Summary
In the derelict urban sprawl of Tin Can Alley, Sid Smith portrays a quixotic reformer whose evangelical zeal for the temperance movement is met with visceral apathy by the local proletariat. The narrative pivots on an exquisite irony: after a physical altercation with two predatory hoodlums, a dazed Sid stumbles into a literal river of confiscated spirits. Reeking of the very vice he abhors, he inadvertently becomes a Pied Piper to a legion of thirsty derelicts who mistake his booze-soaked garments for a mobile dispensary. This olfactory misunderstanding propels him into a labyrinthine criminal conspiracy involving stolen securities, a high-stakes rooftop pursuit, and a volatile black bag that functions as a MacGuffin of explosive proportions. Smith’s performance transitions from earnest moralist to a frantic victim of circumstance, navigating a landscape where piety and criminality collide with slapstick violence.
Synopsis
Sid Smith has just become a lecturer and reformer in a tough neighborhood but he is unable to find an audience that will listen to him preach on the benefits of prohibition. While trying to help some poor people in his neighborhood he gets into trouble with two crooks over a girl and is hit on the head. While staggering about he comes upon prohibition officers emptying liquor into the street. He slips and falls into the liquor but finally gets up and visits a brother lecturer who has a fairly large audience. The audience immediately leaves and follows Sid when they smell his booze soaked clothes. Sid leads them into his tent to lecture them on prohibition. When they .ind that drinks will not be dispensed, they desert him. A little later he again meets the two crooks and the girl who seem to be in a quandary. The girl asks him to go to the train and get a black bag from a confederate and bring it to her. He finally agrees and is given the password. He gets the bag and is bringing it back when he reads a billboard stating that there is a large reward for the man who recovers such a bag which contains stolen securities. Sid believes that he is holding the bag described and tries to get rid of it in a number of ways bu ways unsuccessfully. Finally, just as he has gotten rid of it another almost identical bag is put in his hands from a window he is passing. This too he tries to loose and in doing so excites the suspicion on the police who chase him over the housetops until when they ore about to catch him, he sees the crooks for whom he got the bag standing below and throw it to them. The bag, which contained dynamite explodes upon reaching the ground. The police take the crooks away and Sid is left with the girl.
Review Excerpt
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The silent era of cinema often operated as a fever dream of physical comedy and social anxiety, and few artifacts capture this intersection as vibrantly as Tin Can Alley. Sidney Smith, a performer whose kinetic energy often rivals the more canonized giants of the slapstick pantheon, delivers a performance that is both a scathing indictment of moral posturing and a masterclass in the choreography of chaos. The film functions not merely as a relic of 1917 but as a sophisticated piece of vis..."
