Summary
A marble-hearted belle of Fifth Avenue, Clara Fenton, barters pulsating birthright-love for the chill glister of Vaughan’s bullion, detonating a chain-reaction that avalanches through every drawing-room from Wall Street to the Hudson. Grey—his name itself a hue of moral dusk—watches the woman he still desires become a gilded hostage, then weds the steadfast Helen whose quiet ardor burns like a candle in a crypt. What follows is no mere triangle but a slow-motion implosion of fiduciary and erotic caprice: Clara, now Mrs. Vaughan, stalks boardrooms and moonlit balconies, her whispered promises more volatile than any margin call. She orchestrates a bear raid on Avalanche Mining, betting that a hemorrhaging fortune will bleed Grey back into her arms; instead, the scheme curdles into blackmail, slander, and a husband’s literal death by heartbreak. While street-urchin Polly—adopted after a fender-bending baptism—watches from the stairwell like some Dickensian chorus, the film’s moral ledger is finally balanced not by stock-price resuscitation but by a single, scalding confession in a lawyer’s lamplit office.
Synopsis
John Malvin Grey, a member of the New York Stock Exchange, pays court to Clara Fenton, who returns his affection. Miss Fenton, aspiring to extreme wealth and social distinction contrary to the dictates of her heart, accepts the proposal of marriage of Peter Vaughan, a millionaire of somewhat advanced years. Helen Barrington, possessing a secret attachment for Grey, finally becomes his wife, when he realizes that his affection for Miss Fenton can be of no avail. After her marriage to Vaughan, Clara, unable to subdue her deep love for Grey, at every opportune moment appears in his company, endeavoring to continue her love affair with him, despite the fact that she is now married. At a dinner she gives, Peter Vaughan is shocked to observe his wife's carrying-on and her persistent advances to Grey. At a climax, his attention being called to the affectionate attitude assumed by his wife toward Grey, his heart gives way, he collapses and expires. In widowhood, regardless of the fact that Grey now leads a happy married life as a beloved husband and father, she pursues her wiles and attention. Being repulsed by Grey, she conceives a plan of inveigling him with the aid of Ashton Cameron, in the purchase of Avalanche mining stock, and then to cause the market to drop, reducing Grey to all but ruin, coming to his assistance with her extreme wealth, raising the price of stock and restoring him to affluence. She engages in this plan, believing that thereby she will place Grey under everlasting obligations to her, and possibly serve her ends in having him abandon his wife, to assume relations with her. By various tricks and subterfuges, she arouses the suspicions and jealousy of Mrs. Grey, until the moment arrives, when, believing that her husband is carrying on a secret liaison with Mrs. Vaughan, she determines to divorce him. Grey's young sister Rose is in love with Philip Carlton, and throughout the entire play, reigns as the standby of Grey. Ashton Cameron, also in love with Rose, offers to assist Grey out of his difficulties on Avalanche stock, providing he uses his endeavors to procure Rose's consent to marry him. Grey refuses this assistance at the sacrifice of his sister's future happiness, and Cameron proceeds to carry out his agreement with Mrs. Vaughan to ruin Grey. Polly, a street waif who is injured in an accident by Grey's automobile, is adopted by him into the family as his charge. In the denouement at a gathering at the office of Shaw, Grey's family lawyer, Polly reveals that she has observed Grey repulse Mrs. Vaughan, and declare to her that he loves his wife and will have nothing to do with her. Mrs. Vaughn is confronted with the proof of her various intrigues and diabolical schemes to arouse Mrs. Grey's jealousy, and finally admits the true situation and her own despicable actions. Grey is reconciled to his wife, and Clara Vaughan is left to pursue her way in the world, rejected and alone.
Review Excerpt
"
In the flicker of a carbon-arc beam, The Avalanche arrives like a nitrate prophecy: money will seduce, hearts will rupture, and the ticker will keep clacking even when the last breath hisses from a millionaire’s lips. Robert Hilliard and W. A. Tremayne’s scenario—filmed in the same annus mirabilis that saw the Palmer Raids terrorize radicals—transmutes post-war fatigue into a parable of unchecked cupidity. The picture opens on a manicured Long Island lawn where Sue Balfour’s Clara, swaddled in ..."
