Sam, a young man in a small town, is accused of being a thief. Unable to prove his innocence--and not knowing that he's being framed by a local villain to keep him away from pretty young Mary, the town beauty whom the villain wants for himself--he leaves town and goes to Hollywood to become an actor.


The first time I watched A Small Town Idol I was chasing a ghost: a 35-mm nitrate negative rumored to have survived the 1926 Sennett vault fire. What I found instead was a 16-mm abridgement, vinegar-sweet and flickering like a heartbeat on life-support. Yet even half-orphaned, the film yanks the breath clean out of y...

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Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.

Erle C. Kenton

Maurice Elvey
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" The first time I watched A Small Town Idol I was chasing a ghost: a 35-mm nitrate negative rumored to have survived the 1926 Sennett vault fire. What I found instead was a 16-mm abridgement, vinegar-sweet and flickering like a heartbeat on life-support. Yet even half-orphaned, the film yanks the breath clean out of your lungs. It is 1921’s most elegant poison-pen letter to parochial piety, smuggled inside a custard-pie sedan chair. Picture the prologue: a Main Street so archetypically America..."
George Jeske
Mack Sennett, John A. Waldron, Raymond Griffith, Gene Towne, John Grey
United States


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