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The Judgment of Buddha
(1913) United States of America
B&W : One reel
Directed by [?] Bertram Bracken?
Cast: (unknown)
Méliès Star Films [American] production; distributed by [?] The Vitagraph Company of America through The General Film Company, Incorporated? / Produced by Gaston Méliès. / Released 13 November 1913. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / The production was shot on-location in Cambodia.
Drama.
Synopsi: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? An Oriental Sultan incurs the enmity of his prime minister. The latter, when collecting tribute, forcibly takes money from a villager. The villager lays his complaint before the Sultan, and the prime minister, found culpable, is bastinaded. Although not deprived of his high office, he vows deadly revenge. He causes the Sultan's favorite child, a little daughter, to be kidnapped. He has this girl brought up, and fourteen years later brings her before the Sultan as a dancer. The Sultan is attracted by the girl’s beauty, and, instigated by the prime minister, marries her. Thus unconsciously he commits a terrible crime against Buddha, having married his own daughter. Immediately after the wedding ceremonies the Sultan’s attention is drawn to a distinctive mark on the shoulder of his wife, and, greatly disturbed, for his lost child had an identical mark, causes inquiries to be made. The girl’s adopted mother, under pressure, reveals the story how, fourteen years before, the child had been entrusted to her by the prime minister, and the identification is made absolutely certain, for the woman has preserved the chain and medallion that marked the girl as of royal rank. The Sultan orders the execution of his prime minister. The Buddhist High Priest is consulted, and a council of chief priests decides that the crime committed by the Sultan, although in ignorance, can only be expiated by perpetual imprisonment both for himself and his bride. He is deprived of all his insignia of royalty and thrown into prison, a fate shared likewise by his daughter. While the latter is in her cell her adopted mother visits her, changes garments, and sends the girl, thus disguised, out of the jail to lay her case before the High Priest and plead for mercy, both for herself and her father, the Sultan. The girl succeeds in her mission, for it is decreed by the priesthood after consulting the oracle that, provided the Sultan will rebuild a ruined temple in a period of ten days, the crime will be forgiven. The Sultan, restored to his rank that he may have the necessary facilities, essays the task. But in the ten days the work is still uncompleted. The High Priest agrees to invoke Buddha once more to beg for an extension of time. But when he is in the very act of consulting the image, the judgment of Buddha is pronounced, for both the Sultan and his daughter are turned miraculously into stone Buddhas, amid the awe and hush of the worshiping assemblage.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Keywords: Cambodia
Listing updated: 28 December 2024.
References: Tarbox-Lost p. 142; Thompson-Star p. 234 : Website-IMDb.
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