Bred in the Bone (1915)

movie

Country: USA
Genres: Drama, Short
Release: 1915-10-07
Director: Paul Powell
Writers: Frank Kinsella , Russell E. Smith
Language: None | English
Stars: George Beranger , Margery Wilson , Alberta Lee , Richard Cummings , Dorothy Gish , William Hinckley , W.E. Lawrence , Al W. Filson , Seena Owen , Mary Alden
Runtime: 40 min
Awards: N/A
AKA: Bred in the Bone (United States of America) , Bred in the Bone
Plot: Harvy, the heavy, and Bella, the ingenue, of a cheap theatrical company are encumbered with an infant girl. The husband, a worthless, dissipated character, annoyed by the presence of the child and the care the wife is compelled to give it. deserts them both. The show then "busts" and the mother and the infant are left stranded in a small California town. Reluctantly the mother is compelled to abandon the child upon the steps of a Quaker household. The childless Quaker couple regard the waif as an answer from heaven to their prayers, and taking the infant in, adopt it and rear it as their own. Years now pass and the grown up girl (Mercy) is now soon at the age of eighteen leading the simple life of the Quaker. She is being courted by the son of a neighboring family (also Quakers), who is a school teacher. One day, actuated by some strange mood, Mercy improvises a theatrical costume, and delights several of her companions with real "play-acting." She is discovered by her foster mother and reprimanded. Later she is attracted by the posters of a musical comedy that is to play the local "opery-house" that night. Dancing with her shadow in the road in imitation of one of the pictures, she is surprised and led home by her shocked sweetheart. That night she climbs out her bedroom window, slides down the pillars of the portico and goes to the "opery-house." On a pile of boxes in an alley alongside the theater she watches the show through a window. An actor coming out in the alley for a smoke discovers her and takes her behind the scenes. Carried away by the glamour of her surroundings, she forgets all her early training in a "reversion of type" and goes off with the company, leaving her foster-parents to mourn the girl they had come to love so dearly. With this company Mercy travels from town to town, thoroughly happy in her new environment. The actor who first discovered her becomes her "bag-bearer" and devoted cavalier, and is infatuated with her. A manager, who chances to see her, is struck by her demure, appealing type of beauty and thinking she might prove a second Edna May, brings her on to New York. This particular manager makes a specialty of "girly" musical shows of the Ziegfeld type, and in one of these he places Mercy. In this same company the mother who had deserted her years ago, having lost her youth and beauty, is now engaged as a wardrobe woman. The two women, without suspecting their relations, are strongly attracted to each other. Mercy makes a fairly good hit in her environment and when a boost in her salary makes it possible for her to have an apartment, she takes the wardrobe woman as a housekeeper. Her Quaker sweetheart traces her and calls upon her in a vain effort to win her back to her old life. The actor, who has figured in her life before, is still madly in love with her, and endeavors to reinstate himself in her affections. She repulses him. Crazy with drink, he draws a revolver and fires at her, but misses her. Alarmed, her mother rushes in between them just in time to receive the second shot in her bosom. The actor is led off by the police. Mercy goes to the scene of her early life, with her former Quaker sweetheart, and is received with a glad welcome by her foster-parents.
IMDB:tt0004999