THE GIFT SUPREME

Produced by C. R. Macauley Photoplays; Released 3/30/20 by Republic Pictures; Foreign distribution by Inter-Ocean Film Corp.; Director: Oliver L. Sellers; Screenplay: not credited, from a novel by George Allen England; Cinematography: Jack MacKenzie; 6 reels; Print Source: See notes below

CAST: Bernard Durning (Bradford Chandler Vinton), Melbourne McDowell (Elliot Vinton), Eugenie Besserer (Martha Vinton), Seena Owen (Sylvia Alden), Tully Marshall (Irving Stagg), Lon Chaney (Merney Stagg), Jack Curtis (Rev. Ebenezer Crowley Boggs), Dick Morris (Dopey Dan), Anna Dodge (Mrs. Wesson), Claire McDowell (Lalia Graun)

SYNOPSIS: Bradford Vinton, son of a wealthy family, comes to Boggs Court, the lowest of slums, in an attempt to find relief from his dreary social life. There he meets Sylvia Alden, a singer in a local mission, and they fall in love. Bradford Chandler Vinton, the boy's father, is a cold-blooded financier, and when learning of his son's love for a slum girl, plans to break up the relationship. He hires a crooked lawyer to fabricate false evidence against Sylvia, but Vinton learns of his father's plot and goes to his father to denounce him. Vinton is disinherited, and when he returns to the mission Sylvia has left. He sets up a restaurant in the area, where Merney Stagg, a gangster, stabs Vinton one night while in a drunken rage. Vinton is rushed to the hospital where it is discovered that only an immediate blood transfusion can save his. One of the nurses sees him and is shocked, for the girl is Sylvia, now working in the hospital. She volunteers to donate her own blood and Vinton is saved. His mother and father are brought to the hospital, and when his father realizes the great gift that Sylvia has given his son, he consents to the young couple's marriage.

"While 'old stuff' in the main, without any distinguishing high lights either in production, handling or cast, it is interesting...Of the character actors Chaney takes all honors with Tully Marshall, of course, doing a small role in excellent fashion. The balance of the cast is acceptable." ---Variety

"The scenario writers have been eating raw meat again. If you are a little tired of slick, nice- mannered and well-dressed society plays, go to see THE GIFT SUPREME and learn that life still runs wild in some places." ---Photoplay

NOTES: The film was released to the 16mm rental market in the 1920's, and it is possible that complete prints survive in the hands of private collectors; however, to date, only the first reel is known to exist. Various sources list the release date as March 30, April 12, or May 9, 1920. The film was copyrighted on March 30, 1920.

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