A boy surrounded by violence grows up to become an infamous gangster.

At 10 years old, Owens becomes a ragged orphan when his sainted mother dies. The Conways, who are next door neighbors, take Owen in, but the constant drinking by Jim soon puts Owen on the street. By 17, Owen learns that might is right. By 25, Owen is the leader of his own gang who spend most of their time gambling and drinking. But Marie comes into the gangster area of town and everything changes for Owen as he falls for Marie. But he cannot tell her so, so he comes to her settlement to find education and inspiration. But soon, his old way of life will rise to confront him again.—Tony Fontana <[email protected]>

After Owen Conway's mother dies, the ten-year-old is taken in by his tenement neighbors, but when the intoxicated husband beats him, Owen runs away. Later, Owen works chopping ice at the New York docks and defends a hunchback from assault by a street tough named Skinny. Owen leads a gang at age twenty-five. When District Attorney Ames takes socialite Marie Deering, who is anxious to see a gangster, to a café, Owen, to please Marie, saves Ames from a beating. Marie, disturbed by the suffering she sees, becomes a settlement worker. Owen, whom Marie teaches to read and write, accompanies her on a riverboat excursion for slum dwellers, during which Skinny starts a fire. After Owen, warned by Ames that his relationship with Marie is doomed, consults a priest, Skinny, whom Owen, to return a favor, has hidden after he stabbed a policeman, attempts to rape Marie. When Owen returns, Skinny shoots at him and mistakenly kills Marie. Owen heeds her dying wish that he not take vengeance. After the hunchback shoots the fleeing Skinny, who falls to his death, the hunchback and Owen pray by Marie's grave.—AFI

Owen Conway, the leader of a Bowery gang and the bouncer at a low-dive. rescues Marie Rose Deering, a pretty school teacher and a social worker, from insult and assault at the hands of one his his gang. This chance meeting arouses what good is left in him and, under her tutelage, and who he calls "my little Mamie Rose," he becomes as a little child among the angels. But death robs him of the influence that has raised him from the dregs.—Les Adams <[email protected]>