director: Lester Park
year: 1923
country: USA
history notes: Unidentified Film No. 022

This film has been identified thanks to contributions from members of the Lost FIlms community.

Appears to be a drama where a little girl’s father beats her. One of her father’s friends (Mister Dick) feels sorry for the girl and finds an old newspaper with a headline that reads “Disappearance of Baby Lauren still a mystery- Footman vanishes simultaneously with little Mary. World-wide search without result.” He turns the ‘father’ into the police who then rescue the girl. The man who comforts the girl after the ‘father’ is taken away appears to be her friend who has a possible speech problem – intertitle: “Your father – he ees gone away for wan beeg vacation – you no be afraid for heem no more.” Girl was kept in hidden room where button is hidden behind picture of girl in bathing suit on beach.
Possibly from 1922 because calendar in background has September beginning on a Friday which happened in 1922, presuming the calendar was up-to-date.

Source notes
Nitrate Film Interest Group

Although this doesn't appear to match with any of the known silent films titled "Sidewalks of New York" - the title contained in the decorative lozenge in the border of the intertitle - I believe that this *is* very likely the 1923 Lester Park Productions film of that title.

For one thing, the actor seen in close-up in Still 5/5 is Bernard Siegel, who appears in the credited cast of that film. (Siegel later appeared prominently opposite Lon Chaney in "Laugh, Clown, Laugh").

The AFI Catalog describes the 1923 "Sidewalks of New York" as a prizefighting drama revolving around a young woman's exploits in the Ladies' World Championship.

However, contemporary newspaper ads for the film from 1923/24 refer to its star as "Little Hanna Lee, the talented child actress", and a brief capsule write-up of the movie in the Fitchburg Sentinel (Massachusetts), August 15th, 1924, p.5, reads as follows: "A modern Cinderella, a little waif held captive in the den of a brutal bootlegger, is the personage about whom the story revolves, the part being wonderfully played by Hanna Lee, a child actress of remarkable talent."