The Night Bird

"The Night Bird" (1928) is "Cinderella" all over again, only this time the 'fairy-godmother' is a boxer named Reginald Denny. 'Cinderella' is an Italian immigrant ward, Betsy Lee, of a really horrific immigrant himself, Michael Visaroff, in a part of a whip bearing and whip-using authoritarian bully who beats Lee till the whip marks show on her arms. Sam Hardy plays Reginald Denny's manager. To cool off, Denny in a tiff takes off to Central Park, and there he sees a young girl, Lee, sitting on a park bench, seemingly beaten, now a runaway, and hungry and lonely and tired. They strike up a conversation. Next thing you know, Denny has taken her to where he's staying with his manager, Hardy. Now things heat up. For a great deal of this romantic comedy we see Denny convince Hardy that Lee should stay; we see incidents where they have to hide the girl from others in the room (this was 1928 afterall)...we see Denny and Lee falling for each other as if a ton of bricks had fallen on both of them together... Next, we see Denny no longer enthusiastic about training; he's pining for Lee... Next, we see Denny fighting the championship fight and getting his brains beat out... Next we see Denny finding out that Visaroff is beating Lee senseless after she had gone back to her home for reasons I'll leave out so you can go watch...

Betsy Lee is a very fine comedienne on screen. She made a total of one film. This one. Why? Well, she married Reginald Denny after making this film. They remained married for 38½ years and had three children. Denny died in 1964 at the age of 75, but Lee lived till 1996 and died at 88½.

The film is absolute nonsense. Absolute! Yet, this is one film you'll sit and watch just because... "Meester, you canna stopa watching-a; you canna, Meester!" A wonderful little late silent comedy that I found through Sinister Cinema.

Harvey Clark, Corliss Palmer, Joselyn Lee, Alphonse Martell, and a few others fill out the cast. Look for Dwight Frye in his first film at a party near the end.

Reginald Denny first came to the attention of the movies in the 'Leather Pushers' series of shorts about a young boxer and his associates and this story of a young boxer who is comically corrupted by New York night life and a young woman down on her luck is handled in a very amusing and telling manner by director Fred Newmeyer. Newmeyer had been a director on the Roach lot, part of Harold Lloyd's crew and knew how to direct a silent comedy with a real story at its heart.

With the coming of sound, Denny would be revealed not as an American, but someone with a good English accent, and he would specialize for the rest of his career in upper-class twits, in roles like 'Algie' in the Bulldog Dummonds series. His career would extend into the 1960s, with a lovely turn in CAT BALLOU. But he is particularly good as the lead in this movie and you should not miss a chance to see it.