The Phantom of the Forest

Another well-preserved, tinted feature now available on DVD is "The Phantom of the Forest" (1926), one of ten silents directed by a gent named Henry McCarty (or McCarthy), who is chiefly remembered today (if at all) as one of the four writers associated with Jimmy Cagney's temper-tantrum fling with Poverty Bow in "Great Guy" (1936). This movie, however, stars a dog. Yes, Rin-Tin-Tin bred many imitators and Thunder (who was not a bad-looking mutt, even if his acting lacks Rinty's charisma) and White Dawn were two of the lesser breed. The humans are not all that much chop either. Jim Mason walks away with the limited acting honors as the villain. But don't go away yet. This movie is one of the 166 (!) beautifully photographed by Ray June. And for once you can really appreciate the overwhelming bewitchment of his entrancing locations (among California's giant Redwoods in this case) in this really out-of-the-box 9/10 DVD. Irene Morra's superb film editing also deserves special mention.

With the success of Rin-Tin-Tin over at Warner Brothers, a bunch of other producers tried to get into the Dog Star act: after all, when your lead actor will work for Kibble, how much do you need to pay the others? While this is a reasonably entertaining example of the genre -- Thunder the Dog falls out of the truck on his way to his new owner and becomes King of the Forest, until he is united with .... well, it doesn't matter too much -- the primary interest for me is the excellent Ray June photography of this movie, particularly the long shots of the forest, which are quite lovely. Also of interest is the way he irises down several two-shots among the two-legged actors, using a combination of masking, fish-eyed lens and foliage. If this one is worth looking at, it is because of June's camera-work.