A Cottage on Dartmoor 1929

In a quiet Devon town, Joe works as a barber’s assistant, sharing a shop with Sally, a skilled manicurist. He becomes infatuated with her, asks her out, but the evening turns awkward and Sally does not return his feelings. Yet his fixation grows into something darker, fueled by a misunderstanding around a floral buttonhole that twists his affection into obsession. Meanwhile, Harry, a young farmer who visits the salon, begins courting Sally, and she responds more warmly to him. A fleeting, uncredited moment also appears on screen with a Bespectacled Man in Cinema.

The two begin seeing each other, and one evening they plan to visit the local cinema. Unbeknownst to them, [Joe] follows from behind, watching their happiness with growing despair, and then rushes out of the theater in a moment of distress. The next day, [Harry] comes to the shop for a regular shave and manicure, and Sally wears an engagement ring. A heated confrontation between [Joe] and [Harry] erupts into violence, during which [Harry] is slashed by [Joe]‘s cut-throat razor. Sally believes that [Joe] deliberately tried to kill his rival, and the arrest follows; he is tried and convicted of attempted murder, earning a lengthy sentence at Dartmoor Prison.

Some years pass before [Joe] manages a daring escape from the grim prison and makes his way across the bleak Dartmoor landscape toward the cottage where Sally and [Harry], now married with a young son, reside. At night he surprises Sally outside her home; she, uneasy about her role in his imprisonment, offers him shelter. When [Harry] returns, there is a tense but genuine reconciliation between the trio. Yet, as the plan to help [Joe] escape unfolds, [Joe] abandons it, racing toward the cottage to lure attention and seal his fate. The guards posted at the farm shoot him, and he dies in Sally’s arms.