"During the 1920s, many independent film corporations sought to improve the image of black Americans in the motion pictures. These films varied in quality, and The Scar of Shame is one of the best remaining examples of the genre: a melodrama couched in the manners and mores of Victorian ethics and jazz-age cynicism. The story concerns the plight of a lower-class mulatto woman, Louise, who is brutalized by a drunkard father. When she is rescued by and marries an upper-class musician, she encounters social prejudices and violence, leading to episodes of high emotional tragedy. Aside from the Delsartean style of acting, the film's richness lies in its on-location views of black Philadelphia's middle-class homes, speakeasies, dances, and nightclub antics, as well as the slang and fashions of the Roaring Twenties. Finally, The Scar of Shame is a plea for blacks to strive for 'the finer things in life', attainable through better environment: refinement was the panacea for racial pains." (AJ)