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Don't Get Personal Synopsis
Sally van Ranseleer meets two unemployed men, electrical engineer Bob McDonald and architect Arthur Hale, in Central Park when they are trying to auction themselves off for work. Thinking to push their pay higher, Sally bids her last five dollars, and they choose to work for her rather than for the old lady also bidding. Bob balks at Sally's first order: to drive her home to London, Ohio, but he has already spent her money on food. About 300 miles later, Bob is so irritable that he tells Sally to find her way home on her own "initiative." Having run out of gas, he and Arthur camp by the side of the road, but soon after Sally comes rushing up in a car chased by the police. She explains she took off with the car after its owner was fresh with her. Bob helps her out of the situation, and the next day, the men push the car to Ohio, and into a ditch. A kind farmer pulls their car out, and Sally and Bob try to do chores around the farm, but botch each job. Even so, the farmer and his wife give them dinner. Meanwhile, Bob and Sally fight off growing feelings of affection for each other. The next night, the trio takes shelter from the rain in an empty dog kennel where, although Bob dubs Sally "Jinxy" for all the trouble she keeps getting them into, they finally kiss. Bob gets flustered, however, and tells her that he does not need a liability like her around. Angry, Sally takes their car and returns to her wealthy parents and her dullard fiance, Freddie Miller, who are thrilled to see her. Bob and Arthur follow her home to reclaim their car, and Sally's father Charles, realizing that Sally is in love with Bob, offers both men work. Arthur accepts, but Bob refuses to let a woman get him work and leaves in a huff. On his way down the road, he meets some telephone workers and is hired by them. To force Bob into action, the van Ranseleers announce Sally's immediate marriage to Freddie. Bob hears about the marriage while working on a phone line and immediately goes to the van Ranseleers' estate, but he bickers with Sally and she begins the ceremony. Unable to accept losing her, Bob cuts the wires to the lights and elopes with Sally.
A Yellow Streak Synopsis
Barry Dale, the atom, a Wall Street broker, is financially ruined by his perfidious and faithless wife, and her companion, Richard Marvin, another broker, who has posed as Dale's best friend. Disheartened and depressed, Dale goes to his apartment expecting comfort and solace from his wife. Instead he finds her there in the embraces of Marvin. They laugh at him, and Marvin, the stronger of the two men, literally throws Dale out of his own home. He gives him a pistol and tells him the whole affair can best be settled, to every one's satisfaction, if Dale will kill himself. Dale walks aimlessly through the streets with this end in view. Long after midnight he finds himself on the Brooklyn Bridge, where he observes a girl about to leap into the river. A shout from Dale causes her to turn back and flee. They are mere silhouettes in the dim light, and do not see each other's faces. The girl, another atom in the swirl of human life, is Mary Austin, a child of the tenements, who had planned suicide to escape marrying Jack Rader, a gambler, to satisfy a debt her father owed to Rader. After the incident on the bridge Barry indifferently wanders to a railroad station and buys a ticket west, as far as his money will carry him. In the far west Barry brings up in a little mining town. There he falls in with an outlaw, who is being sought by a sheriff's posse. A few days later, in a lonely mountain trail, the posse closes in on the outlaw. He directs Barry to safety, but is killed by the sheriff. A sky-pilot, who had joined them a few hours before, is likewise killed by the posse's bullets. Barry buries them both, and decides to impersonate first one and then the other. Tom Austin, Mary's brother, is addicted to drink, and Mary succeeds in inducing his employers in New York to send him west. Subsequently, arrangements are made for Mary and her father to join Tom in the west. Disguised as the outlaw, Barry holds up the coach that Mary and her father are riding in. Struck by the girl's beauty, and her plea not to rob them, Barry grants the request for a kiss. Afterward, as the sky-pilot, Barry and Mary become well acquainted in the mining town, where she and her father have taken over a small hotel. Jack Rader, the gambler, turns up and compromises Tom Austin in a hold-up. He offers to clear him if Mary will consent to marry him. Mary tells the sky-pilot of her predicament. Barry, disguised as the outlaw, saves Tom and shoots the gambler in a pistol battle. When the sheriff's posse arrives he is disguised as the minister. With renewed strength and ample funds, Barry returns to New York and seeks out Marvin and his wife. He throws Marvin into the street and returns the revolver to him, with the same advice he received a year before. Back west Mary waits for the sky-pilot's return, standing every night on a little bridge that spans a mountain stream. She is about to despair of his return, when she hears his voice. She turns and sees the same silhouette she saw on the Brooklyn Bridge, and for the first time both know they met that night.
"Don't Get Personal" holds a slight edge in general audience appreciation, but "A Yellow Streak" offers its own unique cult appeal.
Suggested Watch:
Don't Get Personal