His Birthright

CinematographyRobert NewhardDistributed byMutual Film50 minutesLanguageSilent (English intertitles)

His Birthright is a 1918 American drama film directed by William Worthington for Haworth Pictures Corporation. Sessue Hayakawa produced the film and played the lead role.^[1][2] The rest of the cast includes Marin Sais, Howard Davies, Mary Anderson, and Hayakawa's wife Tsuru Aoki.^[3]

Plot

As described in a film magazine,^[4] Yukio is a Japanese-American whose father, a naval officer, failed to return to his mother after the honeymoon. The mother commits harakiri and the son becomes determined to kill his father and goes to America. Influenced by a female German spy, Yukio steals an important document from his father, who is now an admiral. Rebuffed by the woman and ashamed to have sunk to the level of a thief, he then decides to recover the paper. He does so after a desperate battle with the woman's colleagues and returns the document to his father, who descends upon the place with police and captures the spies. Yukio announces that he came to take his father's life, but the admiral tells him that he loved Yukio's mother and did not return to her as he could not find her. Taking his place as the admiral's son, Yukio is now determined to join the U.S. army and fight in World War I, a cause in which Japan and America are united.

Cast

• Sessue Hayakawa as Yukio
• Marin Sais as Edna Kingston
• Howard Davies as Adm. John Milton
• Mary Anderson as Helen Milton
• Tsuru Aoki as Saki San
• Sidney De Gray as James Barnes (credited as Sydney De Grey)
• Harry von Meter as Adm. von Krug
• Mayme Kelso as Mrs. Harland Smith

Preservation

Only 3 of the 5 reels of His Birthright are known to survive and they are held by the EYE Filmmuseum in the Netherlands.^[5][6]

References

External links

• His Birthright at IMDb