Production background

The film stars George K. Arthur

George K. Arthur

George K. Arthur was an English actor and producer. He appeared in 59 films between 1919 and 1935. He won an Academy Award for Best Short Film in 1956 for the film The Bespoke Overcoat....

 and Georgia Hale

Georgia Hale

Georgia Hale was an actress of the silent movie era.-Career:Georgia Theodora Hale was Miss Chicago 1922 and competed in the Miss America Pageant...

 and was released by United Artists

United Artists

United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

. This was the first film directed by Josef von Sternberg

Josef von Sternberg

Josef von Sternberg — born Jonas Sternberg — was an Austrian-American film director. He is particularly noted for his distinctive mise en scène, use of lighting and soft lens, and seven-film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich.-Youth:Von Sternberg was born Jonas Sternberg to a Jewish...

, and it is sometimes described as the first American independent film

Independent film

An independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...

, shot on a small budget by a completely unknown director. Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...

 and Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

 were impressed by this film, and Chaplin worked with Von Sternberg at his Hollywood studio.

Plot

The film opens with a foreword:

There are important fragments of life that have been avoided by the motion picture because Thought is concerned and not the Body. A thought can create and destroy nations—and it is all the more powerful because it is born of suffering, lives in silence, and dies when it has done its work. Our aim has been to photograph a thought—A thought that guides humans who crawl close to the earth—whose lives are simple—who begin nowhere and end nowhere.

The "humans who crawl close to the earth" are then introduced one by one. The Boy is a homeless, unemployed youth who fancies The Girl. He is a failure, the intertitle

Intertitle

In motion pictures, an intertitle is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of the photographed action, at various points, generally to convey character dialogue, or descriptive narrative material related to, but not necessarily covered by, the material photographed.Intertitles...

s explain, because he believes in failure. According to The Boy, there are two types of people in the world—the poor, helpless "children of the mud" and the rich, successful "children of the sun"—and he places himself somewhere in the middle. The Boy and The Girl live near a harbor and struggle to find food; eventually, they have to leave for the city: not only The Boy is unable to find a job, but also The Brute has been harassing The Girl, and The Boy is afraid of a direct confrontation. They leave, taking with them The Child, an orphan who lost his parents to an accident and was also a victim of The Brute.

In the city The Girl catches the attention of The Gentleman. He offers the three protagonists lodgings and promises to find a job for The Boy. His real plan is, however, to not help The Boy and wait until The Girl has no other choice but to offer herself to him in exchange for money. The Boy does fail in his job search, but The Girl is reluctant to become a prostitute; at some point, The Gentleman decides to take the whole company to the country to "let romance do a little work." He does that, but when he tries to seduce The Girl, The Boy finally finds courage to stand up for her. The Boy beats The Gentleman up and leaves together with The Girl and The Child; the intertitles proclaim that now that The Boy is no longer afraid and believes in himself, he belongs to the children of the sun:

It isn't conditions, nor is it environment—our faith controls our lives!

The film ends with The Boy, The Girl and The Child walking towards the sunset.