director: Louis Chaudet
year: 1919
country: USA
history notes: Unidentified Film No. 197

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

[SALVATION ARMY DRAMA] ca. 1922
NZFA CATALOG TITLE: [Selma's Baby]
LENGTH: 1 reel (750') of a multi-reel film
FORMAT: 35mm Nitrate
EDGEMARKS: Eastman Kodak circle, square (1922)

CONTENT DESCRIPTION: Salvation Army drama set in NY. Selma, an unmarried immigrant, has just given birth in a Salvation Army Hospital. The baby's father, Jan, has sent word that he will marry her if she gives up the baby, but she refuses. Captain Ruth, a young Salvation Army officer, goes to Jan's workplace and brings him to the hospital, where Selma and Jan make up and they agree to raise the baby together. Captain Ruth is then summoned to the house of a wealthy society woman who has apparently been quite rude to Captain Ruth earlier in the film. She writes a donation check to apologize, but when her back is turned slips a piece of jewelry(?) into Ruth's cloak. She then raises the alarm and Ruth is arrested and put on trial. A former lawyer who has fallen on hard times and received help from the Salvation Army asks to defend Ruth. The fragment ends with the haughty society woman being called to the stand and caught out in her lie.

This unidentified film is among the American films being examined at the New Zealand Film Archive/Ngā Kaitiaki O Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua through a research grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Source notes
Nitrate Film Interest Group

Wanted to post the plot synopsis for THE BLUE BONNET from the AFI CATALOGUE: FEATURE FILMS 1911 - 1920:

"Ruth Drake is abandoned as an infant by a heartless mother after being stolen from her loving father. Ruth is brought up by a pawnbroker, and as a young woman joins the Salvation Army to help the misguided people she has observed growing up. Ruth goes to France during World War I and meets a man who has an affair with an actress. After Ruth and the man return home, the actress is upset that her former admirer snubs her for Ruth, so she implicates Ruth in a robbery. At the trail the actress discovers that she is Ruth's mother, and the defense attorney is revealed to be Ruth's father. Ruth and her father are finally reunited."

In addition to the people I previously mentioned the cast also includes Stanhope Wheatcroft, William A. Carroll, Scott R. Beal, and Lloyd Bacon.

This is from the American feature THE BLUE BONNET (1919). In the scans the Salavation Army girl is Billie Rhodes, the man on the witness stand is Ben Wilson, the glamorous woman is Irene Rich, and the woman in the bed is Charlotte Merriam. It was produced by Ms. Rhodes husband William (Smiling Billy) Parsons.

The info on the film is:

THE BLUE BONNET (7/1919) Produced by National Film Corporation of America. Directed by Louis Chaudet. Cast: Billie Rhodes, Ben Wilson, Irene Rich, Charlotte Merriam.