As a Man Lives (1922)

"The eyes are the windows of the world," a title card from this silent melodrama states. Spoiled, rich Robert Frazer proposes to pretty book-store clerk Gladys Hulette. She loves him, but can see evil in his eyes and turns him down. Dejected, Frazer hightails it to Paris where he gets involved with a prostitute. The girl's lover, a Parisian Apache played by Jack Baston, starts a violent fight during which the girl is killed. Both men seek assistance from a plastic surgeon -- Baston to escape the law and Frazer to escape his miserable past. The story switches to the American West, where Hulette finds herself trapped in a mine shaft. Baston saves her but dies in the attempt and Frazer finally wins the girl of his dreams. None of this made much sense, a fact most reviewers were quick to point out. Both Robert Frazer and Jack Baston were familiar faces to action and Western fans, the latter appearing in several Tom Mix films. Gladys Hullette enjoyed an early success as Princess Nicotine in 1909 and was later Richard Barthelmess' romantic interest in Tol'able David (1921) ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi