The Face of Fate

On the proletarian solidarity of the French navy with the revolutionary people of Russia. The action takes place in the early years of Soviet power in the coastal city of Russia. The French cruiser Mirabeau threatens the city from the sea.

A short film depicting the execution of Mary, Queen of the Scots. Mary is brought to the execution block and made to kneel down with her neck over it. The executioner lifts his axe ready to bring it down. After that frame Mary has been replaced by a dummy. The axe comes down and severs the head of the dummy from the body. The executioner picks up the head and shows it around for everyone else to see. One of the first camera tricks to be used in a movie.

Amal (Aziza Amir), a young widow with two toddlers, loses her husband Riyad. His brother Mokhtar (Hussein Fawzi) returns from abroad and marries her by his mother's request, agreeing to live as siblings to raise his brother's children in Cairo. Unspoken love grows, but after a drunken night at his friend Sadiq's (Stephan Rosti) party, Mokhtar sleeps with Amal and, consumed by guilt, moves out and takes a job in Sudan. Amal discovers she is pregnant. Her mother-in-law prevents an abortion and she gives birth to Osman. Two years later Mokhtar returns, takes the boy, divorces Amal, and leaves Egypt. Years later, Hassan is an accountant, Huda (Badriya Raafat) a fashion designer, and Osman (Abdel Salam Al-Nabulsi) an engineer. Engaged to Hayat (Assia Dagher), Osman returns to Egypt and meets Huda while shopping for a wedding dress — unaware she is both his cousin and his sister.

Moving Picture World described the film: "There is a small need to describe this subject as the poem of Lord Tennyson is so well known, so suffice it to say that this Biograph subject is an unusually faithful portrayal of that beautiful romance of Enoch Arden, Annie Lee and Philip Ray, taken in scenes of rare beauty". This is the combined feature version of Enoch Arden Parts I and II.

A re-enactment of the Jules Durand case. In 1910, Jean Jaurès [leader of the French socialist movement] took the lead in defending a working-class coal miner, Jules Durand, accused of complicity in and condemned to death for the murder of a labor leader. As in the Dreyfus Affair, a false dossier had been used to convict Durand. Jaurès argued that the memory of the Dreyfus Affair saved Durand, calling the case the working class’s Dreyfus Affair.