrait and says, "Help me, father, to acquit myself in this ordeal, according to our code." At breakfast the next morning, when the silver cover is removed from a breakfast platter, before the amazed gaze of Dorothy and Moore, two dueling pistols are disclosed, together with a check made out for $25,000 to which no signature has been attached. Stephen explained that one of the pistols is loaded and that he and Moore will draw for it, thus taking an equal chance, or that Moore, if he is too cowardly to fight, will sign the check, making it payable to him (Stephen). Moore, terrified at the thought of possible death, at the height of his success, proves himself a coward, as Stephen thought he would, and signs the check instead of taking a chance with the loaded pistol. Stephen then endorses the check and hands it over to Dorothy, telling her that in securing the money from Moore he has safeguarded her future happiness as a man of Moore's type would desert her and leave her penniless. Dorothy realizes now that Moore is nothing more nor less than a cad. Left alone with her he approaches Dorothy to claim her and offers to take her to New York. Dorothy repulses him, tears the check to bits, and Moore slinks out of her presence. Then she seeks her husband's forgiveness, but Stephen tells her that the code of his ancestors compels them to part. Dorothy rushes to her room and breaks down crying, as she embraces her child. Stephen, under the impression that Dorothy has left the house, tells the southern mammy to bring his boy to him. When the servant doesn't return with the boy, Stephen goes to the bedroom, where he is at first tempted to strike Dorothy for not having taken her immediate departure, but is overcome with emotion when Sunshine draws him to his mother, and a reconciliation is thus brought about.
IMDB:tt0006521