THE PONY EXPRESS – Betty Compson, Ricardo Cortez
The Pony Express (1925)
Direction: James Cruze
Screenplay: Walter Woods; from Woods and Henry James Forman’s story
Cast: Betty Compson, Ricardo Cortez, George Bancroft, Ernest Torrence, Wallace Beery, Al Hart
The Pony Express is a rousing James Cruze Western depicting the founding of the Pony Express with a backdrop of political ambitions concerning a senator’s plans to get California to secede from the United States so he can build his own empire.
A great cast and Cruze’s direction keep this one interesting — even though Ricardo Cortez in a period film seems woefully out of place and pretty Betty Compson’s role is more or less that of an ingenue, merely requiring her to look good while reacting to the things going [...]
by Andre Soares | November 2, 2009
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Tags: Betty Compson, Cinesation 2009, Classic Movies, Ernest Torrence, Film Reviews, George Bancroft, James Cruze, Ricardo Cortez, Silent Films, The Pony Express, Wallace Beery
SCARLET SEAS and Richard Barthelmess at Vitaphone Varieties
"As you may have guessed by now, Scarlet Seas is a lost film — a double loss really, as it not only seems to have been an absolute corker of a film that would boast the best of both worlds of silent and sound cinema, but it’s also probably a film that [Richard] Barthelmess would have much wanted to survive long past his career and life. Given that Richard Barthelmess died in 1963, it’s disturbing to realize that chances are that as he was entering his final decade of life, the film elements for Scarlet Seas were busily destroying themselves, aided by neglect and profound lack of interest from the company that owned it."
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That’s Jeff Cohen in Vitaphone Varieties, in [...]
by Andre Soares | December 8, 2006
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Tags: Betty Compson, Classic Movies, John Francis Dillon, Richard Barthelmess, Scarlet Seas, Silent Films, Vitaphone Varieties
