Moran of the Lady Letty

On the sailing vessel the Lady Letty, we meet Moran (Dorothy Dalton), a Norwegian tomboy, reared as a seaman, who wears pants and works the ship right alongside the men. In San Francisco on Nob Hill lives rich and handsome Ramon (Valentino), idol of the débutantes, who spends his time throwing house parties and sailing on yachts. One day he's late for one of his yacht parties and gets himself shanghaied by a ship full of sea-outlaws. Forced to become Second Mate on a voyage headed towards Mexico, Ramon seems to take a shine to being shipboard and changes rapidly from dandy to able-bodied seaman, and before you know it he's happily swabbing the decks and looking gorgeous in white sleeveless t-shirt. Meanwhile, sailing in the same waters is the Lady Letty which suddenly catches on fire, and the outlaws go aboard to loot it, coming back with nothing but rum and a "loco sailor" - actually Moran dressed as a boy, brought over by Ramon who tries to keep her hidden away from the evil Captain. Now Ramon seems to develop a crush on Moran, but this may not work out for him - see, she wishes she were born a boy!

This film is packed with lots of shipboard action, fights, etc. - a bit too much for my taste actually. There is also a plot element that seems a little odd to me and that is the fact that Ramon seems so happy being on the ship with bad men who kidnapped him and are committing crimes. I am also not sure I like the match between Valentino and the woman, I kind of like them better as just "mates". The mainly sepia-tinted print shown on TCM looked okay, a tiny bit washed-out here and there but pretty good as a whole, and featured an excellent music score that matched the action well. For me, Valentino is the main reason to see this - he looks stunningly handsome in all of his scenes - sigh! I like Dorothy Dalton too, well cast in her tomboy part. Worth seeing for the beauty of Valentino alone.

Rudolph Valentino's name would not for long be beneath another player's as it is in Moran Of The Lady Letty. Dorothy Dalton is first billed in this film which casts Rudy as a young playboy who gets Shanghaied aboard a modern day pirate ship skippered by Walter Long.

He's quite the pampered one Rudy is, but some experience with this crew and their evil skipper is enough to toughen anyone up. Later on sound successors to the Valentino image like Robert Taylor and Tyrone Power both of whom did sound remakes of Valentino roles were also deliberately given action material like this to broaden their appeal.

Even without sound Valentino's charisma comes through over 90 years after this film was released. Walter Long who played many a brutish, thuggish villainous role is at his best doing his thing in this film.

Moran Of The Lady Letty is a good introduction to the films of and the legend that was Rudolph Valentino.

"Ramon" (Rudolph Valentino) is a spoilt little rich boy, bored of his life of banal glittering soirées with glamorous wallflowers. Shortly after we meet him, though, he is praying for that peaceable life after he finds himself coming to on a freighter carrying coal. This cargo was notoriously risky as it was prone to catching fire and producing a lethal gas and when, dead on cue, this happens - the cowardly crew abandon the ship leaving him behind. Luckily (or not?) the ship is soon boarded by another crew which leaves him and his surviving shipmate "Moran" (Dorothy Dalton) at the mercy of the ruthless "Capt. Kitchell" (Walter Long) who's aptly nicknamed "Slippery"! What we now realise is that the tomboyish "Moran" isn't actually a boy at all and as if that's not enough to pack into this barely one hour long feature, there's some treasure to be claimed too. Tempers fray and "KItchell" and "Ramon" look set for a bit of fisticuffs. I quite enjoyed this adventure film, if only because it shows Valentino in a more assertive role and Long is really quite effective, too, as the nasty creature who quite plausibly epitomised many of those jobbing sea captains who had scant regard for the laws of salvage or men! Dalton also turns in a plucky contribution and though it's all a little predictable, there are still some entertainingly staged scenes to keep it from sinking.

Valentino does a quite creditable job of portraying a bored San Francisco society swell, whose life is turned upside down when he gets shanghaied by a villainous arms smuggler. His performance is refreshingly naturalistic (for a silent) as he discovers unexpected pleasure in his rough-and-tumble life as a smuggler -- at least, until the more sinister side of his captain's nature emerges. Walter Long makes a good heavy, and Dorothy Dalton is passable as the love interest.

What captivated me, though, were the locations: That harbor chock-full of tall ships, just at the end of the era of commercial viability for sail. And especially the two merchant ships on which most of the action takes place. When you see a sailing ship in a movie it's usually a replica of a warship from the 18th Century or earlier. I found those little details of actual workhorse merchant vessels from the late 1800s/early 1900s -- the zenith of commercial sailing -- fascinating.

For instance, there's a pretty authentic sequence in which the Lady Letty's cargo of coal spontaneously combusts -- a bad enough prospect when you're at sea, but much, much worse when you're at sea on something as inflammable as a ship constructed out of very dry wood. After the captain and a couple of men are overcome by fumes while trying to fight the fire, the remaining crew panics and abandons ship, leaving the captain's daughter behind, easy prey for vultures like Capt. "Slippery" Kitchell.

Whether you're a seafaring history buff or not, this is still an entertaining example of an action film from the heyday of the silents, and for my taste one of Rudolph Valentino's most watchable performances.

It's hard to know whether Dorothy Dalton was always a dud or if she simply hasn't worn well, but her appeal these days is not readily apparent. Since that's true of a number of ladies who once made multitudes salivate in the silents, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. Her acting's okay. Despite her top billing, it's absolutely Rudy's picture, and he's very good in it. He never looked better, and it's a nice, varied, physical part. Despite his exotic looks, and the fact that he's given a Latin background, this is still a nice-boy part. Wallace Reid could have played it.

As with so many silents, one of the main draws is the realness and thereness of the exteriors. No need to record sound, so they go on location to San Francisco, they shoot on water, and I wouldn't take anything for the scene in front of a small movie house, where you get a feel of what it was like to walk in. TCM showed it in an absolutely marvelous, digitally restored print.