Sins of the Fathers

In a small city in Canada, there are dens of vice. Doctor Austin Willis and his colleagues decide to promote a thorough regime change to fight venereal disease. The honest businessmen are all in favor, since it will include public money for tuberculosis treatment, but the men who profit from illicit activity stir up a campaign against it because it will affect their profits somehow. Then the daughter of one of the vice barons is diagnosed with syphilis. The audience is then treated to about two reels of film about syphilis, including the insanity it provides, and "spinal taps" oozing fluid.

It's one of those movies which attempts to handle a tricky subject in the forms of a story, but without much of a budget. Director Phil Rosen was called in to direct some scenes, but the general level of performance is very low; only Willis shows any acting chops almost at the beginning of his forty-year career on big and little screens. Like many such a movie, it substitutes good intentions for anything that might interest a general audience.