Richard Barthelmess plays "Bilge" Smith, a hard-fisted merchant sailor
who puts into a sleepy New England port and falls for Connie Martin
(Dorothy Mackaill), the town dressmaker, in this silent adaptation of
Hubert Osborne's 1922 Broadway play. Directed by John S. Robertson for
Barthelmess's own Inspiration Pictures, it mixes roughhouse comedy —
including a memorably chaotic shipboard brawl — with a tender romance
about two lonely people from very different worlds. The story proved
durable: RKO remade it a decade later as the Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers musical Follow the Fleet (1936). As a work published before
1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.
Comedy · Romance · Silent
