A 17-minute morality tale that invented the 'good sister/bad sister' trope forever.
Two sisters, Nellie and Florence, support themselves and their mother by sewing. A man accompanying a wealthy client tempts first Nellie and then Florence to leave with him. Nellie rejects him, but Florence goes to his decadent apartment and becomes his mistress. Nellie marries a diligent carpenter and raises a growing family. Eventually the Tempter tosses Florence out, and she dies alone and impoverished.
Direction
Griffith inventing cross-cutting and moral close-ups.
Acting
Dorothy Bernard's tragic fall in pantomime.
Director
D.W. Griffith
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This 'white slave' panic narrative was Griffith's warm-up for the even more racist Birth of a Nation four years later.
The 'decadent apartment' set became a Griffith signature—he loved filming women's moral downfalls in fancy interiors.
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