A 1916 melodrama where virtue is punished, babies are scandalous, and suicide seems reasonable.
When Dorothy's Southern, aristocratic father Colonel Raleigh refuses to let her marry Forbes Stewart, a Northern gambler, the couple elopes. When Dorothy soon thereafter becomes pregnant, Forbes vows to reform, but authorities arrest him on a gambling charge, and he serves a year in prison. During that time, and just before the birth of the baby, a woman comes to Dorothy and claims to be Forbes' wife. Stunned, Dorothy returns to her father, but the colonel throws her out, and so, on her own, she has her baby, whom the community believes to be illegitimate. Convinced that she has sinned, Dorothy is about to kill herself when Forbes, just out of jail, finds her and explains that the other woman simply had been an ex-sweetheart trying to win him back.
Acting
Lillian Gish invented suffering beautifully on camera.
Direction
Dwan squeezes maximum pathos from minimal runtime.
Director
Allan Dwan
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This is considered a lost film; no known complete prints survive, only fragments and stills.
Gish specialized in 'ruined' virgins—this role fits her brand of ethereal, victimized femininity that defined 1910s cinema.
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