William Collier Jnr. was born into a show business family with his step-father being the respected actor William Collier who adopted him and gave him his name. During the twenties he was a handsome leading man (he was great friends with Louise Brooks) but even though the early talkies brought him talked about roles in an early Frank Capra "The Donovan Affair"(1929) and "Little Caesar"(1930) by 1931 he was on poverty row and, apart from an interesting role in "The Story of Temple Drake", stayed there.
The grainy, poor quality of the print gives the film the sort of realism you see in documentaries about soup kitchens and men on the street looking for work but apart from that the story is the very much bog standard one about a wrongly convicted man being released after seven years in prison and just itching to administer his rough justice on the real criminal, Blake (Matthew Betz). Blake is one step ahead of him, taking it on the lam, so when Jerry (Collier) finally tracks down his address, all he finds is Molly, Blake's cast off mistress. Blanche Mehaffey doesn't convince at first - she tries to talk tough but she is just a natural sweetie at heart and only comes into her own when she proposes that both she and Jerry should team up as friends and go straight.
Jerry is now a fixture at the local free food and bed mission and the frail minister's right hand man. He was turned away from the paying establishment because he didn't have the money for a bed and is now trying to spread the word about all the good the minister is doing to help the down and outs!! Villainous Walter Long (who gives the film the only full bodied role, even though only relegated to a couple of scenes) is not happy about it and at first tries to plant stolen property on the old man with the unwitting help of two of Jerry's jail bird buddies and when that doesn't work, a plan is afoot to blow the mission sky high!!! Meanwhile Blake shuffles back into the picture now a broken down wreck and Molly has to use all her persuasive powers to turn Jerry's thoughts from doing an act he will regret.
Even though Blanche Mehaffey's career was petering out she had her most productive year in 1931 - did it matter whether most of the films were westerns with a serial thrown in??
The grainy, poor quality of the print gives the film the sort of realism you see in documentaries about soup kitchens and men on the street looking for work but apart from that the story is the very much bog standard one about a wrongly convicted man being released after seven years in prison and just itching to administer his rough justice on the real criminal, Blake (Matthew Betz). Blake is one step ahead of him, taking it on the lam, so when Jerry (Collier) finally tracks down his address, all he finds is Molly, Blake's cast off mistress. Blanche Mehaffey doesn't convince at first - she tries to talk tough but she is just a natural sweetie at heart and only comes into her own when she proposes that both she and Jerry should team up as friends and go straight.
Jerry is now a fixture at the local free food and bed mission and the frail minister's right hand man. He was turned away from the paying establishment because he didn't have the money for a bed and is now trying to spread the word about all the good the minister is doing to help the down and outs!! Villainous Walter Long (who gives the film the only full bodied role, even though only relegated to a couple of scenes) is not happy about it and at first tries to plant stolen property on the old man with the unwitting help of two of Jerry's jail bird buddies and when that doesn't work, a plan is afoot to blow the mission sky high!!! Meanwhile Blake shuffles back into the picture now a broken down wreck and Molly has to use all her persuasive powers to turn Jerry's thoughts from doing an act he will regret.
Even though Blanche Mehaffey's career was petering out she had her most productive year in 1931 - did it matter whether most of the films were westerns with a serial thrown in??
