The Barker is a 1928 American part-talkie pre-Code romantic drama film produced and released by First National Pictures, a subsidiary of Warner Bros., acquired in September 1928. The film was directed by George Fitzmaurice and stars Milton Sills, Dorothy Mackaill, Betty Compson, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. The Barker is a part-talkie with talking sequences and sequences with synchronized musical scoring and sound effects. The film was adapted by Benjamin Glazer, Joseph Jackson and Herman J. Mankiewicz from the play by Kenyon Nicholson.

Plot

The film tells the story of a woman, Lou (Dorothy Mackaill), who comes between a man, Nifty Miller (Milton Sills), and his estranged son Chris (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). Nifty is a carnival barker who is in love with a dancing girl and is ambitious to have his son, Chris, become a lawyer. Chris has other ideas and during his vacation he hops a freight, joins the carnival, and weds a dancing girl (Mackaill). Eventually, Chris fulfills the ambition his father had for him.