The Road to Ruin (1928 film)
| The Road to Ruin | |
|---|---|
 Lantern slide | |
| Directed by | Norton S. Parker |
| Written by | Willis Kent |
| Produced by | Willis Kent |
| Starring | Helen Foster |
| Cinematography | Henry Cronjager |
| Edited by | Edith Wakeling |
| Distributed by | True-Life Photoplays |
Release date |
|
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
| Box office | $2,500,000[1] |
The Road to Ruin is a 1928 American silent black-and-white exploitation film directed by Norton S. Parker and starring Helen Foster. The film is about a teenage girl, Sally Canfield, whose life is led astray by sex and drugs, and ruined by an abortion. The film was remade as a talkie in 1934.
Cast
- Helen Foster as Sally Canfield
- Grant Withers as Don Hughes
- Florence Turner as Mrs. Canfield
- Charles Miller as Mr. Canfield
- Virginia Roye as Eve Terrell
- Thomas Carr as Jimmy Canfield
- Don Rader as Al
- Eddie Dunn as Strip Poker Player
- Joe Darensbourg as Musician in Barn Dance Scene (uncredited)
- Kallie Foutz as Extra (uncredited)
- Walter James as Headwaiter (uncredited)
Production
The Road to Ruin was made on a budget of either $15,000 or $25,000, making it one of the cheapest films made that year.[2] Director Norton S. Parker later told his wife that lead actress Helen Foster was much like her character in that she was relatively naive; during the filming of the strip poker scenes, Parker kept a bottle of hard alcohol to offer Foster liquid courage. The film was shot by Henry Cronjager using a hand-cranked camera typical of the era, but at faster-than-normal crank speed; this helped fill up each reel and getting the final film to feature length, but had the effect of making all the action in the film move slower.[3]
References
- ^ Box Office Information for The Road to Ruin
- ^ "Star Gazing Along Movie Way". The Belleville News-Democrat. Vol. 73 No. 275 16 November 1928 p 7. Accessed 31 March 2022.
- ^ Brownlow, Kevin. Behind the Mask of Innocence: Sex, Violence, Prejudice, Crime: Films of Social Conscience in the Silent Era. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press. p 176.
External links
- The Road to Ruin at IMDb
- The Road to Ruin at the TCM Movie Database
- Synopsis at AllMovie
- A preview of the film is available for free download at the Internet Archive
 | This exploitation film–related article is a stub. You can help Justapedia by expanding it. |
- Pages with short description
- Articles with short description
- Short description with empty Wikidata description
- Use mdy dates from October 2020
- 1928 films
- Template film date with 1 release date
- IMDb ID not in Wikidata
- Articles with Internet Archive links
- American silent feature films
- American black-and-white films
- 1920s exploitation films
- 1928 drama films
- 1920s English-language films
- 1920s American films
- All stub articles
- Exploitation film stubs