AllMovie

Joseph Arthur's The Still Alarm was one of the most popular melodramas ever written. It had already been filmed once before when it was brought to the screen in 1918. Bird is a clerk in Fordham's drugstore. A stranger comes to town and entrusts him with a large sum of money to be placed in the store's safe. The man, who is staying at a hotel, becomes ill, and Bird fills his prescription with poison and then leaves town with the cash. Years later, Bird returns, broke, and begins blackmailing Fordham, threatening to frame him as the murderer unless his daughter Eleanor (Bessie Eyton) agrees to marry him. Eleanor, however, is in love with fireman Jack Manley (Thomas Santschi). Bird becomes concerned that his scheme will be exposed and decides to kill both Eleanor and her father by setting fire to their home. But the still alarm is sounded and Manley comes to the rescue. Bird is revealed as the killer, and Eleanor and Manley are united.