West/United Artists. Director Roland West; Producer Roland West; Screenplay Roland West, George Marion Jr; Camera Arthur Edeson; Art Director William Cameron Menzies
Tullio Carminati
Jewel Carmen
Louise Fazenda
Emily Fitzroy
Arthur Houseman
Jack Pickford
This picture runs 91 minutes - a long time for anybody's film, but it is interesting every minute of the way. The story is that its maker, Roland West, paid heavy money for the film rights to this long-run legit show [by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood].
The mystery concerns the death of a bank president, the theft of $200,000, the disappearance of the young cashier, and the mysterious criminal whose sign is the shadow of bat projected from the front of an electric flashlight. This mysterious criminal is behind a thousand suspicious actions but meantime, every member of the cast is suspected of having been the culprit.
An Italian actor named Tullio Carminati gives a performance as the detective that is one of the best things done by a newcomer to the screen. Everybody else is okay and Louise Fazenda draws her share of laughs with the hoke maid's part, while Eddie Gribbon is good for a giggle or so as the hick detective who knows not his intelligence from the lining of a coat pocket.
(B&W) Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1926. Running time: 91 MIN.
Contact Variety Staff at
news@variety.com