During World War I, Lieutenant Roger Winston is assigned to capture a German prisoner. Overcome by fear, he hides in a foxhole while Tom Holmes, another soldier from the same town, carries out the mission. On the way back, Tom is struck by a shell and, assuming that he is dead, Roger returns with his prisoner. Although Roger tries to tell the truth about what happened, he is too weak to refuse a medal for bravery and subsequent promotion to captain. Returning to America on a troop ship after the war, Roger meets Tom, who he believed to be dead. Tom’s life was saved by the Germans, but in the prisoner of war camp, he was given morphine for his pain and is now addicted to the drug. Roger reveals to Tom what happened, admitting that he was not brave enough to tell the truth, but Tom holds no bitterness. At home, Roger gets Tom a job in his father’s bank, but Tom’s addiction ultimately leads to him being fired. He is sent to a sanitarium, where he overcomes his addiction, but in the meantime, his mother dies from the disgrace. When Tom goes to Chicago to look for a job, he goes to a diner owned by Mary Dennis and her father, who also run a roominghouse upstairs. Meeting Ruth, a young woman who works in a laundry, Tom decides to stay at the roominghouse, and soon he and Ruth fall in love. She helps him to land a job at the laundry, which is run by George Gibson, a kind and caring employer, who is impressed with Tom’s character and abilities. After receiving a promotion at the laundry, Tom and Ruth marry and have a son. One day, Max, an avowed Communist who used to live in the same roominghouse with Ruth and Tom, comes to their apartment to tell them that he has invented a revolutionary new laundry machine. Assured by Max that the machine will not result in the loss of any laundry jobs, Tom convinces his fellow workers to invest in it. However, after Mr. Gibson dies, the new laundry owners realize that buying more machines will enable them to replace many workers, they fire most of the employees. During a riot of the fired workers, Ruth is killed, and Tom subsequently is sent to prison for five years, even though he tried to prevent the mob from attacking the laundry. Meanwhile, Max, who by now has reputiated Communism and enjoys his profits from the laundry machine, gives half of his earnings to Tom for helping to finance the invention. Upon his release from prison, Tom will not touch what he considers to be blood money. Eventually, though, Tom turns the money over to Mary and her father to feed the jobless who flock daily to their diner to eat leftover scraps. A short time later, believing Tom to be a Communist, the police drive him out of town, and he becomes a homeless wanderer, unable to find a job. Finding cover from the rain one night while on the road, he again meets Roger, whose father’s bank failed because of his mismanagement and theft. Although the sheriff forces them to keep moving, Tom refuses to be bitter and sees the irony in his and Roger’s now similar situations. He tells Roger that the country cannot be beaten, and expresses hope that recently inaugurated President Franklin D. Roosevelt will improve the lot of the poor. Meanwhile, in Chicago, Mary’s dinner continues to feed and help all who enter. As she and Tom’s son look at a plaque that has been erected as a tribute to Tom’s generosity, the boy says that his father is a great man and he wants to grow up just like him. More on Wikipedia or Mubi
Watch Heroes for Sale (1933)
