Starring Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Kenneth MacKenna, William Holden
Directed by Raoul Walsh

Print: black/white
Runtime: 74 min.
Genre: drama
Print Quality: B

The popular screen romantic team of Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell
shocked and surprised their fans in the ultra-melodramatic The Man Who
Came Back. Based on a 1916 stage success, the film atypically casts
Gaynor as Angie, a San Francisco nightclub chanteuse who degenerates
into drug addiction. In a parallel development, drunken playboy Steve
Randolph (Farrell, in another bit of offbeat casting) destroys his
reputation by writing bad checks. Only when Angie and Steve have both
reached the dregs in a Shanghai opium den do they find each other and
fall in love. It's a hard, uphill climb, but hero and heroine manage to clean
themselves up in time for a happy ending. The scenes in which Janet
Gaynor is established as a "doper" are quite raw for their time, especially
when one considers the actress's normally virginal screen image.