The Ring and the Man

Summary

In the chiaroscuro of a city where gaslight dissolves into graft, Fordyce—now Gormly—strides through mahogany corridors like a penitent king, his bespoke coat a suit of borrowed armor. Beneath the mercantile splendor pulses a suppressed indictment: years earlier a single pistol crack in a dockside fog consigned his birth-name to the river, and only the alias survives, polished by ledger-lines and public reverence. Yet reverence is a brittle currency; the Gotham Traction Co.—a steel-veined leviathan—needs a complacent mayor, not a reformist merchant-prince. Enter Eleanor Haldane, patrician heiress with dusk-blue eyes that see both balance-sheets and souls; her affection becomes both anchor and anvil for Gormly’s insurgent campaign. When ballot-box arithmetic tilts toward the outsider, the corporate cabal unsheathes its final blade: Lilaire, a soprano of ruin from Gormly’s antebellum nights, glides from the wings clutching a faded warrant. She barters memory for influence, trading the secret to a police chief whose badge is purest tin. Blackmail blooms in velvet offices scented of Cuban tobacco; withdraw or be unmasked. Gormly declines, forfeiting even the promise of Eleanor’s hand when her father, the traction titan, dangles matrimony as bribe. Thus the election mutates into a morality play performed on cobblestones: newsboys trumpet his past, ward-heelers rattle chains of ballots, and the river itself seems to murmur verdict. In a final dusk lit by arclamps, Lilaire recants on the witness stand, the true gunman confesses, and the ring’s ledgers—flung like doves from a window—flutter down to the electorate. Vote tallies spike; Gormly, name restored, claims both City Hall and the woman whose faith never wavered, while the traction trust hisses into irrelevance.

Synopsis

Distinguished dramatic actor Bruce McRae makes his first appearance on the screen in the popular story of love and politics, "The Ring and the Man," by Cyrus Townsend Brady. The commanding personality and splendid poise of Bruce McRae fit him peculiarly for the role of Gormly, the man whose bravery and self-possession in the face of crucial circumstances enable him to successfully oppose the corrupt forces of the gigantic political ring that is trying to ruin him. Gormly's real name is Fordyce, but the shadow of a crime which hangs over his past has caused him to change it to Gormly, by which name he is known to his business associates and the public, who respect him as a great merchant prince and reform candidate for mayor. Behind Gormly's ambition is a good and beautiful woman, Eleanor Haldane, whose father is president of the Gotham Traction Co., a powerful corporation which has always controlled the city's administration. The Gotham Company and Gormly become involved in business complications, and Gormly, seeing the evilness of city politics, partly through a desire to destroy the power of the Gotham Company, and partly to realize Miss Haldane's faith in him, decides to enter the mayoralty race, and is seen far in the lead of the Gotham Company's candidate. Another woman in Gormly's life, a woman of the past, now tries to regain her power over Gormly, and failing, takes the great secret of his former life to the chief of police, who is a tool of the Gotham Company. The chief calls on Gormly and threatens to expose him unless he withdraws from the race. Gormly courageously refuses. Haldane is informed of his development by the chief of police, and knowing of Gormly's love for his daughter, urges her to offer herself as wife to Gormly if he will cease his fight against the Gotham Company. Loving her father, and wishing to test Gormly, Elizabeth does this, and is both pleased and grieved when Gormly sacrifices even his love for his principles, and refuses to be bribed even with the gratification of his greatest wish. How the shadow of the crime of his past is lifted from him, how he defeats the vicious ring forces and finally wins his election and his bride, is dramatically visualized in this gripping production.