Charles Miller
A controversial, low-budget drama about the life of a young teenage girl that goes on the "road to ruin." Sally is a 16-year-old New York City teen who, neglected by her parents, takes up smoking and drinking, engages in affairs with a series of older men, gets arrested by the police during a strip poker game, is sent home only to discover later that she's pregnant, and after getting an illegal abortion, the words "The Wages of Sin is Death" inexpliably appear over her bed in fire.
In 'The Circus Kid', Darro gives an excellent performance as Buddy, an orphan who runs away from a a harsh orphanage to join Cadwallader's Circus.
To avoid seeing Marjorie Dare, Jim Allen visits Stewart Leighton at the latter's country home. (Five years earlier Jim's engagement to Marjorie Dare was broken when her mother was killed and his father disappeared.) Through certain circumstance Marjorie also becomes Leighton's guest, and Jim moves out into the woods. There he meets Smiles, a little girl in the care of strange old Ben Tangleface. Leighton wishes to wed Marjorie for her money and is trying forcefully to persuade her to accept him when Jim comes to the rescue. But Ben, his memory stirred by the sight of Leighton, kills him. Explanations reveal Smiles to be Dorothy's sister and Ben, Jim's father. He was wounded while defending Marjorie's mother, whom Leighton killed.
Elderly millionaire James Rance, whose only passion is chess, warns his grandson Tommy, who missed the previous evening's game because he played poker with his uncle Gilbert, that should he miss another game, Gilbert will gain the boy's inheritance. During another poker game the next night, Gilbert provokes a fight between Tommy and another player that results in the other player's supposed death. Meanwhile, Terrence Redmond, the guardian of an orphan he found while fighting in France, falls in love with Dawn Moyer.
After his wife/model has died of starvation with her portrait unfinished, an impoverished artist meets another woman with a striking resemblance to her. -from IMDB.
Jerry Ross dresses as a boy and sells newspapers to make money on the street corner. As the result of a chance meeting with Frank Girard, who is interested in the "Big Brother Movement," Jerry is invited to Girard's farm in the country. Later she is sent to a coeducational institution where she assumes the dress and manners of a girl once more.
Wee Lady Betty rules the O'Reilly castle with a stern hand and a big heart until she learns that Roger, the O'Reilly heir, is coming to take possession of his estate. Unable to provide for her aged father, Betty conceives of a scheme. Feigning to leave the castle, she returns after dark with her father and installs him in the haunted chamber.
George Fowler arrives at the Mias saloon, and the proprietor, "Blak Jack" Hovey, orders a saloon girl, known only as "The Flame," to fleece him, but he has no money...
James Herron, a consumptive, has built a shack in the hope that the mountain air may prolong his life. With him dwells his daughter, Fay, whom he idolizes. Fay, who has been blind from her birth, has a wonderful imagination, even the town and its sordid inhabitants become invested with romance and take their part in the stories of adventures that her father reads to her.
Widow Catherine Winship cherishes the memory of her late husband so greatly that she has given up her life to the adoration of his memory. However Catherine's idealism is rudely shattered when she discovers a package of love letters in a secret drawer in Winship's desk.
Jim Morrison is an English army officer who comes from a very old and prominent family. He marries the ravishingly beautiful but unscrupulous Cleo, who has no qualms about using her sexual allure to get the luxuries her husband can't provide. When Jim is sent off to war, Cleo embarks on a series of affairs, one of which results in her becoming the love slave of a German spy, the very spy that her husband has been assigned to track down.
Young Polly-Ann works in a small town inn as a maidservant. A troupe of actors comes to town and the innocent girl falls in love with one of its members. Howard Straightlane is sent to the small town by his father, to work as a schoolteacher in hopes of smartening up the young man from his wild ways. Howard soon meets Polly-Ann and saves her from the unscrupulous actor.
Convinced that her impending marriage to fellow reporter Billy Williams will result in a loss of her freedom, Janice breaks her engagement and enters a period of Bohemian living.
A silent melodrama from the very first series of American films to use a Japanese cast.
