Damaged Goods
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Thomas Ricketts
Richard Bennett
Adrienne Morrison
Maud Milton
Olive Templeton
Josephine Ditt
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
George Dupont, a studious law school graduate, is seduced by a married family friend, and although he refuses her further advances, he is awakened sexually. George then begins a romance with a seamstress, but his mother and wealthy aunt convince him to marry Henriette Locke, a Senator's daughter. After becoming a partner in the Senator's law firm, George gets drunk with friends and beds a prostitute. Later, he discovers that he has syphilis, and is about to swallow poison, when the prostitute comes along and stops him. She relates that she contracted syphilis from a wealthy man, who remained respected, while she was refused treatment at hospitals. Angered, she decided to infect men from the upper classes, until Dr. Clifford, a venereal disease specialist, helped her. Although Clifford warns George not to marry during the two years of treatment, and shows him syphilitic victims in a hospital ward, including imbecilic children, George, feeling pressure to marry, goes to a quack who promises a cure in three months. After the marriage, George's child is diagnosed as having syphilis. Henriette leaves, and George walks into the sea.
Director
Thomas Ricketts
Cast
Richard Bennett
Adrienne Morrison
Maud Milton
Olive Templeton
Josephine Ditt
Jacqueline Moore
Florence Short
Louis Bennison
John Steppling
William Bertram
George Ferguson
Mrs. Lester
Charlotte Burton
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
This early venereal disease education film is presumed lost. Please check your attic.
Notes
Some of the cast, including Richard Bennett and Adrienne Morrison, appeared in the New York stage production of Damaged Goods, which opened March 14, 1913. The film was reviewed in September and October 1914, and was released to the state rights market probably at that time. Mutual released the film on October 4, 1915, after a September 27, 1915 preview to an audience of legal, medical, official, and sociological personages, in a re-edited version, with some scenes retaken. The film had its next re-release on February 12, 1917. This version was re-edited under the supervision of Bennett, who originally brought the play to America, and included a new introduction and conclusion. Finally, in 1919, the film was again re-issued, this time to the state rights market. At a Baltimore showing in 1917, the suicide scene was enacted on the stage. Some scenes were shot at a Los Angeles hospital showing sufferers from syphilis. Some scenes were shot in San Francisco. Mrs. Lester, listed in the cast, was probably Louise Lester, an American Film Co. actress at the time. Although the film was in seven reels, it was divided into three acts.
