Dinty

There is so much to view this film for, exceptionally fine performances by Colleen Moore, Wesley Barry, his gang of friends, other silent film personalities, character actress Kate Price, lovely Marjorie Daw, Noah Beery and young Anna May Wong.

The story is silent drama at it's best with comedic charm to soften the heavy parts. Colleen Moore is outstanding playing the young mother arriving to America with her baby son, only to find her husband is dead. Wesley Barry gives a praiseworthy performance playing her son Dinty, who becomes the breadwinner when his mother is stricken with tuberculosis and eventually dies. Along the way we are entertained with his gang of friends, until one day Dinty saves a judges daughter from a torturous death from her kidnapper, Dinty is the hero.

One must watch this 1920 silent film to really appreciate the full experience, I am sure audiences did when it first aired 100 years ago. Always special when a silent film does survive.

Episodic comedy/drama stars Wesley Barry as the orphaned Dinty O'Sullivan, a boy of the San Francisco streets who gets involved with a drug smuggler and a kidnapping and becomes a hero.

After his mother (Colleen Moore) dies, Dinty must fend for himself but gets on the wrong side of some street toughs and eventually becomes embroiled in the business of a notorious Chinese gangster (Noah Beery) who casts aside his Chinese lover (Anna May Wong) for a white woman. To get even with a local judge, Beery kidnaps his daughter (Marjorie Daw) and subjects her to torture. But Dinty knows a thing or two.

Several elements will strike modern audiences as being racist, but the film is certainly a capsule of the 1920 mindset. No American film elements are known to survive, but a Dutch print was found and is in quite good shape. Most interesting for Colleen Moore's pre-flapper role and for a chance to see Anna May Wong early in her career.

Pat O'Marry, Kate Price, and J. Barney Sherry co-star.