| A Child for Sale | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Ivan Abramson |
| Written by | Ivan Abramson |
| Produced by | Ivan Abramson |
| Starring | Gladys Leslie Creighton Hale |
| Cinematography | Louis Dunmyre |
Production company | Graphic Films Corp. |
| Distributed by | Graphic Films Corp. |
Release date |
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Running time | 6reels (approximately 60 minutes) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent (Englishintertitles) |
A Child for Sale is alost[1] 1920 Americansilentdrama film directed byIvan Abramson, starringGladys Leslie andCreighton Hale.[2]
Charles Stoddard (played by Hale) is a poor artist living with his wife and two children inGreenwich Village. Destitute after his wife dies, he is forced to sell one of his children for $1,000 to a childless rich woman. He soon comes to his senses however, and backs out of the deal. From there, the story takes a number of twists and turns involving Ruth Gardner (Leslie) (the wife of Dr. Gardner who treats Stoddard's child for illness) and Ruth's parents—whose father is also Stoddard's landlord and mother is later revealed to be Stoddard's long-lost mother from a prior marriage.[3]
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The ad campaign for the film included a faux advertisement for selling a child.[4][5][6]
CriticBurns Mantle noted some shortcomings of the film in his review of the "melodramatic opus" inPhotoplay,[7] stating that "Ivan Abramson's idea of what constitutes a coherent and convincing dramatic story, taking this picture as a sample, offer many opportunities for the raucous hoot and the mirthful snort. ...His picture is an inartistic jumble of unrelated incidents to me ..." Other contemporary reviews were of a more non-specific and generally positive nature, such as the review by theNew York Clipper which described the picture as "intensely interesting from start to finish."[3]
