Summary
Sheepshead Bay glitters like a coin tossed between surf and turf, yet inside the Gordon manse the air is thick with ledger-ink and ancestral mildew. Robert Gordon, that titan of ticker-tape, surveys his bay-windowed kingdom while rehearsing dynastic arithmetic: blue-blooded stock plus titled English cousin equals unassailable fortune. His son Donald, however, practices a different calculus—counting heartbeats in the soot-smudged lashes of Alice, the lodge-keeper’s daughter, whose very presence makes the Gilded Age chandeliers rattle like overstruck tuning forks. Enter Sir Ralph, a baronetcy wrapped in silk and syphilitic charm, gambling on faro as though destiny itself dealt the cards; his sister Helen drifts through drawing rooms like an unclaimed umbrella. When Donald defies paternal fiat and secretly weds Alice, the narrative snaps its corset: inheritance is severed, securities are filched from an unlatched safe, and a butler named Hyde becomes the household’s moral book-keeper, brandishing a confession like a death-mask. On the day of the Suburban Handicap—Brooklyn’s thunderous apotheosis of hoof and hope—Robert stakes every last railroad share on his colt, unaware that Sir Ralph and the venal turf-shark Thurston have conspired to drug the favorite. Joe, the stable-boy with the vigilant eyes of a Renaissance angel, thwarts the doped sugar, gallops to victory in Donald’s stead, and the grandstand erupts in cathartic cloudbursts of rosin and roar. Yet victory’s purse cannot forestall tragedy: Hyde’s blackmail demand ends in a muffled pistol crack, a body slumped on damask, and Sir Ralph’s final wager—an exit bullet—leaving the Gordon dynasty to reconcile bloodline with bloodstain beneath chandeliers that now look almost ashamed.
Synopsis
Robert Gordon, wealthy stock owner, has a home near Sheepshead Bay. His son, Donald, loves the lodge-keeper's daughter. Gordon is informed that Sir Ralph Gordon and his sister are to visit them. Gordon gets the idea that Donald should marry Helen, and tells him so. Donald, however, is not interested, and later marries Alice, the lodge-keeper's daughter. The guests arrive. Ralph covets Alice. He is a gambler, and begins playing in Thurston's faro joint, finally falling into Thurston's power. Gordon tries to force matters and Donald tells of his marriage with Alice. Donald's father disinherits him and the boy, leaving home, takes the stocks and bonds willed him by his mother. He leaves a note for his father and does not close the safe. Sir Ralph, to pay Thurston, takes a large amount of money from the open safe, and Hyde, the butler, catches him and gets a written confession from him. Donald hunts work and leaves Alice in the care of Joe, the stable boy, who is ever her guardian angel. The time or the Suburban arrives, and Gordon puts all of his fortune on the race. Sir Ralph plots with Tom, the jockey, to throw the race and let Thurston's horse win, thereby evening up Ralph's I.O.U.'s to Thurston. Tom, the jockey, thwarted by Joe while trying to give the powder to Gordon's horse, fights with him and is worsted. In another city, Donald sees in the newspapers that his father has staked his fortune on the race and decides to go back. He receives a letter from Joe and immediately leaves for his home. There he finds Ralph making love to Alice, and after a thrashing, Sir Ralph is ejected from the house. The day of the great race arrives and Donald goes to the course. There he finds that Tom has been bribed to throw the race for Thurston's horse, and after a heated argument with his father, who doubts that Donald tells the truth, he substitutes Joe to ride his horse and wins the race. Later they go to the house. In the meantime Sir Ralph receives a note from Hyde demanding money or he (Hyde) will turn over Sir Ralph's written confession to Gordon. Ralph kills Hyde as Don and Alice come upon the scene, but before dying Hyde manages to get the paper to Donald who takes it to his father. The police bring on Ralph and a big scene ensues. Sir Ralph asks to be allowed time to get his coat, and in his absence the father makes everything right with Donald and Alice. They hear a shot and. rushing to the hall, find Ralph stretched dead on the floor.
Review Excerpt
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Spoilers run faster than any thoroughbred—saddle up at your own risk.
From Ledger to Legerdemain: The Plot Unfurling
The Suburban begins where most American dynastic fables end—inside a paneled library scented with Cuban smoke and patrician certainty. Robert Gordon, whose very name clangs like a vault door, presumes assets can beget progeny in perpetuity. But Charles T. Dazey’s screenplay, adapted from James Dayton’s stage property, is a roulette wheel rather than a balance sheet. Every time a..."
