Broadway Love is a 1918 film directed by Ida May Park.
Midge is a young woman from the sticks, working as a chorus girl in a Broadway act. She is invited to a party by Cherry Blow—yes, that's right, the character's name is Cherry Blow—the senior ballerina in the theater troupe. Just as she's leaving, her possessive, creepy would-be boyfriend Elmer shows up. Midge, who plainly is not interested in Elmer, blows him off and goes to the party.
The party makes apparent that the Broadway chorus business appears to be a front for matching up sexy young women with wealthy sugar daddies. Cherry has already bled dry and dumped one Jack Chalvey, who, in the depths of his despair, is putting a gun to his head at the party when Midge sees him and talks him out of it. Meanwhile, Cherry has matched up Midge with wealthy man-about-town Henry Rockwell. Midge is appalled when she finally figures out what's going on and demands to be taken home. Henry offers her a ride, but when he tries to rape her in the back seat of the car, Midge jumps out while the car is moving, and is seriously injured.
Elmer is played by Lon Chaney, who would soon become a huge star by playing more creeps and weirdos.
Tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Midge clearly wants no part of creepy, leering Elmer.
- Contrived Coincidence: Who's hanging out at a beach house not too far from the hospital where Midge has been recuperating? Elmer, that's who. And he's married Henry's sister.
- Does Not Like Men: While visiting Midge in the hospital, an unusually reflective Cherry says "I hate all men." Midge diagnoses her correctly, noting that she doesn't value herself, and the men whose gold she's digging know it, so they don't value her either.
- The Flapper: Cherry Blow is "the flapper ballerina." And she's really taken the hedonistic attitudes of The Flapper to the max, not only being a Gold Digger herself but being a quasi-madam for the other girls.
- High-Class Glass: Worn by the sleazy, balding fellow putting a necklace on Cherry in the first scene. Cherry's wistful look at a picture of Jack is the only hint in the early going that she is not fully at ease with her money-grubbing lifestyle.
- Interrupted Suicide: Jack, broken-hearted and also just broke, is about to shoot himself at Cherry's party when Midge knocks the gun away.
- Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Midge and Cherry, both members of the same theater troupe, both possible romantic partners for Jack Chalvey. Cherry is a slutty gold-digger, who lives in a fancy compartment, wears a dark, sexy dress to the party, and has paintings of classical Greek nudes as her wallpaper. Midge is innocent and sweet and horrified at the idea of being a kept woman. She wears a frilly white dress that would have worked for Little Bo Peep to the party; Cherry makes her put a sexier one on. Midge is also scandalized by all the pictures of naked ladies on Cherry's walls.
- Love Dodecahedron: "And Midge's heart was torn between yesterday's millionaire and today's millionaire"—Jack Chalvey, the now-broke rich guy who courts Midge after she saves his life, and Henry Rockwell, who at first wanted her to be The Mistress but later grows real feelings for Midge. And then there's Cherry, who still has feelings for Jack.
- Miss Kitty: Cherry, sort of. She is deliberately matching up all the comely young ladies in the theater troupe with rich men; each woman's place setting has under the napkin a pile of gold coins from her prospective sugar daddy. When Midge says she wants to go home, a jaded Cherry guesses a more venal intention, congratulating Midge for being so smart and saying she can get anything she wants from Henry.
- Sexy Backless Outfit: The dress Midge wears to the party after Cherry, who wants her to land a rich patron, makes her change.
- Title Drop: When Henry asks if Midge doesn't want love, she says she does, "but not the kind of love they know on Broadway."
