Review of Dinty

Dinty (1920)
Colleen Moore and Anna May Wong
20 November 2017
Episodic comedy/drama stars Wesley Barry as the orphaned Dinty O'Sullivan, a boy of the San Francisco streets who gets involved with a drug smuggler and a kidnapping and becomes a hero.

After his mother (Colleen Moore) dies, Dinty must fend for himself but gets on the wrong side of some street toughs and eventually becomes embroiled in the business of a notorious Chinese gangster (Noah Beery) who casts aside his Chinese lover (Anna May Wong) for a white woman. To get even with a local judge, Beery kidnaps his daughter (Marjorie Daw) and subjects her to torture. But Dinty knows a thing or two.

Several elements will strike modern audiences as being racist, but the film is certainly a capsule of the 1920 mindset. No American film elements are known to survive, but a Dutch print was found and is in quite good shape. Most interesting for Colleen Moore's pre-flapper role and for a chance to see Anna May Wong early in her career.

Pat O'Marry, Kate Price, and J. Barney Sherry co-star.
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