Frances Marion was Mary Pickford's "exclusive writer"-Pickford called her "the pillar of my career," and they were best friends, with a creative electricity on the set. Marion's adaptation of the novel gave America's Sweetheart the opportunity to play against type as Unity Blake, a slatternly wretch, product of a savage childhood; and, in a dual role, overly into type, as Stella, ravishing invalid child-woman. Both love the same man whose drunken wife stands in the way until Unity performs an act of suicidal sacrifice. William K. Everson admired the film for its "Dickensian and Griffithian" filmic qualities, "its stress on black dark rooms with pools of light giv(ing) it a surprisingly modern, film noir look!" Like every other Mary Pickford vehicle, this was the star's film: "She chose the story and had to fight Paramount's chief, Adolph Zukor, over its theme, in particular that both murder and death were demanded of its heroine" (Anthony Slide).