The First Born enjoys a good critical reputation, being seen as stylistically inventive and one of the best examples of a trend in British cinema in the last years of the silent era.

This trend was towards a more mature, sophisticated and naturalistic presentation of dramatic material, eschewing the tendency in earlier silent films towards overly stagey and melodramatic acting styles involving wildly exaggerated gestures and facial expressions.

Madeleine learns that her manicurist is expecting a baby and is in a desperate state as she is unmarried and facing shame, the loss of her job and destitution.

After his death, Madeleine receives a letter from the manicurist who has met a man who is willing to take on her and her son, she also unknowingly reveals in an ironic twist that Hugo was actually Stephen's father.

In the wake of Hugo's death and the new revelations, Madeleine resolves to rekindle her romance with Lord David in the hope that she can finally find happiness.