Summary
A guttersnipe Venus with ink-smudged fingers, Nance Olden is scraped out of an orphanage and dropped into Mother Hogan’s rookery, a clapboard inferno where felons swap lullabies and lock-picks. Under the gas-jaundiced dusk she apprentices to Tom Morgan, a dandy gargoyle whose smile clicks like a safe tumbler; together they lift a star-bright diamond from Edward Ramsey amid the cathedral-echoing chaos of Union Station. Cornered, Nance pirouettes into a waiting carriage, pressing her pulse against the velvet dark. The vehicle’s owner—Bishop Van Wagenen, austere as candle snuff—finds a trembling “amnesiac” and ferries her to the Ramsey estate, a mausoleum of lace and hush. There Nance nurses her con while sketched silhouettes of saints bleed across her sketchpad, each charcoal line a confession she cannot voice. Tom slinks after her, is clapped in irons, and later bursts back into the narrative like a returning repressed id. William Lattimer—engaged to the petulant Nellie—reads Nance’s performance as counterfeit, peels away her mask with the patience of a restorer lifting varnish from a lost masterwork, and dangles the possibility of reinvention. Nellie, green-eyed, frames Nance for petty theft; Tom, savoring a last gleam of chivalry, scalds Nellie’s plot. Curtain falls: Tom reclaimed by prison’s maw, William and Nance stitched into a tentative dawn.
Synopsis
Removed from an orphanage, Nance Olden is taken to live at Mother Hogan's boarding-house for crooks. There she becomes Tom Morgan's partner, helping him steal a jewel from Edward Ramsey at Union Station. She makes her getaway by slipping into a nearby carriage; when the owner, Bishop Van Wagenen, enters, she pretends to have lost her mind and is taken to Mrs. Ramsey's, where she keeps up her deception. Tom trails her there, where he is arrested. William Lattimer, Nellie Ramsey's fiancé, is not fooled by Nancy's deceit and persuades her to reform and utilize the talent for sketching which she has displayed. Nellie, however, jealous of William's interest in Nance, plants evidence making it look as though Nance stole a purse, but Tom, just escaped from jail, sees and reports Nellie's trick. Finally, Tom is sent back to jail, and William and Nance are reunited.
Review Excerpt
"
Imagine, if you can, a city that never truly sleeps but merely dozes in sepia, its breath fogging the lens through which we peep at She Couldn't Help It. The 1925 one-reeler expands, in memory, to cathedral proportions: every inter-title a stained-glass panel, every iris shot a confessional slit through which sin winks. Bebe Daniels—half gamine, half gorgon—saunters down the orphanage steps and straight into film lore, pockets empty but eyes glittering with larcenous galaxies. The picture cra..."
