
The dead man's decentralized life is exemplified in a half-finished will and an incompleted invention of a printing press. The mother impresses upon her two sons the power of concentration by a magnifying glass held to the sun's rays. One accepts the lesson and finishes the work of the father. The other becomes the tool of the rival printer. His lesson was to come through experience and the suffering of others.
Directed by Anthony O'Sullivan, Concentration leans on a strong ensemble — Claire McDowell, Harry Carey, Mildred Manning — to carry a story that balances spectacle with character.
The film landed with audiences for its craft and performances, and remains one of the most talked-about drama titles of 1914.
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Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.
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