Barriers of the Law on AllMovie

J.P. McGowan, who specialized in directing low-budget action pictures during the silent era, focuses on bootlegging here. Rita Wingate (Helen Holmes, the wife of J.P. McGowan in real life) is the member of a group of bootleggers headed by Steve Redding (McGowan). When revenue officers arrest her father, a tugboat captain, and Redding refuses to help, Rita quits. But he refuses to let her go and locks her up in a house of ill-repute. She manages to escape and falls, unconscious into an open window. Inside is Rex Brandon (William Desmond), the revenue chief. He falls in love with Rita and marries her without knowing her past. Redding, however, is more than happy to tell him, and adds a few embellishments of his own. To protect Rita, Brandon resigns and disappears. Rita finds out that he has become down and out, and she sends Leila Larkin (Marguerite Clayton) to take him in. Rita has gone back to Redding's gang, in order to enable Brandon to capture him, but during the raid, Redding stuffs Rita in a car and sets it on fire. Brandon rescues her and the bootleggers are rounded up.