Moran of the Lady Letty | |
---|---|
Directed by | George Melford |
Written by | Monte Katterjohn (adaptation) |
Based on | Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris |
Produced by | Adolph Zukor Jesse Lasky |
Starring | Dorothy Dalton Rudolph Valentino |
Cinematography | William Marshall |
Music by | Robert Israel (2006 version) |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 68 mins. (2006 alternate version) |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
Moran of the Lady Letty is a 1922 American silent adventure drama film directed by George Melford and stars Rudolph Valentino and Dorothy Dalton. Melford and Valentino had previously worked together on the box office hit The Sheik , in 1921. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Frank Norris and was adapted for the screen by Monte Katterjohn. [1]
The opening scenes are set in Scandinavia, where a ship's captain and his daughter, Moran, are introduced. Moran, it is clear, adores her father. She has grown up on and around ships and can handle herself on the water as well as any man.
Then scene then shifts to San Francisco, where a young socialite, Ramon Laredo, complains that he is tired of the same tiresome round of parties and dances. He wishes he could get away from it all. While on his way to a yachting party, he meets up with an old sailor. After talking, they repair to a saloon, where Ramon is served a Mickey Finn. After passing out, he is shanghaied aboard a nefarious pirating ship, the "Heart of China," run by Captain Kitchell, a man without principles. Though initially dismissed as a pampered weakling by the crew and captain, Ramon proves his manhood and gradually gains everyone's respect.
A Scandinavian ship in distress is spotted off the bow; the pirate crew quickly move in to loot the burning ship. Most of the crew, they discover, is dead, victims of leaking coal gas. Ramon rescues one sailor, whom he carries back to the pirate ship, only to discover that "he" is a "she." It is Moran, of course, whose father has perished aboard the burning ship. Efforts to hide her identify are futile; when Captain Kitchell discovers a female is on board, it is clear that the woman's virginity is endangered. Ramon, however, is determined to protect her. Gradually, Ramon and Moran fall in love, though Moran insists at first that she has no interest in romance—she should have been born a boy, she says. After a lively battle on board the ship—crew vs. captain and his henchmen—the ship reaches the port in San Diego.
Disembarking, Ramon finds himself at a high-society party attended by vacationing San Franciscans. They are delighted to see him and urge him to rejoin their company. But Ramon makes it clear that his experience of recent months has changed him, has made him a better man. Confidently, happily, he returns to the ship and to Moran's waiting arms.
On the heels of The Four Horsemen and The Sheik , Moran was another vehicle to portray a strong, masculine character, here a San Francisco playboy who is transformed into a "masculine, sun-burned sailor". In the climax of the movie, Valentino fights the villain (played by Walter Long, whom Valentino had earlier dealt with in The Sheik) in the ship's rigging. [2] Though the female love interest, Moran, tells him initially that she is "not made for men", they do kiss in a happy ending. [3] As did Laredo, so does Moran's character change—from an independent, sexually ambiguous person to a "more feminine, definitely heterosexual woman at peace with her estrogen". The choice of Dorothy Dalton was criticized in a review in Variety . [2] The film was described in April 1922's edition of Photoplay as "More or less pure hoakum that you’re almost ashamed of yourself for enjoying. Whether it is the presence of two sparklers such as Valentino and Dorothy Dalton, or whether it is the original power of the Frank Norris novel, we don’t know; but it’s good strong entertainment. Sea stuff; fights; love. Rodolph as usual; Dorothy with bobbed hair—yum yum!. You’re bound to like it." [4]
Parts of the film were shot on location in San Francisco. [1]
Moran of the Lady Letty was released on DVD by Flicker Alley in 2007. [5]
Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguella, known professionally as Rudolph Valentino and nicknamed The Latin Lover, was an Italian actor based in the United States who starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,The Sheik,Blood and Sand,The Eagle, and The Son of the Sheik.
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is a 1925 American silent epic adventure-drama film directed by Fred Niblo and written by June Mathis based on the 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by General Lew Wallace. Starring Ramon Novarro as the title character, the film is the first feature-length adaptation of the novel and second overall, following the 1907 short.
