Bits of Life

• 1921

• Watchlist

This film combines four short films under the title Bits Of Life. The Bad Samaritan is taken from a story in Popular Magazine in which the son of a Chinese father and a white mother is sold into slavery by his father. The boy becomes a criminal and a cunning but cruel thief. The one time he stops to help a lady in distress he is thrown in jail. Wesley Barry is the young boy and Lon Chaney the grown-up criminal. The Man Who Heard Everything is taken from the magazine Smart Set. A deaf barber saves up $50 to buy a hearing aid. When the device arrives, he hears a ribald joke at the barber shop. He returns home to overhear his wife in conversation with her brother that her husband is a "dummy" and that she willingly takes advantage of his money and good nature. Shaken by his experience, the barber's answer to his problem is to smash the new device. In Chinese Story, a young boy runs away from home to avoid a constant prayer vigil demanded by his father of his children. Sing Fat (Lon Chaney) grows up to become the proprietor of an opium factory. He falls in love with a Chinese woman who gives birth to a daughter. The irate father beats her because he wanted a boy. The mother tells their servant to nail a crucifix to the wall so she may pray to a Christian God. The crucifix begins to drip the blood of Sing Fat, who was resting on the opposite side of the wall. Director Marshal Neilan wrote the last feature called The Intrigue. A man dreams he encounters a princess and her entourage while playing golf. Following her to a fancy reception, he is attacked by Oriental guards and awakens in a dentist's chair with his tooth extracted.