Summary
A straw-haired hayseed with sun-baked overalls steps off the clanging streetcar into a metropolis that chews innocence like gum; within the first reel a top-hatted grifter glides up, all carnation and carnivorous charm, and relieves the yokel of his last roll of country cash. The city therefore reveals itself as a carnival of mirrors: every flicker of kindness refracts into conspiracy, every accidental shove on the subway platform becomes, in the bumpkin’s widening eyes, a premeditated lunge for his remaining dignity. Harry Sweet’s gait mutates from barnyard lope to cornered-animal skitter; skyscrapers loom like filing cabinets of fraud, and even the moon looks forged. The picture chronicles, with mordant glee, the moment when naïveté curdles into full-blown urban paranoia, every frame tilted five degrees off true so the world itself appears complicit in the swindle. It is 1921, but the anxiety could have been uploaded this morning.
Synopsis
Harry comes to the city as a hick, and immediately runs into a silk hatted slicker who relieves him of his valuables. Soon Harry gets suspicious of everybody, and thinks that every accident is a plot to ruin him.
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