Plot Summary - Silent crime melodrama. Julie and Walter Kendal (Norma Talmadge and Frank Mills) - she a sweetheart, wife and mother - he, a man interested in theories on crime, the causes and effects. Walter believes that a sudden shock can lead a person to a life of crime - his theory is about to be tested. One night he sets out to track a couple of baddies known as De Luxe Annie and Jimmy (Eugene O'Brien), who like to pull con games such as the "Old Badger" game and "De Luxe Book" game, on innocent victims. Walter undercover, arrives pretending he's interested in purchasing a deluxe edition of a classic book from Annie - the con underway, as Jimmy shows up pretending to be an angry husband wondering why a man is alone in the apartment with his wife; Jimmy asks for hush money to keep it out of the papers. Meanwhile, Julie at home has a nightmare her man is in trouble - so she heads over to help him, ends up knocked out from a fight with the bad people, then out into the night with amnesia - no memory of her past! Next thing you know she's cleaning rooms at a lodging house and happens to be cleaning up Jimmy's room, where she tries to steal a pile of dough and a watch - but he arrives to catch her holding his goods, and deciding she'd make a good little partner for his schemes, he recruits her to join forces with him to pull the De Luxe book game. So Julie heads into a life of crime, but still has vague notions in her head of a different past - she pinches a brooch she feels should be hers (and it was!), and in an action-packed finale Jimmie and Julie escape via ice skates to keep the hounds from tracking their scent, ending up at her own, forgotten house. Meanwhile hubby Walter has become aware that his wife has no clue who she is, and is pulling crimes - and he seeks to help her get the operation she needs to restore her memory.
Review - This is a worthwhile watch, a very melodramatic plot-line typical of the time period this film was made. There was some interesting photography and editing I noticed - one interesting shot I'm remembering is the superimposed image of Talmadge as Julie in one corner while she is having her nightmare. The print had some nitrate decomposition during one reel. Norma Talmadge, in this film, kept reminding me of current day actress Natalie Portman - very similar look. She does a very good job in her part in this film, I thought. AFTER NOTE: Okay - I recently saw the British film "Easy Virtue (2008)" and one of the actresses in this, Charlotte Riley, really did look exactly like Norma Talmadge - and now that I think of it, she was in the recent Brit version of Wuthering Heights, which I saw about a month before Cinecon 45 - it was her that I was reminded of while watching "De Luxe Annie". Rating - 8/10 stars
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