The Empty Cradle, directed by Burton King, starred Mary Alden as Alice Larkin and Harry T. Morey as John Larkin. The film was released in March of 1923 at seven reels (Variety gives the running time as 67 minutes), and is presumed lost.
Plot: In the small town of Bloomdale, Alice Blake, niece of wealthy spinster Martha Blake, surprises her upper-class community by marrying John Larkin, a humble blacksmith. Martha is disillusioned by her niece’s decision, and cuts her off without a cent. As the years pass, Alice and John live as happily as they can, considering their financial position. They have three children: Frankie, Buddy, and Baby Louise, who is now eight weeks old.
John has difficulty making ends meet. In hopes of bettering his financial condition, he spends most of his time on perfecting a method for hardening copper. Meanwhile, news arrives about Robert Lewis, whom Martha had favored for Alice’s hand. Robert, upon hearing of Alice’s marriage, had gone west and married Ethel Roberts, hoping to forget Alice. But the couple could not produce an heir, so they had separated. Now Ethel has come to Bloomdale, without Robert, and has opened his home, bringing servants with her. Not wanting to lose her husband, Ethel conceives an idea. She instructs her attorney to adopt an infant. She will then write to Robert telling him she has had a child, in the hopes he will reconcile with her. So her attorney begins searching for a child. As the Christmas holidays approach, things are going badly for the Larkins. The children are without toys, and John has met with an accident trying to perfect his formula, leading to temporary blindness.
Alice goes to her aunt, hoping she will assist them for the children’s sake. But Martha refuses, and Alice returns home to find John being attended by a physician, with lots of town gossipers about. After the villagers leave, Ethel’s attorney arrives and proposes to Alice that he adopt their youngest child, Louise. He tells Alice what $50,000 could do for her family; education for her children and the finest doctors for her husband, with plenty of money left over.
Alice is irate at the offer, and orders the attorney from her home. The attorney tells her to think it over, and he will return in half an hour. As he waits outside her home, Alice starts to write a letter to her aunt. But Alice falls asleep and dreams what might happen. She dreams that her baby has been adopted by Ethel.
Alice has told John the child has died, and she has inherited a new home. There, the family live in luxury. Robert believes the child is his, and Alice visits the child often.
Knowing Robert and Alice were old sweethearts, this makes John jealous. He forbids Alice to visit the Lewis home again. But Alice cannot obey, and attends a large reception held at the Lewis house. John is positive his wife is being unfaithful, so he obtains a revolver and heads for the Lewis home. Meanwhile, Alice and Robert visits Louise’s bedroom and put her to bed. They leave the child with a maid, and proceed to the conservatory. Louise becomes restless, and the maid has difficulty putting her to sleep. John arrives, enters Louise’s room, and asks the maid where his wife is. Then John sees Robert and Alice standing in the conservatory. John goes through a side door leading into a hallway near the conservatory. There, he hears Robert telling Alice how unhappy he is, and asking her to go away with him.
Upstairs, Louise has become so restless that she runs from the maid, and runs downstairs looking for her father. She sees her father in the conservatory and rushes to him. At that moment, John, seized with anger, aims his pistol at Robert. He fires, but the bullet hits Louise, whom Robert has just picked up.
The guests panic, and Louise is carried upstairs.
Alice realizes the child is dying and holds her, telling Louise she is her mother. Robert now knows the truth about the child. Ethel tells John the child is really his.
John rushes to the room to see Louise breathe her last. Robert accosts Ethel as she enters the room, calling her a cheat and hypocrite. She asks for forgiveness, but he tells her he never wants to see her again. Alice explains to John she agreed to the deal so they could be lifted from poverty. She hopes he can understand, but he cries “No, you have sold your own flesh and blood. How can I forgive you?”
He leaves her, and Alice is left crying over her dead child. At that moment, Alice awakens from her dream, and looks up to find the attorney holding a check for the child. She tells him to leave, saying she would not sell her child for millions. Then she rushes to the cradle to find Louise smiling at her. She picks up the child and rushes to her husband, who is being consoled by their two sons. John tells them if he raises the bandage from his eyes, he can see slightly. In another part of the house, a door mysteriously opens, and Santa Claus enters, loaded down with toys. Aunt Martha is behind him. The children run into the room, convinced that this is really Santa Claus, and the toys are for them. They drop to the floor and enjoy themselves with their new presents. Alice, hearing music, turns and sees Aunt Martha. Alice picks up Louise and goes to the other room, where her aunt meets her with outstretched arms. Aunt Martha tells Louise she had been planning this for weeks, and if Louise hadn’t left their earlier meeting in a huff, she would have told her. Aunt Martha holds Louise in her arms. John sits up in bed and takes the bandages off his eyes, looks into the other room, and sees everything. Alice turns to Aunt Martha and says “I am sure we will all be very happy from now on.”
Reviews were hard to come by.
Screen Opinions was positive, noting “we find that one of the picture’s biggest assets lies in having Mary Alden in the mother role … Mary also wears some pretty and becoming gowns in the dream story, in which also there are artistic settings. The general details of the production are good, the editing is carefully done, and the subtitles are effective and are arranged in correct relationship to the action. … Harry Morey gives a fine performance as the town’s most prominent failure. The cast is good throughout, and we believe this picture will please any theatre.”
Variety was fairly neutral, writing “the picture is one of those rather wishy-washy melodramatic affairs that seem to please the majority of the picture house audiences. This picture is no better nor worse than hundreds of others that come along every year … it’s a lot of old-fashioned hoak, with that dream-ending thing having been done to death time and again; but after it is all over it’s no worse than others have done it. Miss Alden gives a corking performance as the wife, and Morey is the “true but honest” type to perfection. The kiddies are the best of the picture.”