Black Butterflies on AllMovie

Director James W. Horne, best known today for his Laurel and Hardy comedies, called the shots on the inexpensive "emotional" drama Black Butterflies. Heroine Dorinda Maxwell (Jobyna Ralston) enters into a marriage of convenience, even though she cannot abide her new husband. In so doing, she is separated from her true love, David Goddard (Robert Frazer). Fate and the scriptwriters contrive to keep hero and heroine apart for the balance of the picture; at one point, Goddard is blinded in an auto accident. All turns out OK in the end except for the "heavy" of the piece, vampish Kitty Perkins (Mae Busch, likewise a future Laurel and Hardy "regular"), who must pay for her sins with her life. Black Butterflies reaches three possible endings, opting at last for the weakest of the three.