Broadway Broke on AllMovie

Famous for playing the long-suffering mother in the tearjerker Over the Hill to the Poorhouse (1920), Mary Carr earned yet another tour-de-force in this silent backstage melodrama, courtesy of the Zelznick Corp. This time, she played Nellie Wayne, a retired and broken down stock company actress, whose sole supporter is Chum, an aging vaudeville dog (played by a pooch named "Lassie Bronté," no less!) Life, however, turns considerably cheerier when the old dear sells a play she has written about her experiences to a famous film producer (Dore Davidson). In between Carr's tear-provoking antics, her character came into contact with quite a few Broadway and literary legends, including P. T. Barnum (played by Maclyn Arbuckle), Mark Twain (Leslie King), President Ulysses S. Grant (Albert Phillips) and Augustin Daly (Frederick Burton).