Robert Leonard Movies

Secret Love was based on The Lass of Lowries, a story by Frances Hodgson Burnett (of Little Lord Fauntleroy fame). The story is set in a Lancashire coal-mining community, where bibulous, bullying miner Don Lowrie (Jack Curtis) holds the rest of the villagers in thrall. Lowrie's daughter Joan (Helen Ware) is in love with handsome mine foreman Fergus Derrick (Harry Carey Sr.) but dares not admit it lest she incur her father's horrible wrath. The film comes to a happy conclusion in a roundabout manner when the hateful Lowrie finally drinks himself to death. So as not to miss a trick, the plot manages to accommodate a mineshaft rescue, with Joan as the saver and Fergus as the sav-ee. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Perhaps to differentiate the 6-reel Universal drama Judge Not from the other two 1915 films bearing that title, the producers tacked on the subtitle The Woman of Mona Diggings. Only by checking the film's credits would anyone have been able to figure out that it was based on Renunciation, a story by Peter B. Kyne. Julia Dean plays Molly, a naïve young woman who is tricked into a marriage with Montana saloon proprietor Kirk (Harry Carter). When Molly befriends Miles Rand (Harry Carey Sr.), the black-sheep son of a prominent New York lawyer, she decides to help him turn over a new leaf, and to that end lends him enough money to start his own law practice. Years later, Rand has become an influential Manhattan judge. At a society function, he is reacquainted with Molly, who has been led to believe that her husband was killed in a fire. Unfortunately, Molly's "dead" hubby shows up to give her grief, whereupon she kills him in self-defense. By now deeply in love with Molly, Rand defends her in court, using the Biblical "Judge Not" quote as the foundation of his defense. Molly is acquitted, leaving her free to marry the adoring Rand. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide