The Last Edition

Yet another US silent film discovered in Europe, the Netherlands to be exact. Painstaking restoration by EYE and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. Lots of credit to go around, I'd particularly like to acknowledge Rob Byrnes, the president of SFSFF, a scholar, collector and all around good guy whose devotion to silent film is evident in this restoration.

This print is very nice and the film is worth watching. These mostly forgotten actors turn in a good performance and the inadvertent documentary of the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles in the 1920s make for an interesting film even though the story-line is a little far fetched. Worth a look, for sure.

Ralph Lewis is disappointed not to get the top spot in the printing room of the paper he works on; that goes to 'new blood' Tom O'Brien. But he's pleased when his son, newly minted lawyer Ray Hallor goes to work in the District Attorney's office. Then corrupt ADA Cuyler Supplee frames Hallor with a pay-off from the rum runners.

There is some nice location shooting in San Francisco, not only the setting shots, but the alleys, a plating sequence, and a well-shot fire amidst all the chazzerai of the denouement. It's a movie in which the movie-goer has seen all the elements before, but it's put together very well.

Lewis is well cast in the lead role. Alas, it was pretty much a peak in a movie career that began in 1912. In sounds, he was reduced to secondary roles in B westerns, and walk-ons in A pictures... but the directors remembered him and kept him working. He died in a road accident in 1937 at the age of 65.