Summaries

Episode 1: The Bad Samaritan. Tom Levitt, half-breed son of a Chinese and a white woman, is the victim of brutality during his boyhood and becomes a criminal. A friend, released from jail, tells Tom he is going straight and asks for money to leave town; Tom takes a stolen wallet from another boy. After hearing a preacher tell the story of the Good Samaritan, he goes to aid a man who has been assaulted; facing a ten-year sentence for robbery, he reflects on the irony of his downfall. Episode 2: The Man Who Heard Everything. Ed Johnson, who barely makes a living from barbering, is deaf, but he is happy in the belief that the world is good and that he is loved by his wife. Coming into possession of an instrument that restores his hearing, he learns that the persons he has idolized are not to be trusted and that his wife is unfaithful; in despair, he destroys the instrument. Episode 3: Hop. As a boy in China, Chin Gow learns that girl infants are undesirable. When a man, he becomes proprietor of several San Francisco opium dens and weds Toy Sing, who bears him a baby girl. Chin Gow beats his wife and vows to slay the child. His wife's friend brings in a crucifix sent by the priest, and as he nails it to the wall, the spike penetrates the skull of Chin Gow lying in a bunk on the other side of the wall and kills him. Episode 4: The Intrigue. On a yachting tour of the world, Reginald Vandebrook, reaching a foreign country, falls in love with a girl he has never seen before; he hears her called Princess and follows her into a building. There he is surrounded by East Indians who are about to murder him. He awakens to find himself in a dentist's chair having a tooth extracted.—Pamela Short

Details

Keywords
  • prison
  • san francisco california
  • chinese
  • based on article
Genres
  • Drama
Release date Sep 25, 1921
Countries of origin United States
Language English None
Filming locations Hollywood Center Studios - 1040 N. Las Palmas Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
Production companies Marshall Neilan Productions

Box office

Tech specs

Runtime 1h
Color Black and White
Sound mix Silent
Aspect ratio 1.33 : 1

Synopsis

All Filters