Known for Acting
The Belle of the Season is a 1919 American silent comedy-drama film, directed by S. Rankin Drew, and stars Emmy Wehlen, S. Rankin Drew, and Walter Hitchcock.
William Baldwin, ruined in business by his partner, John Blaisdell, implores Blaisdell's aid, and receives in answer a five-dollar bill across the face of which is written, "Spend this for a gun and use it on yourself."
Vera, a woman of questionable character places a wager that she will be able to destroy a happy marriage and inveigle the husband into becoming her lover. She succeeds to the extent of a midnight tryst in the family's home, witnessed by the couple's 12-year-old daughter. Her resolve weakened by the child's piteous pleas, Vera deliberately loses the wager, freeing the sadder-but-wider husband to return to his forgiving wife.
Not only wooing the love of one woman, but masterfully woos the hearts of many women.
John Wheeler (Warren Cook) gets himself in some financial hot water and needs to prove that he is half owner of some land in Canada. But the only person with a copy of the deed is Jean Corteau (Edwin Carewe, who also directed), and Corteau has gone up to the property and decided to claim all of it for himself.
When the body of Col. S.F. Hargraves was found in a room in the rear of Cradelbaughs, a gambling house, with a bullet in his heart, the police found "Big Jim" Pemmican, the manager of the place, coolly pacing the floor when they arrived.
After his divorce Robert Collingwood loses his fortune in Wall Street and becomes mentally unstable. He then attempts to harm his daughter, Gail, but dies in a fall. Fifteen years later, Gail, now a reporter, becomes involved with a man named Thorne, who is also known as Edward North. Thorne is later revealed to be the man who had an affair with Collingwood's wife.
The world's finest ruby was stolen from the bride of Prince Kassim's great-grandfather several generations ago in India by a marauding rajah. It's now several decades later and the British have conquered India, and one day the ruby shows up for sale by a wealthy London jeweler, Sir John Garnett. Garnett has his own problems--there have been a rash of thefts of his wife's jewels, and he hires a private detective named James Brett to investigate.
Artist Standish using his wife Mary as his model finishes a painting of the Madonna. When the Connoisseur and the Parishioner inspect the picture, the Connoisseur tells Standish that the model was a one-time paramour. Buying the painting they depart. Standish confronts Mary, who tells him that she believed herself legally married to the Connoisseur. Unbelieving he ejects her and their baby son. Penniless Mary leaves her boy on the steps of a monastery. Years later before becoming a monk the boy is sent to see the world. Wandering into a café he is seduced by Beauty as the other inmates of the place, Lust, Rum, Avarice and Passion dance around him. The proprietor enters; it is Mary. Recognizing the crucifix, she left with him as a baby she persuades him to go back without revealing her identity. After he becomes a priest Mary, now a bedraggled old woman enters his church. She recognizes him and just before she dies her son gives her absolution.
Sibling rivalry reaches dangerous heights when Ernesto suspects his wife Teodora of infidelity and his brother Severo, always resentful, fans his flames of jealousy. A series of events escalate to a duel and tragedy for all involved.
The first screen adaptation of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel to star a black man in the title role.
