United States Smith (1928)

A rather muddled prize-fighting melodrama from low-budget company Gotham Productions, United States Smith featured former Keystone comic Eddie Gribbon and 14-year-old Canadian actor Mickey Bennett). Gribbon played a Marine boxing champ and Bennett the young Russian immigrant he takes under his wing. Lila Lee, formerly of Cecil B. DeMille marital comedies, acted the female lead, for whose sake Gribbon is willing to throw a championship fight. Bennett, however, convinces him otherwise and all live happily ever after. United States Smith took no less than 7 reels to tell its little story and was directed by Joseph Henabery, a Hollywood veteran who had played Abraham Lincoln in Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation.(1915).