''The Hoodlum'' is a 1919 silent film comedy-drama produced by and starring

Mary Pickford Gladys Marie Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and producer with a career that spanned five decades. A pioneer in the US film industry, she co-founde ...

and released through First National. The film was directed by

Sidney A. Franklin Sidney Arnold Franklin (March 21, 1893 – May 18, 1972) was an American film director and producer. Franklin, like William C. deMille, specialized in adapting literary works or Broadway stage plays. His brother Chester Franklin (1889–1954) a ...

and was based on the novel ''Burkeses Amy'' by Julie Mathilde Lippmann.

Plot

Spoiled Amy Burke (Mary Pickford) lives with her doting grandfather, ruthless business magnate Alexander Guthrie ( Ralph Lewis), in his

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

, New York City mansion. She is initially delighted when he offers to take her with him on a trip to Europe. However, as the day approaches for their departure, she changes her mind and decides to go live with her newly returned father, "sociological writer" John Burke ( T. D. Crittenden), at Craigen Street, wherever that is. Unused to having his plans thwarted, Guthrie becomes cold to his beloved granddaughter. Craigen Street turns out to be in one of the slums of lower New York, the subject of her father's study. At first, Amy is horrified by the squalor. She makes it clear to a couple of friendly young women who want to become acquainted and to Nora (

Aggie Herring Agnes Herring (February 4, 1876 – October 28, 1939) was an American actress. She appeared in more than 100 films between 1915 and 1939. She was born in San Francisco and died in Santa Monica, California.