''Sold at Auction'' is a 1917 American silent

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

directed by Sherwood MacDonald and starring Lois Meredith,

William Conklin William Conklin (December 25, 1872 – March 21, 1935) was an American actor. He appeared in more than 80 silent films between 1913 and 1929. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and died in Hollywood, California. Partial filmography * ''Ariz ...

, and Marguerite Nichols.

Cast

* Lois Meredith as Nan *

as Richard Stanley * Marguerite Nichols as Helen * Frank Mayo as Hal Norris * Charles Dudley as William Raynor *

Lucy Blake Lucy Blake is an American conservationist, President of the Northern Sierra Partnership. She was a 2000 MacArthur Fellow. She founded the Sierra Business Council and won the Pat Brown Award. Blake works for the Department of Energy on energy and n ...

as Raynor's Sister

Censorship

The film industry created the

National Association of the Motion Picture Industry The National Association of the Motion Picture Industry (NAMPI) was an American film industry self-regulatory body created by the Hollywood studios in 1916 to answer demands for film censorship by states and municipalities. History The system consi ...

in 1916 in an effort to preempt

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

by states and municipalities, and it used a list of subjects called the "Thirteen Points" which film plots were to avoid. ''Sold at Auction'', with its

white slavery White slavery (also white slave trade or white slave trafficking) refers to the slavery of Europeans, whether by non-Europeans (such as West Asians and North Africans), or by other Europeans (for example naval galley slaves or the Vikings' t ...

plot line, is an example of a film that clearly violated the Thirteen Points and yet was still distributed. Since the NAMPI was ineffective, it was replaced in 1922.

Preservation

With no copies of ''Sold at Auction'' listed in any film archive,Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Database: ''Sold at Auction''
/ref> it is a

lost film A lost film is a feature Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature (CAD), could be a hole, pocket, or notch * Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob * Feature (software design) is an intentional distinguishing char ...

References

Bibliography

* Langman, Larry. ''American Film Cycles: The Silent Era''. Greenwood Publishing, 1998.

External links

* * 1917 films 1917 drama films Silent American drama films Films directed by Sherwood MacDonald American silent feature films 1910s English-language films Pathé Exchange films American black-and-white films 1910s American films {{1910s-drama-film-stub