Dinty is a 1920 American silent comedy drama film written by Marshall Neilan and John McDermott specifically for Wesley Barry, a young actor known for his freckled complexion. Prominent among the supporting players were Colleen Moore, Marjorie Daw, Pat O'Malley, and Noah Beery.

Together with the African American Aaron Mitchell and the Chinese-American Walter Chung, Barry creates the prototype of the multi-ethnic baby gang which will serve as a model for the successful series of Our Gang (1922–44) and in other feature films like Little Annie Rooney (1925) with Mary Pickford.Gevinson, Alan. Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Feature Films, 1911-1960, University of California Press, 1997.

The film is extant, archived in the Filmmuseum in Amsterdam.

Plot

In a village in the Irish woods, young Doreen Adair (Colleen Moore) falls in love with a young man, Danny O'Sullivan (Tom Gallery). One day, Danny receives notice that he is offered a job in America. Before leaving, he marries Doreen. A year later, a son is born, and Doreen decides to follow her husband to America. Upon arriving in San Francisco from Ireland, Doreen discovers through Danny's landlady Mrs. O'Toole (Kate Price) that her husband has been killed in a car accident.

To support herself and her infant son Dinty, Doreen labors night shifts as a scrub woman until, at the age of twelve, Dinty (Wesley Barry) becomes the family's breadwinner by selling newspapers, forming his own street gang with other children. Doreen, meanwhile, suffers from tuberculosis and gets weaker by the day.

Meanwhile, in Chinatown, when Judge Whitely (J. Barney Sherry) imprisons the son of opium smuggler Wong Tai (Noah Beery), Wong Tai retaliates by kidnapping the judge's daughter (Marjorie Daw). Dinty, whose work as a newsboy has familiarized him with the Chinese underworld, leads police to Wong Tai's hideout and saves the judge's daughter from a bizarre death by torture. As Dinty's mother has succumbed to tuberculosis, the grateful Judge Whitely adopts Dinty.

Cast

File:Dinty still 2.jpg

File:Dinty 3.jpg

Wesley Barry as Dinty O'Sullivan
Colleen Moore as Doreen O'Sullivan
Tom Gallery as Danny O'Sullivan
J. Barney Sherry as Judge Whitely
Marjorie Daw as Ruth Whitely
Pat O'Malley as Jack North
Noah Beery as Wong Tai
Walter Chung as Sui Lung
Kate Price as Mrs. O'Toole
Tom Wilson as Barry Flynn
Aaron Mitchell as Alexander Horatius Jones
Young Hipp as Wong Tai's son

Production

In an earlier film, Go and Get It (1920), Barry played a supporting role as a paperboy named "Dinty". Neilan used the character to create a story in a similar vein as a starring vehicle for Barry, who was being groomed by the studio.

Moore, on loan from Christie Film Company, would sign a lucrative contract with Neilan when production for Dinty was completed. Anna May Wong appeared in an uncredited role that also led to more work with Neilan; after Dinty, he created a role for her in Bits of Life for which she earned her first screen credit.

Portions of the film were shot on location in San Francisco including Chinatown and Adolph B. Spreckels' Spreckels Mansion. The end of the film was shot on location on Catalina Island. Sets were designed by Ben Carré.

Release

Released November 29, 1920, Dinty was successful. A booklet on Wesley Barry's life was put out concurrently, part of the movie's promotional strategy. Neilan also used the release of Dinty to debut a campaign to improve the artistic quality of film stills.

Reviews of the film were generally favorable. The Dramatic Mirror called it "a photoplay of remarkable direction, excellent acting ... and perfect photography". The reviewer for Motion Picture News wrote: "There are enough elements in this feature to please every type of picturegoer." Positive reviews appeared in trade papers Variety, Wid's, and the Exhibitors Herald.

Some of the positive reviews were conditional. The Photoplay reviewer commented that Neilan's "human touch ... however obvious and conventional it may become, is usually effective". The New York Times critic noted the "deliberateness" that led to a deficiency in "genuineness", especially in the dramatic and action scenes.

References

{{reflist|30em|refs=

{{cite web |title=Dinty |work=Catalog of Feature Films |publisher=American Film Institute |url=http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=1&Movie=2057 |accessdate=March 27, 2015}}

{{cite book |last=Codori |first=Jeff |title=Colleen Moore: A Biography of the Silent Film Star |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6gzhHmLmxm8C&pg=PA63 |year=2012 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-8899-5 |pages=63–64}}

{{cite book |last=Chan |first=Anthony B. |title=Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong (1905–1961) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CUJI-hFSGNIC&pg=PA138 |year=2007 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=978-1-4616-7041-4 |page=138}}

{{cite book |last=Soister |first=John T. |last2=Nicolella |first2=Henry |title=American Silent Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Feature Films, 1913–1929 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ajXwxJuYd5gC&pg=PA231 |year=2012 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=978-0-7864-8790-5 |page=231}}

