The Test of a Man (1915)

movie

Country: USA
Genres: Short, Western
Release: 1915-06-26
Director: Henry MacRae
Writers: Henry MacRae , Hugh C. Weir
Language: None | English
Stars: Marie Walcamp , Wellington A. Playter , Rex De Rosselli , Sherman Bainbridge
Runtime: min
Awards: N/A
AKA: The Test of a Man (United States of America) , The Test of a Man
Plot: The Lake View Railroad is building a spur. Sam Price is in charge of the work and as he is not giving satisfaction in his work is discharged by John Paxton, the superintendent. Paxton's daughter, Dorothy, and Jack Arnold, whose father has all his wealth tied up in a new invention to take the place of gasoline, are lovers. Dorothy persuades Jack to accompany her to her father's office to ask for her hand. They arrive and Jack is having a hard time to get his courage up to the speaking point. Just at this time. Price comes in to ask about his discharge and gets in a fight with Paxton.Jack comes to his rescue and Price is thrown out. There is bad feeling between the two men. Jack's father is making a demonstration of his new invention when it explodes and his factory burns to the ground. Jack and his father are penniless. Through the efforts of Dorothy, Paxton puts Jack in charge of the new construction work. Jack arrives at the front to find that a disastrous explosion has occurred. He wins the friendship of Bess White by his kindness to her father who has been injured in the explosion. He finds Burke, the foreman of the work, carousing and drinking and warns him that he will have to cut it out. Price has sneaked back to the work and he and Burke get together to bring about the downfall of the new man. They know that the powder supply is short and any accident to it will throw the work behind. The pair plan to wreck the powder house and get the new boss in it so as to eliminate him. By a clever ruse they get him to the house, and overcoming him, leave him tied up in the house with a lighted fuse attached to the powder. Bess White arrives in the nick of time and saves him, but the powder is destroyed. Dorothy realizes that her lover has been a "man's size" job and so she persuades her father to take her on a tour of inspection to see how the new man is coming out. Jack has secured another can of powder and his efforts have made such headway that the work ought to be completed some days before the contract is up. Price and Burke have gone to work for another road nearby under assumed names and one day they learn that the powder for the spur is in the yards. They manage to get the car on the Lake View tracks and set fire to a fuse expecting to blow the car up and block the tracks. One of the brakemen who have tried to stop the pair wires Jack of their dastardly work and he, realizing the danger to the upcoming passenger train containing his boss and sweetheart, grabs a switch engine and sets out in pursuit. He manages to catch the car and get it away from the passenger train, but in the resulting explosion is severely shaken up. Jack is now determined that nothing shall stop him and the party go on to the construction camp. The work is completed before contract time, and Jack is accepted by Dorothy Paxton.
IMDB:tt0329671