MOTHERS CRY (First National Pictures, 1930), directed by Horace Henley, is vintage mother-love story taken from the play by Helen Grace Carlisle. Rather than producing silent screen actresses as Mary Carr or Belle Bennett, best known for their mother roles, stage actress Dorothy Peterson was the chosen one in her movie debut. Not very well known as a movie actress whose career expanded through the late 1940s, this is believed to be Peterson's only leading movie performance. Though a showcase for Peterson, she is supported by another newcomer to the screen, Edward Woods, playing an ungrateful son born to be bad.
The story begins with a prologue at the turn of the century where riders in a trolley car pulled by a horse gather together singing "A Bicycle Built for Two," followed by a newspaper clipping of William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan campaigning to run for United States president. Next scene opens with Mary (Dorothy Peterson) with an engagement ring on her left finger by her future husband, Frank Williams (Pat O'Malley). Their union brings forth four children, with only one born to be bad. After Frank dies, Mary provides for her children working as a seamstress. Years later, Mary's adult children, including Arthur (David Williams), destined to become an accomplished architect; Beatty (Helen Chandler), wanting to become an actress; Jenny (Evalyn Knapp), engaged to marry the foreign born Karl Muller (Reginald Pasch) to have twin children, all fulfilling their accomplishments in life, while her first born, Danny (Edward Woods), who's been a problem to the family since childhood, now falling with mobsters who beat him for him double-crossing them. Danny soon walks out on the family, returning home three years later with Sadye (Jean Bary), his wife, with plans of moving in with them. Though Danny appears to have changed for the better, Beatty sees different by leaving home to support herself working for Gerald Hart (Sidney Blackmer). As Mary tries to make sacrifices to save the family name, Danny proves to be more trouble than she can handle. Others in the supporting case include Frank Sheridan, Freddie Burke Frederick and Charles Hill Mailes. Look quickly for character actor, D'Arcy Corrigan, amusingly playing an undertaker reading a magazine on tombstone designs.
Rather than aging the mother role to extreme wrinkles and silver hair, Peterson's Mary is allowed to show credibility from young lady to youthful image of a mother in her 40s. Edward Woods, as the unsympathetic older son born to be bad, is an obscure actor by today's standards. He's known mostly as the sidekick and best friend to James Cagney gangster classic, THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931). While Woods (sporting more facial make-up than his female co-stars) plays it tough in MOTHER'S CRY, he doesn't allow any sympathy to his viewers, leading them to feel whatever happens to him is well deserved. Typical for early talkies, it's leisurely paced using title cards as passages to the next scene. Though there are some long pauses with no underscoring, and some uneven acting, the story gets by for its 74 minutes.
Never distributed on video cassette but available on DVD, MOTHERS CRY can be seen sparingly on Turner Classic Movies. (**)
