The Salvation Hunters is a 1925 American silent drama film which marked the directorial debut of the 30-year old Josef von Sternberg. The feature stars Georgia Hale and George K. Arthur, and would bring Sternberg, "a new talent", to the attention of the major movie studios, including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Paramount Pictures. Film Mercury included The Salvation Hunters in its ten-best list for the films of 1925. Plot The film opens with a foreword: There are important fragments of life that have been avoided by the motion picture because Thought is concerned and not the Body. A thought can create and destroy nations—and it is all the more powerful because it is born of suffering, lives in silence, and dies when it has done its work. Our aim has been to photograph a thought—A thought that guides humans who crawl close to the earth—whose lives are simple—who begin nowhere and end nowhere. The story begins along a bleak waterfront in an unidentified harbor. Industrial refuse litters the shore. A giant Sisyphean dredge scoops mud from a channel and into a massive barge. Four characters, “humans who crawl close to the earth” occupy the brooding landscape: The Boy, a fainthearted and feckless youth, wanders aimlessly amid the wreckage. He fancies The Girl. The Girl, older and hardened by her impoverishment, has “sunk as low as her socks.” Maintaining a sullen dignity in her solitude, she spurns The Boys diffident advances. The Child is an orphaned youngster. He silently haunts the mud barge where his parents lost their lives. The Brute is a man of indeterminate age and short-tempered. He acts as watchman aboard the barge. The Brute makes a pass at The Girl. She cuts him cold with a glare and he retreats. Frustrated, The Brute assaults The Child who has trespassed on the barge. The Boy witnesses the assault, but is frozen by his cowardice. The Girl, with a single word, shames him into action. He gingerly collects The Child, and they flee together with The Brute in pursuit. The Girl, with a look, signals the dredge operator, who unleashes a torrent of mud on the head of The Brute. The Boy, The Girl and The Child escape from the desolate docks to the slums of an unnamed metropolis. As the threesome trudge through the back alleys of the city, they are spotted by The Man and his client, The Gentleman.