The Sheik is a 1921 American silent romantic drama film produced by Famous Players–Lasky, directed by George Melford, starring Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayres, and featuring Adolphe Menjou. It was based on the bestselling 1919 romance novel of the same name by Edith Maude Hull and was adapted for the screen by Monte M. Katterjohn. The film was a box-office hit and helped propel Valentino to stardom.
Blood and Sand is a 1922 American silent drama film produced by Paramount Pictures, directed by Fred Niblo and starring Rudolph Valentino, Lila Lee, and Nita Naldi. It was based on the 1908 Spanish novel Sangre y arena by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez and the play Blood and Sand by Thomas Cushing which was adapted from Ibáñez's novel.
The Eagle is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by Clarence Brown and starring Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Bánky, and Louise Dresser. Based on the posthumously published 1841 novel Dubrovsky by Alexander Pushkin, the film is about a lieutenant in the Russian army who catches the eye of Czarina Catherine II. After he rejects her advances and flees, she puts out a warrant for his arrest, dead or alive. When he learns that his father has been persecuted and killed, he dons a black mask and becomes an outlaw. Black Eagle does not exist in the novel and was inspired by the performance of Douglas Fairbanks as Zorro in The Mark of Zorro.
George O'Brien was an American actor, popular during the silent film era and into the sound film era of the 1930s. He is best known today as the lead actor in F. W. Murnau's 1927 film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and subsequent appearances in a number of Westerns in the 1930s and 1940s.
George H. Melford was an American stage and film actor and director. Often taken for granted as a director today, the stalwart Melford's name by the 1920s was, like Cecil B. DeMille's, appearing in big bold letters above the title of his films.
The Young Rajah is a 1922 silent film starring Rudolph Valentino. The film was based on the book Amos Judd by John Ames Mitchell.
The Conquering Power (1921) is an American silent romantic drama directed by Rex Ingram and starring Rudolph Valentino, Alice Terry, and Ralph Lewis. The film was based on the 1833 novel Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac. Its sets were designed by Ralph Barton.
Grace Darmond was a Canadian-American actress.
Dorothy Dalton was an American silent film actress and stage personality who worked her way from a stock company to a movie career. Beginning in 1910, Dalton was a player in stock companies in Chicago; Terre Haute, Indiana; and Holyoke, Massachusetts. She joined the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation vaudeville circuits. By 1914 she was working in Hollywood.
James Cornelius Kirkwood Sr. was an American actor and director.
Francis Charles Moran was an American boxer and film actor who fought twice for the Heavyweight Championship of the World, and appeared in over 135 movies in a 25-year film career.
A Sainted Devil is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by Joseph Henabery and starring Rudolph Valentino. The film was produced by Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky.
Mitchell Lewis was an American film actor whose career as a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player encompassed both silent and sound films.
Richard William Dorgan was an American cartoonist, writer, and illustrator. His first known published work appeared in The New York Call in 1913. A wide variety of his early work was published in The Broadside: A Journal for the Naval Reserve Force, 1918–1920.
The Brigand is a 1952 American adventure romance film directed by Phil Karlson and starring Anthony Dexter, Jody Lawrance and Anthony Quinn.
William C. Marshall was an Ottoman Empire-born American cinematographer. His career began in 1916 and ended in 1930. He served as cinematographer on the starring vehicles for such stars as Annette Kellerman, Marguerite Clark, Billie Burke, Elsie Ferguson, Wallace Reid, Rudolph Valentino, and Clara Bow. He died in Los Angeles in 1943 at age 58.
Photoplay Productions is an independent film company, based in the UK, under the direction of Kevin Brownlow and Patrick Stanbury. Is one of the few independent companies to operate in the revival of interest in the lost world of silent cinema and has been recognised as a driving force in the subject.
The Homebreaker is a 1919 American silent comedy film directed by Victor Schertzinger and written by John Lynch and R. Cecil Smith. The film stars Dorothy Dalton, Douglas MacLean, Edwin Stevens, Frank Leigh, Beverly Travis, and Nora Johnson. The film was released on April 20, 1919 by Paramount Pictures. It is presumed to be a lost film.