East Side - West Side (Silent) (DVD)

Lory James is a poor girl living in the slums of New York's East Side. She catches the eye of frustrated writer Duncan Van Norman, who resides in considerably more plush surroundings on the opposite side of town. He hires the downtrodden young woman as his secretary, and a romance soon blossoms between the two. But Duncan's mother disapproves. She demands her son break off the relationship or be disinherited. Before he can act, Lory resigns to spare her lover pain. Devastated, Duncan willingly renounces his wealth to be with the woman he loves, not realizing that Lory has just inherited a fortune from a deceased friend. The tables are now turned. If the two can find each other on the busy streets of New York, a happy ending may be in the cards after all...

A moving tearjerker, East Side - West Side is the work of Irving Cummings, an Academy Award nominated director best known for musicals like Curly Top (1935) and Down Argentine Way (1940) during the sound era. Surprisingly, it is based on an unproduced stage play written by Henry Hull, the actor forever remembered as The Werewolf of London (1935). The lovely Eileen Percy was often paired with the young Douglas Fairbanks, and was his love interest in Down to Earth, The Man from Painted Post, Wild and Wooly, and Reaching for the Moon (all 1917). Kenneth Harlan got his start with D.W. Griffith in 1916 and throughout the silent era was a top-billed leading man, playing opposite Lillian Gish, Anna Mae Wong and many other top starlets.

• silent