Irving Cummings is the sovereign prince of one of those Mitteleuropean countries. He's got a lot of issues with one of their neighbors, in the person of Paul Panzer, who keeps threatening war. He takes a holiday, traveling incognito through his country. He settles at an inn where Eleanor Woodruff and her parents run the shop; her brother, an army man is at home recuperating from an injury. Cummings and Miss Woodruff fall in love, and her brother threatens him for not having honorable intentions. At that moment, Cummings' aide shows up, tells everyone who he is -- much bowing and scraping -- and tells Cummings that his counselors have decided he must marry a foreign princess to shut Panzer up.
In the next scene, Panzer shows up at the inn to meet with traitors who are selling him war plans. Miss Woodruff overhears him. A foofaraw ensues and Panzer is killed in self-defense. But although the innocent are not punished, Panzer's nation declares war, and guess where the national command staff sets up shop for the great battle?
It's directed by Oscar Apfel. He gave up directing when sound came in and was a respected supporting player. Despite directing almost 120 features, his is primary known for having been co-director on Cecil B. Demille's first few features. Supposedly Apfel was along just to do the technical camera stuff until Demille figured it out. This work shows him as a very competent director. It's a bit old fashioned in that it uses the "illustrated text" technique -- tell the audience what they're about to see, and then the players act it out -- but the big scenes are well done, the stories flow well, and the acting is pretty good for 1914. I have some issues with the fact that everyone shows up at the same inn, but that was how they did it, instead of showing how Miss Woodruff kept coincidentally being where the action is. About ten minutes have been trimmed, but at 65 minutes, it's still quite watchable.
