Fair Play on AllMovie

Having starred in several William Steiner Production melodramas, former serial ace Charles Hutchison went behind the camera to produce this low-budget crime drama. Hutchison cast his wife, Edith Thornton, in the starring role as Norma Keith, a nice little secretary who falls for handsome but ruthless lawyer Bruce Elliot (Lou Tellegen). The scoundrel notices neither her nor her many sacrifices and instead marries Rita Thane, a mercenary blond vamp (Betty Francisco). When his new wife is accidentally killed, Bruce is convicted on circumstantial evidence of murdering her. Her love for Bruce undiminished, Norma goes in search of the truth, finding evidence to clear the lawyer in a waterfront dive, winning his true affection along the way. Leading man Lou Tellegen was the ex-husband of opera diva Geraldine Farrar, and his career was rather dramatically on the wane by 1925. Tellegen was always more an adornment than an actor, and the title of his autobiography, Women Have Been Kind, may have explained his rise to stardom. He committed suicide in 1934.