Cirrus@Austlit

Cyril Maitland, a young clergyman, falls in love with a young woman called Alma Lee, despite already being engaged. When Alma's father finds out that she is pregnant he attacks Maitland but is accidentally killed in a fall. Maitland's closest friend, Dr Henry Everard, is blamed for the death and subsequently spends 20 years in goal. In all that time neither Lee nor Maitland attempt to clear his name. By the time Everard is released Maitland has become a prominent author and bishop. Not surprisingly Everard's only thought upon release is to seek vengance upon the man who ruined his life.

(Source: Australian Screen)

The film is an adaptation of the 1886 novel The Silence of Dean Maitland by English novelist Mary Gleed Tuttiett (11 Dec 1846 - 21 Sep 1923), who wrote under the pen-name Maxwell Gray. The novel, a popular best-seller, had been made into a successful stage play in the late nineteenth century as The Silence of Dean Maitland and had been previously filmed in 1914 in Australia by Raymond Longford (as The Silence of Dean Maitland) and in 1915 in the United States by John Ince (as Sealed Lips).

Although based on the 1905 play by Bert Bailey and Edmund Duggan (which was itself more faithfully adapted for film in 1910), this cinematic version retains little of the original. The storyline begins with Joan Enderby about to lose her family's sheep station because she can't afford to buy out the lease from her neighbours, the Sherringtons. To make matters worse, the elderly 'Ironbark' Sherrington, the owner of 'Waratah,' has been in England for two years allowing his villainous son Clive to try and remove Joan from the property. His attempt to bankrupt her is foiled, however, when a mysterious stranger offers to buy three thousand head of sheep from her at a good price. What she doesn't know is that the stranger, Wayne Ridgeway, is also rightful heir to the Sherrington estate. The only person who knows Ridgeway's identity is an Afghan trader called Jebal Zim, but he is murdered by Clive's overseer before he can tell the recently returned Ironbark Sherrington. Typical of the melodrama genre, the story's climax is played out in a thrilling scene - a bushfire - as Joan and Ridgeway try to deliver three thousand sheep to the market. After escaping the fire, they rescue Zim's kidnapped daughter, Zena and capture the overseer, Fletcher. Naturally Ridgeway is restored to his rightful inheritance, and he and Joan marry.

[Source: Australian Screen]