Name: The Knife
Released: 1918
Cast: Alice Brady, Frank Morgan, Crauford Kent, Helen Lackaye, Paul Doucet

Cast & Crew

Film Details

Release Date

Feb 1918

Premiere Information

not available

Production Company

Select Pictures Corp.

Distribution Company

Select Pictures Corp.

Country

United States

Screenplay Information

Based on the play The Knife by Eugene Walter (New York, 12 Apr 1917).

Technical Specs

Sound

Silent

Color

Black and White

Film Length

5 reels

Synopsis

Kate Tarleton grows up on a Southern plantation and becomes engaged to her guardian, Dr. Robert Manning, a famous surgeon. When Robert, Kate, and her younger sister Mary Lou visit New York, where the doctor wishes to conduct medical experiments, the superstitious Kate goes to the home of a fortuneteller named Stella Hill. Stella, whose principal business is white slave trafficking, drugs Kate and forces her to work in a "den of vice," run by Stella and her accomplice Jimmy Bristol, where she contracts syphilis and goes insane. Robert, Detective Ellis, and a lawyer named Billy Meredith rescue Kate, who recovers her sanity but remembers nothing of her bondage. Robert uses Stella and Jimmy in his experiments and through them discovers a cure for Kate's illness. District Attorney Scott is questioning Robert about the propriety of his experiments when Kate enters and sees Jimmy. Her memory suddenly returns, and she narrates her story to Scott, clearing Robert's name.