Dollar Down
movie
View on VideBits →Just before he propelled the crime melodrama to new, macabre heights in The Unholy Three, Browning directed this partially lost morality tale pertaining to a different kind of horror: that of a middle-class family living beyond their means and falling prey to moneylenders. Produced by and starring Ruth Roland for FBO Studios, a small operation that later became RKO Pictures, Dollar Down follows Roland as the spendthrift daughter of a manufacturing firm’s general manager (Henry Walthall), who pawns a ring purchased on credit to throw an extravagant party and sends the family’s livelihood into a tailspin. Because its last reel completely disintegrated before it could be copied, the film remains an ultra-rare curio that nonetheless captures an important chapter in Browning’s career before his successful string of films made for MGM.
Cast & crew
Mayme Kelso · Lloyd Whitlock · Henry B. Walthall · Otis Harlan · Ruth Roland · Roscoe Karns · Ethel Hill · Claire McDowell · Tod Browning · Jane Mercer · Edward W. Borman · Earl Schenck · Jane Courthope