Rita Gray, a house guest in a Boston Back Bay mansion, has secretly married a man she believes is Count Raymond d’Alencourt but who is actually a jewel thief working for Daniel Treve’s gang. Using information provided by the false count, Danny’s men rob the mansion, but when the count is captured, Rita learns her terrible mistake. Danny and his men flee to a small town. While hiding from the police in the courthouse, Danny observes a hearing in which a young orphan, Mary Gale, is threatened with reform school because she refuses to marry her guardian’s son. Danny pretends to be an old sweetheart of Mary’s in order to rescue her, but the suspicious judge insists that he marry her before leaving the courtroom. When they are alone, Danny slips the stolen jewelry into Mary’s purse and so manages to elude the police. In New York, believing that Mary is too good for him, Danny gives her money to live and offers to divorce her whenever she wants. Impressed by his decency, Mary falls in love with Danny, and he is so affected by her honest nature that he decides to “go straight.” Mary gets a job working for lawyer Matthew Gray, Rita’s brother. Three years later, Gray is a district attorney running for governor. To enhance his political appeal, he proposes to Mary. She asks for time to think it over and then visits Danny. She tells Danny, who has been “straight” for three years, that she has always loved him. They decide to make their marriage a real one, but then Danny is arrested for a robbery committed by his old gang. As Gray is the prosecutor, Mary must take down Danny’s confession. She destroys the confession, however, and visits Danny in jail to beg him to fight for his freedom in court. After the count, who has been released from prison, tells Mary that Gray is his brother-in-law, Mary uses this knowledge to intercede on Danny’s behalf. Gray finally agrees to let Danny off with the lightest sentence possible, and when he is released from prison, Danny finds Mary waiting for him. More on Wikipedia
Watch A Private Scandal aka Girl from Nowhere (1931)
