Watch Moran of the Lady Letty For Free

Good concept, poorly executed.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Moran of the Lady Letty (1922) is fine for those who need their Valentino fix, but as a film on its own, it's rather pedestrian entertainment.George Melford's direction is firmly stuck in the early 1910s style and lacks any sort of style or pace, much like his work with Valentino in The Sheik (1921). Fortunately, the action and comedy in the story is enough to keep the movie afloat. Being a Valentino vehicle, there is also romance, but, just as it was in The Sheik, he and his leading lady have nil chemistry and seem more like best buddies than potential lovers.Unfortunately, this film manages to stuff more racist stereotypes in its running time than even The Sheik. We have a submissive Chinese cook who stoops and speaks in broken English, and uncleanly Mexican bandits out to loot and rape. While this is a product of the times, that does not make it any less uncomfortable to watch.If you are a Valentino completionist, then you'll enjoy it to a degree, but anyone else will likely be underwhelmed.

Spoilers below, mateys.Finally, an early silent that held my interest! Stars Rudolf Valentino and Dorothy Dalton in a swashbuckler complete with pirates and shanghai-ed sailors. Valentino made this one after his biggie, The Sheik. (He made four that year...busy guy.) Some interesting early photos of San Francisco... the title card accompanied by a photo of the harbor entrance, known as "the golden gate", 15 years before there was a bridge across it. They also showed the turntable at the end of the SF cable-car line. Some early gender-bending here - they call the rich playboy "Lillee of the Vallee", and the captain's daughter is quite mannish, and has no interest or use for men. The title card actually says "I never could care for a man... I'm not made for men. I ought to have been born a boy." The use of different color tints was a little distracting... when Moran is fighting off the evil pirate near the end, they switch back & forth between the blue and yellow tints. Also, the director frequently uses a close-up camera circle pinpoint to point out something. Probably since the medium was so new, he wasn't sure if the audience would catch what he wanted them to see. Good, steady plot. The set up, the adventures, and we see the conflicts get resolved so they can live happily ever after.Directed by George Melford, who had started out making shorts in the the early days of the film biz. Turner Classics is showing the 2006 restored version. I can seldom stand silents, as the plots are usually too simple for my taste, but this one was pretty good. If you appreciate the history of the film business, this one would be a good one to watch.

Moran of the Lady Letty (1922) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Somewhat entertaining silent melodrama from director George Melford who went on to do the Spanish version of Dracula. A rich playboy (Rudolph Valentino) is liquored up and kidnapped onto a rough shipping boat with a no nonsense captain (Walter Long). The two feued at first but they quickly become friends until they rescue a woman (Dorothy Dalton) at sea and the captain has rather mean plans including rape. This was my first film with Valentino and after hearing so much about his legendary looks, I must say I didn't get much of a romantic feel so at first I'm a little puzzled over his reputation as a ladies man. Perhaps he just didn't have any chemistry with the leading lady who really wasn't all that interesting here. The film runs a short 71-minutes and includes a wonderful, action filled fight but outside of this everything is rather bland. The film is certainly watchable and entertaining but nothing much comes out of it. Long is certainly the scene stealing and you might remember him from some later day Laurel and Hardy films as well as playing the rapist, in blackface, in The Birth of a Nation. On another note, it's quite clear that several scenes here influenced the much better Captains Courageous.

A fast paced seafaring tale featuring Rudolph Valentino as Ramon Laredo, a bored socialite who finds his manhood and a sense of purpose only after being shanghaied. Initially he is such a coddled dude that he drinks something called a "Mild Manhattan", but soon after being forced to serve as a deckhand he transforms into an extremely capable sailor( looking quite contemporary in jeans and a dark pullover) and earns the respect of the rugged crewmen who once dismissed him as a "soft thing." Eventually his path crosses with that of Letty Moran (Dorothy Dalton), a tomboyish captain's daughter. The two actually met briefly before, on land, where she was as almost as contemptuous of the city slicker in his yachting outfit as the crewmen once were. However, although she is initially as tough as Ramon is effete, the situation reverses itself once Ramon rescues her from her father's ship whose hold has caught fire. Although Ramon is impressed by her strength of body and purpose, Letty, in tandem with Ramon's growing masculinity, becomes more and more womanly as the film progresses, allowing herself to be assisted out of boats (perhaps not so much because she's suddenly helpless as that she's glad someone is finally recognizing her as female) and becoming clothes conscious enough to replace her trousers with a dress, albeit a rather plain and no-nonsense one. (In contrast, Ramon indifferently allows his swanky white bell bottoms to become muddier and muddier.) These character changes culminate when Ramon saves Letty from his nemesis Captain Kitchell, played by Walter Long (who costarred in The Sheik and once again plays a character with unsavoury designs on Rudy's woman).Entertaining, but in retrospect a bit depressing in that the ridicule Ramon undergoes as a ballroom dancing, tea sipping dandy mirrors all too closely the vicious powder puff slurs the real life Valentino tried to refute practically until the end of his short life.