"The story told is a simple one, and grips from the very start. John Wharton, the husband of a true and trusting wife and father of an eight-year-old girl, through the association of rakish companions becomes addicted to the drink habit, and while the demon rum has not fastened its tentacles firmly, yet there is no question that given free rein, the inevitable would culminate in time. Arriving home one afternoon in a wine besotted condition, he is indeed a terrifying spectacle to his little family. Later, after he has slept off the effects to some extent, while at supper the little girl shows him two tickets for the theater, begging him to take her. After some persuasion, he consents to go. The play is a dramatization of Emile Zola's L'Assommoir, which shows how short a journey it is from peace and happiness to woe and despair by the road of rum. Here the picture shows both the action and the play and the psychological influence it has on the audience, Wharton especially. Here is shown a most clever piece of motion picture producing, portraying the downward path of the young man who was induced to take his first drink; how it finally became an unconquerable habit, causing poverty and suffering for his wife and child and death for himself, while at the same time presenting a sermon to Wharton in front, sinking deeper and deeper into his heart, until at the final curtain he is a changed man, going homeward with a firm determination that he will drink no more, which he promises his wife upon his return. Two years later, we find the little family seated, happy and peaceful, at their fireside and we know that the promise has been kept."--27 Mar 1909 Moving Picture World