Vanity Pool

The film tells the tale of three ex-cons who finally go straight, through the redemptive power of love. After rescuing Mary from certain death, the “three bad men” meet her saintly mother and stay on to help on their farm. In The Hidden Way, two of the ex-cons conspire to steal the family’s tiny nest egg, but through plot twists involving a medicinal spring, a wronged woman, a villainous Casanova, his avaricious father, and government inspectors (!), the pair eventually see their error and join the third in turning over a new leaf.

Sedgewick Blynn is determined to marry a rich woman. One night he saves a child from a fire. Bessie Morgan, an heiress charmed by his act of heroism, promises to marry him, but at the last minute her father forbids it. Soon after, Blynn receives a telegram informing him of the death of his mother, and he realizes that he has wasted his life.

Young actress Bonnie May finds work in a private play given at Mrs. Baron’s mansion, where she endears herself to all, especially Victor Baron, the invalid son who has written the play. He begs her to stay on to help him write another play, despite the reluctance of his mother.

A doctor is called to the home of a young man who wants to enlist in the Army.

The story of a young woman living in the wilderness.

A man recalls his earlier days when he was married and his wife cheated on him.

A small-town girl who goes to New York hoping to become a Broadway star falls in with a fast crowd.

Ida May Park started in the film business as a scriptwriter, but in 1917 Universal announced that Park would direct films with actress and producer Dorothy Phillips for the company’s Bluebird brand. Park’s films often had a strong female perspective and The Risky Road is no exception. The story of a country girl who comes to the city to work, but falls for a rich man and undeservedly gets a bad reputation, the film was marketed as “the drama every woman should see”. The surviving fragment, showing the despair of Phillips’s character, is a real cinematic gem that leaves one yearning for more material of the film to be discovered. In 2008, a tinted nitrate fragment, with Swedish intertitles at the opening of the second reel, was deposited at the Archival Film Collections of the Svenska Filminstitutet. From the fragment, a 35mm B&W duplicate negative was made, from which this print was struck using the tinting of the nitrate as color reference.

Dick Evans is the corrupt boss of a rough-and-tumble munitions town called Powderville. He hires his friend, Jack Ripley, to establish a newspaper, intending merely to further his own financial ambitions; however, Jack envisions The Trumpet as an instrument of good and soon persuades Dick to clean up Powderville.

Wealthy Jack Stimson (Jay Belasco) falls in love with Broadway diva Velma Vrooman (Gretchen Lederer), and for her sake bankrolls the musical production in which she is currently starred. But when Velma proves to be fickle and unreliable, Jack shifts his affections to humble chorus girl Bobbie (Louise Lovely).

Roger Curwell (William Stowell) is disowned by his father (Joseph W. Girard) because of his desire to be an artist. But instead of making good as a painter, Roger finds himself drunk and on the skids in San Francisco's Barbary Coast. At a dive run by Hell Morgan (Alfred Allen), he meets Lola (Dorothy Phillips), who nurses him back to physical and moral health.

Wealthy stockbroker Lemuel Morewood wants his sons, Billy and Tom, to learn the business and marry Emily Donelson and Frances Berkeley, respectively. Billy, however, is infatuated with Mrs. Bruce Guilford, a leader of the "smart set," while Tom loves boxing. At a dinner for which Lemuel hires Bessie Brayton, an orphan from the West, to entertain, Lemuel responds to Bessie's taunts about being old-fashioned by winning a lot of money gambling with Major Bellamy Didsworth, who tries to swindle Bessie, and leaves with her to spend it.

Nora Helmer has years earlier committed a forgery in order to save the life of her authoritarian husband Torvald. Now she is being blackmailed lives in fear of her husband's finding out and of the shame such a revelation would bring to his career.

When Mary and Fannie Graham, daughters of a good mother but a father with criminal instincts, are left motherless, Mary flees from her unhappy surroundings while Fannie, inheriting her father's disposition, remains and is raised as a thief.

An important customer at Armande's, where Iva Seldon works as a model, is Billy Ravensworth, who purchases expensive gowns for a heartless vampire named Rita Challoner. When Billy pays for a number of gowns with a bad check, Iva is sent to Rita's home to collect the finery, and there she meets Bertrand Seldon, whom she recognizes as her own father, a society man who had deserted his wife years earlier and never acknowledged Iva. Rita learns that Billy is poor and breaks off their affair, after which Iva persuades him to pose as her fiancé so that she might enter society. Billy is content to maintain the masquerade in exchange for Iva's money, but soon finds himself jealous over her apparent romance with Bertrand. Iva agrees to accompany Bertrand on a drive, but the car plunges down a cliff, whereupon she reveals her identity. Before his death, Bertrand at last recognizes his daughter, and with his fortune, she and Billy begin a new life.

Madge Garvey (Dorothy Phillips) works in a shoe factory. Her father Joe (Richard de la Reno) is a drunk who beats his wife (Alice May Youss), and her sister Helen (Belle Bennett) has repeated the pattern by marrying Dan Mallory (Edward Brady). The new foreman, John Blake (William Stowell), fires Mallory. Mallory attacks him, but because of his alcohol abuse, his heart gives out and he dies. Blake asks Joe for Madge's hand, and he accepts for her. Madge longs for something better, when Cora, a former stenographer from the company (Golda Madden), writes her from the big city.