Saias à Proa

If, like me, you've always been eager to see a silent version of an early talkie, your curiosity will be well satisfied with Dames Ahoy (1930). As was the practice at the time, a silent version was edited from the sound footage for theaters not yet so equipped. Unfortunately, the sound version doesn't seem to have survived.

The absence of a sound track is very obvious in such long sequences as the dance contest. We would love to have heard the original band rather than a tinny piano. Also, robbed of their voices, the players don't exactly shine when forced to carry the film for 51 minutes. A top-flight support cast too, including Otis Harlan, Eddie Gribbon, Gertrude Astor, Walter Brennan, Edmund Cobb and Andy Devine. Plus lovely heroine Helen Wright in the first of her only two films. Static direction doesn't help either, although in the sound version this would have been disguised by the patently very enthusiastic players.