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{en} The Jack-Knife Man [1] (USA, 1920), directed by King Vidor.

A lonely old riverboat man is left a child by a dying mother. The old man and the boy grow to love each other. The village snoop feels that the boy would be better off in an orphanage, and the sheriff is sent to try to take him away.

Directed by King Vidor for First National, this moving drama centers on Peter Lane (F.A. Turner), a lonely Mississippi riverboat dweller who adopts an orphaned boy named Buddy after his mother passes away during a storm. The plot shifts into a poignant critique of rigid social-welfare systems when a local busybody and the town sheriff attempt to force the child into an asylum. Bobby Kelso's naturalistic, central performance as Buddy acts as the ultimate structural emotional anchor, inspiring the old man to turn his casual woodcarving hobby into a successful toy-making enterprise to secure financial custody. Guided by Vidor’s personal humanistic manifesto, the film subverts standard childhood stereotypes of the era, presenting the child as a genuine agent of adult moral and economic redemption. <EXTANT; online YES; music YES>