Betsy Ross (Silent)

In 1917, America was in the grip of a patriotic fervor as it entered the First World War. To capitalize on this feeling of goodwill, the World Film Company produced a movie based on the legend of Quaker seamstress Betsy Ross, who was said to have sewn the first American flag during the Revolutionary War. Since even in 1917 details of Ms. Ross' creation of the flag were sparse (and disputed to have happened at all by historians today) playwright Henry A. Du Souchet concocted a love story to expand the tale to feature length. The movie version of Betsy is pursued romantically by Clarence Vernon, a British officer. She really loves Joseph Ashburn, a tradesman, who challenges Vernon to a duel. During the swordfight, Vernon is seemingly killed, and Ashburn flees to avoid imprisonment. He joins George Washington's Continental Army under an assumed name. When General Washington asks seamstress Betsy to fashion America's first flag, she is reunited with her lost love. Before the two can be married, Ashburn must first clear his good name. Matters are complicated when Vernon, miraculously recovered from his wounds, arrives at Betsy's home, seeking revenge...

Betsy Ross stars the luminous Alice Brady, the daughter of World Film Company head William A. Brady. Formerly a stage actress, in the talkie era Alice would play Carole Lombard's mother in My Man Godfrey (1936) and win an Oscar for In Old Chicago (1937). Her career was tragically cut short when she died of cancer in 1939 at the age of 46. Co-star John Bowers often made movies with his wife, Marguerite de la Motte, including Desire (1923), Flattery (1925) and Daughters Who Pay (1925). (Many believe their relationship to be the basis of A Star is Born.) He too died young, committing suicide by drowning when his career waned at the age of 50 in 1936.

• silent