The Bootlegger's Daughter

Nell Bradley is raised in the shadow of her father's illegal business, and she has to live with the rumors and consequences that follow his trade. When Reverend Charles Alden arrives in town, his steady faith and quiet authority complicate the small community's attitudes toward law, sin, and forgiveness. Nell and the reverend grow close, but their connection stirs suspicion and forces hard choices about loyalty, reputation, and what it means to do the right thing in a place where lines are blurred. The story focuses on character and social pressure, avoiding sensational spectacle and keeping the moral questions front and center.

This 1922 silent picture was directed by Victor Schertzinger, with writing credit to R. Cecil Smith. Enid Bennett headlines as Nell Bradley and Fred Niblo appears as Reverend Charles Alden, placing familiar silent-era talent at the film's core during the Prohibition period.

Reliable box office totals for many early 1920s films are scarce, and official grosses for this title aren't documented. That lack of financial record is common for silent releases, so there's no clear sense of how audiences at the time responded in ticket sales.

As a product of its era, the film fits into the wave of Prohibition-era dramas that treated illicit liquor as a social problem tied to family shame and moral debate. It likely contributed to the ongoing visual language of small-town conflict and clerical figures confronting communal vice, elements that would recur in later American melodramas.

Modern critical attention is minimal, with archival obscurity and few surviving records limiting reassessment; available databases show a 0.0/10 vote average with no votes, which underlines how little contemporary viewership it has. Thematically, the picture centers on reputation, religious authority, class tensions, and a woman’s struggle for autonomy within restrictive social codes. Its interest today is mainly historical, useful to those studying how early cinema handled crime, morality, and gender roles.