Skyline

Rose Breen, lying sick in bed aboard her husband's barge in the East River, tells her son John that her husband, the abusive, drunken captain of the barge, is not his father. After Rose dies, John fights the captain when he insults the memory of his mother. After knocking him cold, John, who wants to build skyscrapers like those he sees from the water, swims to shore. He falls into the back of a truck, which dumps him onto a street, and then wanders until he comes to a construction site, where he faints and falls into a hole. He is about to be lifted up in a back hoe, when the hoe's operator, Mike Kearny, spots him and brings him to consciousness. Learning that John is Irish like himself and that he wants to work on a skyscraper, Kearny brings John home, where he becomes friends with Kearny's daughter Kathleen. When Kearny's boss, engineer Gordon A. McClellan, inspects the fortieth floor of a building under construction, John bribes a messenger to let him bring some plans up to McClellan. Not used to the height, John starts to faint. McClellan catches him, but they both fall on some boards below. McClellan berates John and orders him to leave, but John later convinces McClellan of his desire to work. After he hires John as a laborer on the ground, McClellan grows to like him. When Judge Scott declines McClellan's invitation to watch the fights, McClellan asks John, who is extremely delighted. John soon begins night school at an engineering college. When he tells "Mac," as he now calls McClellan, about his past and shows him his mother's locket, Mac, who was Rose's first husband, realizes he is John's father, but he refrains from admitting it when he sees how angry John gets when he talks about the father he never knew. John, who had planned to marry Kathleen after he finished school, becomes infatuated with Paula Lambert, whom he does not know is Mac's ex-lover. Mac lends John money to go to Columbia University's School of Engineering in the fall. When John tells Kathleen that he plans to move into Mac's Park Avenue apartment, Kathleen becomes upset. Upon learning of John's love for Paula, Mac tries to tell him that she isn't right for him, but John ignores Mac's advice. After Mac insults her, Paula, who still loves Mac, threatens to take John away from Kathleen. Judge Scott then suggests to Mac that he take Paula away from John to save him from her. After buying an engagement ring for Paula, John finds Mac in her room. Hurt and angry, he vows not to trust anyone again and makes plans to leave town. Mac then confesses to being John's father. John demands that he leave him, and when Mac refuses, John hits him. Judge Scott mollifies John and tells him that Mac lost track of his wife after his father died and he had to leave her; he made every effort to find her, and has not really loved anyone else since. Feeling guilty about the way he acted, John goes to the construction site, but learns that Mac has fallen from the third floor. When Mac revives, John is there. He asks forgiveness and calls him "Dad," which Mac appreciates. Later, Mac listens over the radio to the ceremony honoring the opening of the skyscraper. His firm is now called McClellan and Son, and Kathleen, who is with him, calls him "Dad."