The Coming of Angelo stands as the definition of mature Biograph. Griffith has mastered (and/or created) every trick of cinema then known and pulls out all the stops in demonstrating his mastery in this improbable little melodrama. In some ways, it seems to be one great callback: it is set in the fishing community (think The Mender of Nets and After Many Years); it has a love triangle in which the woman at the centre redirects her affections (echoing The Sorrows of the Unfaithful); an exploding house (Fate); a complex mechanism of destruction (At the Altar) tied to a ticking clock (The Fatal Hour).

Tracey Goessel