The scene opens in the bedroom of Mr. Nation, husband of the famous Carrie Nation, the “Kansas Saloon Smasher”. Mr. Nation suddenly arises from the bed and picks up a crying infant from the cradle, and walks it up and down the floor. He suddenly steps upon a tack, becomes infuriated, and throws the baby back into the cradle…
A gilded saloon, with a fancy bar, forms the background. A nobby bartender with white coat and apron is dispensing drinks to customers. Behind him are polished plate glass mirrors. A comical Irishman enters, sets a huge pail on the bar to be filled, and while he is drinking a glass of foam beer, Mrs. Nation and her followers enter with their hatchets. One of the women jams the Irishman's stiff hat down over his eyes and another one douses him with his own pail of beer. They then wreck the saloon and smash the mirrors, bottles, cash register and bar fixtures. The bartender plays a stream of seltzer water on Mrs. Nation, and as she backs away from behind the counter, a policeman enters and hustles everybody out. Full of comedy from start to finish. (Edison Catalog)
A barmaid plies a swell with smiles and with cherries from a box that's just been delivered. When she refuses a cherry to a roughly-dressed tradesman who runs a tab at the bar, he pays off his debt in a huff, using all his week's pay. He then storms penniless and without provisions into his ill-furnished house where his wife and two children, ill-clad and ill-fed, cower. Is there any hope for him and for his family? If he does realize how low he's sunk, what help is there to lift him up? Will the family ever know the taste of cherries?
Peter Drake meets and falls in love with Jackie Swazey, the daughter of a feisty suffragette and incipient politician. In order to impress her, he agrees to help Mrs Swazey in her campaign to become elected.
Prohibition has just gone into effect, and Judge Rummy's wife eagerly throws away all of the Judge's liquor. She also plans to have a temperance lecturer use him as an example of the evils of drink. While waiting for the lecturer, Judge Rummy notices that Silk Hat Harry's Soda Fountain is remarkably popular, so he stops in to see what it's all about. He finds out that Harry has developed a substitute for alcoholic drinks, and that Harry's substitute can have quite an effect on those who drink it. (IMDb)
The action takes place in a gum factory. By a peculiar accident, a bootlegger attempting to avoid the keen eye of an officer of the law, holds a bottle of liquor so that its contents drop into a vat in which the gum is being prepared. It is when the gum is finished and ready to chew that the riot starts.
A city girl revenuer spies on illegal whiskey making in the hills.
Several prohibition agents display cans and bottles of seized liquor for the camera. They are then shown dumping the goods at a junk yard.
This newsreel depicts the inner-workings of a bootleggers' facility for making and distributing illegal bootleg liquor..
To impress the girl he loves, a naive country boy tries to capture a group of local bootleggers.
Druggist Elmer Prettywillie is sleeping. A woman rings the night bell only to buy a two-cent stamp. Then garbage collectors waken him. Next it's firemen on a false alarm. And then a real fire.
Johnny Rooney is a fast-stepping young politician and Molly Taylor is an even faster-stepping showgirl in "George White's Scandals" in a tale of New York City's theatrical and political life during prohibition and the jazz-age.
Eddie is conned into fronting a speakeasy for a local gangster who intends to frame him for the murder of a cop.
Joan Fry, a society woman, falls in love with Chuck Riley, the white-leader of a powerful gang in Chinatown, and he quickly drags her down into the depths with him. But seeing her so much in love with him causes him to realize he isl in love with her, and he determines to lift her up again. "Boston" Charley, the rival gang-leader, has other plans.
On her first anniversary, Ann Reagan finds that her sister-in-law is involved with a shady character that she used to be intimate with, and determines to intervene.
During a raid, a cop lets a pretty speakeasy employee escape and later begins dating her. Although she loves him, his salary and dull life leave her wanting.
A grandmother's will leaves her fortune to a few, mostly to her great-niece Ann. Ann will only receive her inheritance once she marries, with the approval of three of her stuffed-shirt relatives, and without scandal. Otherwise, the estate goes to the cat and dog hospital. Ann, not needing the money, rebels by seeking scandal with a gigolo.
Stan fakes receiving a telegram so he can go to a club with Ollie and a bottle of his unsuspecting wife's liquor, but she overhears his plans.
Based on the Hammett novel, this ultra-rare film—is nominally taken from the author's classic gang-war novel Red Harvest, which proved too brutal and cynical even for pre-Code Hollywood.
When love came the way of this gentleman crook he turned to the right---only to be caught in the swirling eddy of his criminal past! (original ad)