{{cite web |title=Dinty / Marshall Neilan |work=American Silent Feature Film Survival Database |publisher=Library of Congress |url=http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.mbrs.sfdb.978/default.html |accessdate=March 27, 2015}}

{{cite book |last=Stephens |first=Michael L. |title=Art Directors in Cinema: A Worldwide Biographical Dictionary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fYqACgAAQBAJ&pg=PA51 |year=1998 |publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-1-4766-1128-0 |page=51}}

{{cite book |last=Shields |first=David S. |title=Still: American Silent Motion Picture Photography |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-oEbI_9aH2YC&pg=PA158 |year=2013 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-01343-5 |page=158}}

{{cite journal |title=Neilan Ties Up on 'Dinty' |journal=Motion Picture News |date=November 6, 1920 |volume=22 |issue=20 |page=3566 |url=https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturenew22moti_1#page/3566/mode/1up |accessdate=October 5, 2015 |via=Internet Archive}}

{{cite journal |title=Wesley Barry Makes Debut as Full Fledged Star |journal=Dramatic Mirror and Theatre World |department=The Screen |date=November 27, 1920 |volume=LXXXIII |issue=2189 |page=1025 |url=http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2010/New%20York%20NY%20Dramatic%20Mirror/New%20York%20NY%20Dramatic%20Mirror%201920%20Apr-Feb%201921%20Grayscale/New%20York%20NY%20Dramatic%20Mirror%201920%20Apr-Feb%201921%20Grayscale%20-%201700.pdf |accessdate=October 6, 2015 |via=Fulton History}}

{{cite journal |title='Dinty': Melodrama and Sentiment Put This One Over |journal=Motion Picture News |date=December 4, 1920 |volume=XXII |issue=24 |page=4345 |url=https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturenew22moti_1#page/4345/mode/1up |accessdate=October 6, 2015 |via=Internet Archive}}

{{cite encyclopedia |last=Slater |first=Tom |title=Marion Fairfax |encyclopedia=Women Film Pioneers Project |date=September 27, 2013 |publisher=Center for Digital Research and Scholarship, Columbia University Libraries |url=https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-marion-fairfax/ |editor1=Jane Gaines |editor2=Radha Vatsal |editor3=Monica Dall'Asta |accessdate=October 6, 2015 |archive-date=June 22, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180622100857/https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-marion-fairfax/ |url-status=dead }}

{{cite book |last1=McCaffrey |first1=Donald W. |last2=Jacobs |first2=Christopher P. |title=Guide to the Silent Years of American Cinema |url=https://archive.org/details/guidetosilentyea00mcca |url-access=registration |year=1999 |publisher=Greenwood |isbn=978-0-313-30345-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/guidetosilentyea00mcca/page/207 207]}}

Variety review: {{cite journal |first=Fred |last=Schader |title=Dinty |journal=Variety |date=November 26, 1920 |volume=LXI |issue=1 |page=34 |url=https://archive.org/stream/variety60-1920-11#page/n161/mode/1up |accessdate=October 7, 2015}}

Wid's review: {{cite journal |title=Another Success for Neilan |journal=Wid's Daily |date=November 28, 1920 |page=9 |volume=XIV |issue=56 |url=https://archive.org/stream/filmdailyvolume11314newy#page/1207/mode/1up |accessdate=October 7, 2015}}

Exhibitors Herald review: {{cite journal |title=Wesley Barry in Dinty |journal=Exhibitors Herald |date=November 20, 1920 |page=85 |volume=XI |issue=21 |url=https://archive.org/stream/exhibitorsherald11exhi_1#page/n988/mode/1up |accessdate=October 7, 2015}}

Photoplay review: {{cite journal |title=Dinty—First National |journal=Photoplay |date=February 1921 |volume=XIX |issue=3 |page=53 |url=https://archive.org/stream/pho20chic#page/n56/mode/1up |accessdate=October 7, 2015}}
The New York Times review (reprint): {{cite journal |title=Here's Every Word of Every N.Y. Newspaper Review on 'Dinty' (ad) |journal=Motion Picture News |pages=4398–4399 |volume=XXII |issue=25 |date=December 11, 1920 |url=https://archive.org/stream/motionpicturenew22moti_1#page/4399/mode/1up |accessdate=October 7, 2015}}

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External links

{{IMDb title|0011117}}
[http://www.silentera.com/PSFL/data/D/Dinty1920.html Dinty] at Silent Era website

Category:1920 films

Category:American silent feature films

Category:Films directed by Marshall Neilan

Category:Films directed by John McDermott

Category:Films set in San Francisco

Category:American black-and-white films

Category:1920s English-language films

Category:1920 comedy-drama films

Category:Articles containing video clips

Category:Films shot in San Francisco

Category:1920s American films

Category:Silent American comedy-drama films

Category:English-language comedy-drama films