The Cinematic Soul of Maurice Elvey: Decoding Curlytop

Curlytop, an attractive, naive girl who works in Sprogg's department store in the Limehouse district of London, meets Bill Branigan, a charming but feckless young man, and falls in love with him. Bill casts aside his sweetheart, Bessie, and, reformed by Curlytop's love, goes to Hammersmith to find work. In his absence, Bessie gets Curlytop drunk and cuts off her twelve golden curls. Shanghai Dan, a sinister, half-caste Chinese hypnotist, then hires the shorn Curlytop as a waitress on his floating barge-restaurant. Bill returns; but not finding Curlytop, he renews his relationship with Bessie, until, by chance, he discovers the golden curls among Bessie's belongings. Forcing her to tell him where he can find his lost love, Bill arrives on the waterfront just as Dan's barge is sinking after a collision with a schooner. Bill rescues Curlytop from the water, but Dan, who at the time of the accident was below decks hypnotizing the unwilling girl in a locked cabin, is lost in the Thames.