Sometimes mislabeled a 1913 production, Eye of God was one of a baker's dozen of films co-directed in 1916 by the husband-and-wife team of Phillips Smalley and Lois Weber. In the fine innovational traditional of the Smalley-Weber productions, the film unfolds in literary fashion, as a man on death row writes his multi-chaptered confession. Tyrone Power Sr. plays Olaf, a dirt farmer who yearns for the bright lights of the Big City. When a sophisticated young woman named Renie (Lois Weber) spends the night in Olaf's farm during a rainstorm, he forgets all about his plain-jane wife Ana (Ethel Weber) and begins ardently pursuing the beautiful stranger. Desperate for money, Olaf engineers a double murder, which nets him a huge sum of money. Heading to the City for a rendezvous with Renie, Olaf learns that her sweetheart Paul (Charles Gunn) has been arrested for the crime which he himself had committed. Certain that he will escape detection, Olaf is nonetheless trapped into a confession by Renie, who out of love for Paul has appointed herself "the eye of God."
by Hal Erickson
synopsis
