Ethel Duray

This whodunit bears no relation to the 1918 picture of the same name, but both films coincidentally had the same director, Tom Terriss. When sleazy theatrical agent Maurice Beiner (Arthur Donaldson) is found stabbed to death in his office, just about everybody is a suspect -- there's aspiring actress Clancy Deane (Eileen Huban), who was one of the last people to see him alive, and Sophie Carey (Alma Rubens) who knows he has some love letters she wrote to Judge Walbrough (George MacQuarrie) before she married her alcoholic husband, Don (Henry Sedley). Or is it Marc Weber (Norman Kerry), who had a falling out with Beiner, or Weber's devoted wife, Fay (Ethel Duray)?

This 1922 Frank Borzage film is a masterwork waiting to be rediscovered. Hester Bevins is a simple country girl who yearns for adventure. Though she has a handsome young man, Jerry, who is devoted to her, she leaves her village and goes to New York in search of a grander life. There she becomes the lover of a wealthy and unscrupulous businessman. But when Jerry returns blinded and dying from the war, Hester must choose between her new life and the man whose loyalty to her has never failed.