| At the Mercy of Men | |
|---|---|
 Trade advertisement | |
| Directed by | Charles Miller |
| Written by | Paul West |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Harold Young |
Production company | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 5 reels |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
At the Mercy of Men is a 1918 American silent drama film [2] directed by Charles Miller and starring Alice Brady. [3] Its plot follows a young woman during the Russian Revolution who seeks to find the identity of her attack by a Royal Guard. [4]
During the Russian Revolution in Petrograd, Vera Souroff, a young Russian music teacher, is accosted on the street and dragged into a room where three men of the Royal Guard are dining. The lights are turned out, and she is sexually assaulted. The crime is brought to the attention of the Czar by the Countess Zaptine, a patroness of Vera, but Vera is unable to determine which man assaulted her as the crime took place in the dark.
In response, the Czar orders Count Nicho, the eldest of the officers, to marry Vera, and also mandates that each of them turn over all of their wealth and fortunes to her. After doing so, the men are sent to prison. Vera attempts to save Nicho and get him to confess the name of her aggressor. Now genuinely in love with her, Nicho admits that it was he, and the two embrace one another.
Maude Meagher of The San Francisco Chronicle felt that the film was "gorgeous enough." [5] A critic of the Rapid City Journal described the film as a "timely photodrama... in these days of topsy-turvy adjustment, political and social." [6] The Austin American-Statesman noted that director Miller "has a keen eye for strong dramatic effects," also praising the cinematography and performance by Brady. [7]
Alice Brady was an American actress of stage and film. She began her career in the theatre in 1911, and her first important success came on Broadway in 1912 when she created the role of Meg March in the original production of Marian de Forest's Little Women. As a screen actress she first appeared in silent films and was one of the few actresses to survive the transition into talkies. She worked until six months before her death from cancer in 1939. Her films include My Man Godfrey (1936), in which she plays the flighty mother of Carole Lombard's character, and In Old Chicago (1937) for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Florence Vidor was an American silent film actress.
Rhea Ginger Mitchell was an American film actress and screenwriter who appeared in over 100 films, mainly during the silent era. A native of Portland, Oregon, Mitchell began her acting career in local theater, and joined the Baker Stock Company after completing high school. She appeared in various regional theater productions on the West Coast between 1911 and 1913.
Sally Crute was an American actress of the silent film era.
William Aloysius Brady was an American theater actor, producer, and sports promoter.
Maude Meagher was an American novelist.
Thaïs is a 1917 Italian silent film directed by Anton Giulio Bragaglia. The movie is the sole surviving Italian Futurist film, and currently kept at the Cinémathèque Française. It is not based on the novel of the same name by Anatole France.
Resurrection is a 1918 American silent drama film directed by Edward José and written by Leo Tolstoy and Charles E. Whittaker, based on Tolstoy's 1899 novel Resurrection. The film stars Pauline Frederick, Robert Elliott, John St. Polis, and Jere Austin. The film was released on May 19, 1918, by Paramount Pictures. It is not known whether the film currently survives, so it may be a lost film.
Dawn of the East is a lost 1921 American silent drama film directed by Edward H. Griffith and written by E. Lloyd Sheldon. The film stars Alice Brady, Kenneth Harlan, Michio Itō, America Chedister, Betty Carpenter, and Harriet Ross. The film was released in October 1921, by Paramount Pictures.
The End of the Road is a 1919 American silent drama film produced by the American Social Hygiene Association. The film was directed by Lieutenant Edward H. Griffith for the purposes of health propaganda. The plot follows the lives of two young women - one raised by "the right kind of mother" and the other by a mother that is judged to be wrong. This film was targeted at young women with warnings about premarital sex and venereal disease and was notably produced during World War I.
Caroline Agnes Brady was an American philologist who specialised in Old English and Old Norse works. Her works included the 1943 book The Legends of Ermanaric, based on her doctoral dissertation, and three influential papers on the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. She taught at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University, among other places.
Alice Russon was an Irish actress, singer, and dancer in musical comedies and in silent films.
Ola Humphrey was an American actress on stage and in silent films.
John W. Brady was an American lawyer. He served as a county attorney from 1902 to 1910, the assistant attorney general for the state, and a judge on the Texas Third Court of Civil Appeals. In 1929 he was convicted of murder, and sentenced to three years in prison.
William Paul Brady was an American lawyer. From 1909 to around 1914, he served as the first district attorney for Texas' 70th judicial district, and from 1917 to 1919 he was the judge for the newly created El Paso County Court at Law. Brady prosecuted several high-profile murder cases as a district attorney, including of Agnes Orner, and in a death-penalty case that has since been termed a "legal lynching" of a Mexican boy charged with killing a white woman.
Vera McCord was an American stage actress. She also wrote, directed and produced a silent film, The Good-Bad Wife (1921).
The Ordeal of Rosetta is a 1918 American silent drama film directed by Emile Chautard and starring Alice Brady, Crauford Kent and Ormi Hawley.
Vera Brady Shipman was an American composer, journalist, talent manager, and concert promoter, based in Kansas and Chicago.
Véra Sergine was a French actress. She was married to actor Pierre Renoir and was the mother of cinematographer Claude Renoir.
Mary Alice Fish Moffett was an American Presbyterian medical missionary in Korea, with her husband Samuel A. Moffett.
