A mystery picture, like "The Top Floor Back," or "Annie Climbs Upstairs," or "Little Sunbeam," but unlike the latter, it has no real characters. The "wanderer" is a strolling musician whose artistic soul longs for the perfect note. The effect of his self- sacrificing life, symbolized in the influence of his music when heard by evildoers as it passes below, like Pippa, in Browning's poem, links two or three human lives together; but not at all dramatically. Henry Walthall is the musician, outcast like the true artist, and he marries Mae Marsh, who is woman and therefore also outcast. Of course, we, in our statement, are cruder than the picture, as the mind is cruder than the soul. Besides these, there are Lionel Barrymore and Claire McDowell, a couple in trouble who also overhear the strains. This gives Miss McDowell a chance to become a most truly tragic heroine, but no chance to become a personality. We have used mush space to say merely this. The picture is only art, not life. It stands on its scenes and they are fine. The photography is not as good as it should have been. - The Moving Picture World, May 17, 1913
Review of The Wanderer
