A
silent film, released in 1923. It was directed by
John Griffith Wray and written by
C. Gardner Sullivan. It starred
Dorothy Davenport,
James Kirkwood,
Bessie Love,
George Hackathorne,
Claire McDowell, and
Robert McKim.
The
driving force behind this
production was actually the lead
actress,
Dorothy Davenport, whose husband,
Wallace Reid, an A-list
leading man, had recently died in a
sanitarium while trying to kick his
morphine addiction. At the time,
drug addiction was never mentioned in
movies, but Davenport had enough
clout to get a
film made that openly discussed
drugs. She rallied
Thomas H. Ince, a
powerful producer, to help her and got
technical help from the
Los Angeles Anti-Narcotics League. The final film was a
brutal and
unflinching drama focusing on a tight-knit
family torn apart by
drug abuse. It was extraordinarily
successful with both
critics and
movie-goers and was even
praised by
politicians.
However, despite its overwhelmingly
positive reception, the film didn't
inspire other
filmmakers to examine similar
taboo subjects, and the movie began to
diminish in
importance as memory of Wallace Reid faded. No prints of the film are known to exist today.
Sources: http://www.filmthreat.com/Features.asp?File=FeaturesOne.inc&Id=440 and the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com)