Romance of the Underworld

• Release Year: 1918

Plot

This first screen version of Paul Armstrong's play A Romance of the Underworld starred Catherine Calvert as beleaguered heroine Doris Elliot. Fresh out of convent school, the gullible Doris almost immediately falls in with a gang of big-city crooks. She spends the rest of the picture being torn romantically between a "good" and "bad" gangster, the bad one ultimately coming to the usual sorry end, his demise speeded along by a friendly detective who has the good sense to look the other way. Establishing a pattern later followed during the gangster-picture cycle of the late 1920s -- early 1930s, the villainous characters, notably Edwin Forsberg as Michael O'Leary, are infinitely more fascinating than the good guys. Romance of the Underworld was remade in 1928, with Mary Astor and Ben Bard as heroine and villain, respectively. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide