The Echo of Youth is a 1919 American silent drama film written and directed by Ivan Abramson, and featuring Charles Richman, Leah Baird, Pearl Shepard, and Marie Shotwell.
Synopsis
Cabaret singer Olive Martin (played by Baird) approaches her former lover Peter Graham (Richman), just recently elevated to the Supreme Court, about the fact that he is the father of her out-of-wedlock son. To avoid exposing this scandal, Olive demands that Peter divorce his wife (played by Shotwell) and marry her. Meanwhile, the alleged son, Harold (played by Jack McLean) is falling in love in Boston with Anita (Pearl Shepherd)—who is Peter's daughter with his wife. News of their engagement and impeding marriage of incest requires Peter to divulge what he knows and forbid the marriage. In typical Abramson fashion, however, it is revealed that Olive has lied about Harold being her son—instead he is the son of Olive's brother-in-law merely being used by Olive for blackmail! Peter's plan to commit suicide is successfully stopped, and the wedding free to proceed.
Hoping to improve his financial lot, petty thief Hawk Chovinski (McGrail) hires a dancing instructor to teach him how to bear himself like a gentleman. His lessons completed, Hawk then poses as a European nobleman, intending to trap a wealthy wife. Yolande Cowles (Baird) sees through Hawk's pose but falls in love with him anyway.
Elga Pulsaki (Rita Jolivet) and her brother Ossip (James W. Morrison) emigrate to the United States from Russia to escape persecution. Elga marries Norman Hutchinson (Vincent Serrano), but their marital bliss is torn asunder when Norman learns that Elga had had sex with a government official in Russia who had threatened her brother. Norman throws Elga out of the house, but Norman's sister reminds him that he did not suggest the same course of action for her when she realized her husband (Count de Fernac, played by Pedro de Cordoba) had previously fathered a child out of wedlock. Struck by cognitive dissonance—the unequal treatment of the sexes—Norman apologizes to Elga and they are reunited.