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From Italy’s Shores
Also known as {From Italy’s Shore}
(1915) United States of America
B&W : Two reels
Directed by Otis Turner
Cast: Roy Stewart [Tony], Jane Novak [Angelica], Harold Lloyd [a gangster], Hal Roach [?] [a gangster]?
The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated production; distributed by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated [Laemmle]. / Scenario by James Dayton. / © 13 May 1915 [LP5281]. Released 19 May 1915. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format. / [?] Also listed as released 1913 and by Reilly-Lloyd p. 14 as 1914.
Drama.
Synopsis: [?] [From The Moving Picture World]? Tony Gardella and his pretty wife, Angelica, sailed from Italy in the steerage of a Mediterranean liner for New York. They had a small sum saved up to give them a start in the new world. The ordeal of Ellis Island over and the trip to Battery Park on board the municipal ferry boat completed, Tony and Angelica found themselves in a little park in the shadows of the downtown scrapers. They slowly made their way across the historic park to a bench. Two shabbily dressed young men watched them from a distance. One of the pair approached Tony and smilingly offered to guide him to a respectable boarding house. Tony, without a friend in America, was only too glad to turn for counsel to the first stranger who approached. The two gangsters guided Tony to a street which passes under the great Brooklyn Bridge. In a tunnel leading under the bridge and up again to where the street continued on its way north the first gangster beckoned Tony to come ahead with him to make arrangements for lodging in a house which he assured him was just a short distance away. Tony unsuspectingly followed. When the gangster had assured himself that no one was about, he quickly pulled a short length of lead pipe from a hip pocket and brought it down on Tony’s head Without a sound, Tony sank to the pavement. Meanwhile, the second gangster took Angelica to Park Row, and there, in the crowd before a bulletin board, disappeared. For a time Angelica wandered about, not knowing which way to turn. A well-dressed gentleman, walking through City Hall Park plaza, noticed her apparent confusion and stopped her. The gentleman took Angelica to the Italian Immigration Home, where she was given a warm meal and lodging. He promised to call next day, after making inquiries for her husband. Meanwhile Tony lay unconscious near the street curb. Strangers passed him by, thinking he was helplessly intoxicated. Finally a patrolman poked him with the end of his club and bade him move on. Tony staggered to his feet. He had lost all remembrance of his past life, of his wife and of the assault upon him. With fate guiding his footsteps, he made his way to the waterfront. By chance he wandered into the waterfront alley, at the end of which was a wooden shack. Inside were a number of rough-looking characters, two of whom proved to be the gangsters who had assaulted him. For a moment the gangsters were tempted to shoot Tony down, but they soon saw that he was harmless, that all memory had left him and that he was, in their own words, “foolish in the head.” For several weeks, Tony acted as caretaker and cook in the shack. Meanwhile, his wife, Angelica, was found to have a wonderful voice. The choir in the immigrant home welcomed her, and the kind gentleman who had befriended her, engaged a vocal teacher to cultivate her voice. Not long after the gangsters whom Tony served, kidnapped Mr. Henderson’s child and turned the latter over to Tony to safeguard. Wandering one day with his little charge in the residential section of the city, Tony entered the gates of a private home to the lawns where a garden party was in progress. And then, as Tony wandered through the garden, hand in hand with the little child, Angelica’s benefactor suddenly clasped the little girl to his heart. He was about to ask Tony where he had found his kidnapped child when Tony spied his wife, in a splendid gown, singing to the assembled guests. Tony could not wait until she had finished the song, but broke in on the astonished gathering and clasped his wife in his arms.
Survival status: (unknown)
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 25 November 2022.
References: Braff-Short nn. 7886, 7887; Reilly-Lloyd p. 14 : Website-IMDb; Website-Lloyd.
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