On the Level

"This Little Pig Stayed Home"

On the Level — Plot

Rustler Pete Sontag kidnaps Merlin Warner after he kills her father. Pete, a drug smuggler who uses his saloon as a front, coerces Merlin though beatings to become the dancer Mexicali Mae. She meets and falls in love with morphine addict Joe Blanchard but Pete frames Joe for a murder that he committed, forcing Mae to hide Joe in a homestead in the hills. After many struggles, Joe is cured of his addiction and proposes to Mae. She accepts, but when his mother and fiancée Eleanor arrive, they offer her money to leave, Mae refuses the money but becomes convinced that she is not good enough for Joe and writes to him that she is returning to the saloon. Joe learning of his mother’s plot arrives at the saloon and in the resultant fight Pete is killed. Mae and Joe are reconciled.

• Release date
• September 10, 1917
• Runtime
• 50 min
• Genres
• Western
• Director
• George Melford

On the Level — Cast

Fannie Ward Merlin Warner, aka Mexicali May Jack Dean Pete Sontag Harrison Ford Joe Blanchard Lottie Pickford Eleanore Duke James Cruze Ozmun James Pier Mason Pike James Neill Warner, Mae's Father Edythe Chapman Joe Blanchard's Mother