H. B. Warner is the District Attorney of a city. He's married to Evelyn Brent, and has a sister, Marceline Day. He's under a lot of pressure, because he goes after well-connected crooks, while leaving law-abiding innkeepers like Lew Cody alone. So what if people drink at his place? He's not selling it to them. What he doesn't know is that back in New York, his wife was Cody's girl friend when he was a bootlegger, and that his sister is seeing Walter Byron, who had been one of Cody's associates, and looks to profit off his friendship with Day.
Sounds like the family has a taste for slumming. There's a bit of clumsiness in setting up the relationships. Cody is clearly a fellow who intends to lead the straight and narrow, and helps a b-girl get out of town and back to her family. Warner and Miss Brent are clearly very happy with each other, in a well-directed scene in which he comes home and finds she's been waiting up for her. And Miss Day shoots Byron when he tries to rape her in a private room in Cody's place. He has her hustled home and tells muckrucking reporter Ned Sparks that he killed Byron.
It turns into a very nicely told and performed movie under the direction of Frank Strayer. It makes the point that people can reform, but that some have no interest in changing. Sparks gives a marvelous performer as someone who's so intent on a good story that he doesn't care what actually happened, and Lew Cody gives an actually amiable performance.
Sounds like the family has a taste for slumming. There's a bit of clumsiness in setting up the relationships. Cody is clearly a fellow who intends to lead the straight and narrow, and helps a b-girl get out of town and back to her family. Warner and Miss Brent are clearly very happy with each other, in a well-directed scene in which he comes home and finds she's been waiting up for her. And Miss Day shoots Byron when he tries to rape her in a private room in Cody's place. He has her hustled home and tells muckrucking reporter Ned Sparks that he killed Byron.
It turns into a very nicely told and performed movie under the direction of Frank Strayer. It makes the point that people can reform, but that some have no interest in changing. Sparks gives a marvelous performer as someone who's so intent on a good story that he doesn't care what actually happened, and Lew Cody gives an actually amiable performance.