User:Bristol Irish/An Enemy to the King

An Enemy to the King is a silent film from 1916 directed by Frederick A. Thomson.

The screenplay is based on the play An Enemy to the King by Robert N. Stephens which was first performed on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre on 1 September 1896.

Plot
In sixteenth-century France, Julie de Varion is told that her father, a Huguenot sympathiser, may be freed if she helps to capture Ernanton De Launay, an enemy of the king. In a tavern Julie meets a man who promises to bring her to Ernanton, whom she claims she wishes to meet. In reality, the man in the tavern is Ernanton himself, who soon falls in love with Julie. He kills his own servant when the latter insists that the woman is a spy. In the end he discovers that Julie is working for the king, but she, at the moment of betraying him, refuses to hand him over to the king's men because she too has fallen in love. Ernanton follows her to the palace and gives himself up in order to save her father. When the Huguenots attack the palace, Julie's father is freed and Ernanton makes his escape.

Production
The film was produced by the Vitagraph Company of America.

Distribution
Distributed by Greater Vitagraph (V-L-S-E), the film opened in US cinemas on 26 November 1916.