Bertha, the Sewing Machine Girl on AllMovie

Earlier in the century, this melodrama about a young girl in the garment industry was a famous stage play. To bring it to the screen in 1926, the Fox studios changed modest Bertha in her gingham apron into a modern young lady who wears silk lingerie. Madge Bellamy was well-cast in the title role. Bertha Sloan is a sewing machine girl for only a few minutes of screen time. In short order, she is fired from her job and lands a new one, as the telephone girl for a company that manufactures fine women's lingerie. Bertha falls in love with Roy Davis, a young shipping clerk (Allan Simpson), and Morton, the company's manager (Paul Nicholson), makes her one of their models. He also invites the unsuspecting girl onto his yacht, where he tries to have his way with her. But Davis comes to the rescue and saves Bertha's virtue. It turns out that Davis is not a clerk at all, but the head of the company. He fires Morton and marries Bertha.