The trade journal The Moving Picture World is one that describes the storyline in its April 3 issue:THE ROAD TO THE HEART...Miguel, an old wealthy ranchero, disapproves of his daughter's marriage to Jose, a poor Mexican, and drives them from his house.

This cyclonic, fire-eating Bombastes Furioso pulls a couple of guns and puts bullet holes in everything, besides otherwise wrecking the place, and leaves the trembling ranchero more dead than alive from fright.

[4]Film reviewer H. A. Downey in The Nickelodeon, another widely read trade journal in 1909, provides in its May edition a far more concise summary of Griffith's screenplay than the one found in The Moving Picture World.

[b] Downey describes the film as "A verification of the theory that the road to the heart is through the stomach, as set forth in the case of Miguel, who, disapproving of his daughter's marriage, drives her from home, but relents for the sake of a hearty meal.

Those prints date from 1909 and were produced directly, frame-by-frame from Biograph's now-lost 35mm master negative of The Road to the Heart:This comedy, with all the actors in Spanish costumes, begins in a combination dining room and kitchen.

[6]The screenplay for this short is credited to director Griffith, who shot the picture at Biograph's headquarters and main studio, which in 1909 were located inside a renovated brownstone mansion at 11 East 14th Street in New York City.

"[8] That news item also informs filmgoers that for the price of ten cents they can purchase a poster from Biograph on which the names and respective portraits of 26 of the company’s principal actors were featured.

Florence Lawrence, in the role of Miguel's daughter in this film, was known in 1909 to theater audiences only as the "Biograph Girl", although within a few years after this comedy's release, she would be widely publicized as one of the top actors in the United States' motion-picture industry.

[9] With a film length of 618 feet and an original runtime of between nine and ten minutes, The Road to the Heart was released and distributed by Biograph on a split-reel with the 344-foot comedy Trying to Get Arrested.

The Library of Congress (LOC) holds a 241-foot roll of paper images printed frame-by-frame directly from the comedy's original 35mm master negative.

[6] Submitted by Biograph to the United States government shortly before the film's release, the roll is part of the original documentation required by federal authorities for motion-picture companies to obtain copyright protection for their productions.