The Kindling
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Cecil B. Demille
Charlotte Walker
Thomas Meighan
Raymond Hatton
Mrs. Lewis Mccord
Billy Elmer
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Maggie Schultz is a cheery tenement dweller whose two clean rooms contrast with the Hell's Kitchen slum in which she lives. She happily expects her first child until her husband Heine, an honest and hard-working stevedore, unknowingly remarks that he would kill any child of his rather than raise it in such a "hell-hole" which, he says, consumes children like fire burns kindling. After settlement worker Alice Burke-Smith, whose heartless mother, although a "reformer," owns the Schultz's tenement, gets Maggie a job sewing for her mother at five dollars per week, a neighbor, Steve Bates, offers Maggie $100 to arrange for him to burgle the Burke-Smith home. When she realizes that $100 will allow her and Heine to purchase a homestead out West, and she sees Mrs. Burke-Smith lavish luxuries on her dog, Maggie agrees. After she is caught, Heine upbraids her but takes the blame. Thinking that her baby will be born in jail, Maggie curses Mrs. Burke-Smith, who then realizes her wrongs. Maggie and Heine are exonerated and, with loans from the Burke-Smiths, go West.
Director
Cecil B. Demille
Cast
Charlotte Walker
Thomas Meighan
Raymond Hatton
Mrs. Lewis Mccord
Billy Elmer
Lillian Langdon
Florence Dagmar
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
This was Charlotte Walker's first film. According to modern sources, DeMille also produced, wrote the scenario and edited the film; Alvin Wyckoff was the cameraman; and Wilfred Buckland was the art director.
