Jon Mirsalis on Piano. Raven-haired Viola Dana starred in the films directed by her husband John H. Collins, whose death at age 28 in the influenza epidemic of 1918 cut down a very promising director of the American cinema. Blue Jeans is set in the 1880s in Rising Sun, Indiana. Dana's heroine June is a runaway orphan who secretly marries a candidate for Congress subsequently accused of bigamy. The ending where the heroine saves the hero from the sawmill is only one of the film's unusual aspects. Paolo Cherchi Usai notes "brave innovations...starting with the mosaical structure of the tale (in which) a series of fragmentary flashbacks reconstruct the story....Realism is alternated with the 'sensational,' anti-puritan polemic with melodrama....Collins fashions a perfect piece of rural Americana....There are marvelously composed outdoor shots...a splendidly forceful use of close-up quite astonishing for the period....and a star part played with immense range and charm by Dana." (Sulla Via di Hollywood, 1911-1920)