Moonshine Valley is a 1922

1922 in film

-Events:* June 11 - United States première of Robert J. Flaherty's Nanook of the North, the first commercially successful feature length documentary film....

 black-and-white

Black-and-white

Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...

 silent

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 American

Cinema of the United States

The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 Western

Western (genre)

The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 film. The working title was The Miracle Child: He Giveth and Taketh. The plot centers around a man named Ned Connors who begins to drink heavily

Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

 because his wife

Wife

A wife is a female partner in a marriage. The rights and obligations of the wife regarding her spouse and others, and her status in the community and in law, varies between cultures and has varied over time.-Origin and etymology:...

 has left him for the local doctor

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

. The man discovers a lost child

Child

Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. Some vernacular definitions of a child include the fetus, as being an unborn child. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority...

 and takes her in. The child soon becomes ill

Illness

Illness is a state of poor health. Illness is sometimes considered another word for disease. Others maintain that fine distinctions exist...

 and the doctor is called for. Upon arriving, the doctor recognizes the girl as his own. When the doctor tries to take the girl away, Ned murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

s him. The film concludes with Ned and his wife reuniting in order to take care of the now orphan

Orphan

An orphan is a child permanently bereaved of or abandoned by his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan...

ed child. One film exhibitor called it the "poorest excuse for a picture [he] ever saw."