In William Wellman's pre-Depression silent, adapted from a story by hobo writer Jim Tully, Louise Brooks plays a young girl on the run from poverty, domestic violence and a murder rap. After killing a farmer - her stepfather - about to rape her, she joins a hobo friend, hops the freights and braves the camps (inevitably broken up by detectives), dressed all the while as a man (an obvious prototype for Veronica Lake in Sturges' 1941 Sullivan's Travels). “Louise Brooks' performance is very mature and illustrates the extensive range of her acting abilities during the silent Hollywood years.” --George Eastman House.
Despite its story of tramps and boxcars, Beggars of Life is an uncommonly studied, artistic and elegant film, compared with “...the customary freshness and unstudied casualness of most American silent films.... (However this) did not destroy (Wellman's) natural flair for filmic storytelling. Beggars of Life is brilliantly thought out and superbly made.” --Kevin Brownlow, “The Parade's Gone By” (JB)