Summary
Wind-scarred corners of Prohibition-era Chicago, where elevated tracks rattle like iron mandolins, host a luminous parable of micro-mercies: Peggy, news-seller and surrogate mother to two waifs, hoards copper coins not for herself but for the daily sacrament of a one-cent alms, an anti-midas touch that turns privilege into gratitude. Her kiosk, the ‘News Emporium,’ becomes an urban shrine where headlines of graft and gin meet the hush of unrecorded kindness. Andrew Kimbalton, lacquered in silk-hat millions, watches the girl bestow a solitary penny and, stung by the poverty of his own charity, tries to outsource benevolence at a dollar per diem; Peggy refuses, insisting that empathy cannot be subcontracted. The baron then dispatches his pampered daughter Ann as an apprentice to the barefoot ethic of giving, and for a spell the street is a classroom of conscience. Catastrophe detonates when Tom Oliphant—Peggy’s lantern-jawed suitor and street-corner poet—is shackled for an alleged bomb plot against the Kimbalton manse. Suspicion ricochets: perhaps Peggy’s pennies were Judas coins after all. Yet the girl-turned-sleuth threads the labyrinth of false affidavits, union busting, and a phial of dynamite planted by a rival cabal, until truth rings like a dropped coin on cobblestones. Tom walks free, the Kimbaltons’ trust is soldered anew, and Peggy—having scattered a harvest of copper seeds—receives, almost as an afterthought, the permission to be happy.
Synopsis
Peggy sells newspapers on the streets of Chicago, saving her money until she can afford to open a small newsstand called the "News Emporium". Although she has to support her younger brother and sister, Peggy manages to give a penny away every day to help the less fortunate. Millionaire Andrew Kimbalton, one of Peggy's customers, offers her a dollar a day to give away for him, but she declines, telling him that the pleasure of giving lies in giving yourself. He then asks Peggy to teach his only daughter Ann the art of philanthropy, and she agrees. One day, the police come to Peggy's newsstand and ask her to go to the station where she learns that her sweetheart, Tom Oliphant, is under arrest, charged with trying to dynamite the Kimbalton mansion. With this accusation, the Kimbaltons begin to distrust Peggy, but after many adventures, Peggy proves that Tom is innocent, retains the friendship of the Kimbaltons and then, having made everyone else happy by her penny philanthropy, is made happy herself.
Review Excerpt
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If you have ever paused to watch a sparrow share breadcrumb fragments with its fledgling, you already possess the emotional lexicon required for The Penny Philanthropist. Clara E. Laughlin’s screenplay is not a tale of grand endowments but of fiscal haiku: one copper disc per diem, flicked into the void of human need with the precision of a haiku’s syllabic cut.
Visual Alchemy on State Street
Director Rex Adams and cinematographer D.E. Ehrich eschew the Germanic gloom then fashionable in Gothi..."
