User reviews

Walter Byron has a rough last final night in Nice. His companion, Wellington Briggs, freshly rich from South Africa, insists on a night in low dives, where he is promptly shot and robbed. Byron hightails it back to his hotel, where he asks the advice of Bertram Burleigh, who tells him to catch the boat to England. He also spots a signed picture of Vesta Sylva, but can get no information from Burleigh before he catches that boat. In England, he spends a lot of time with his cousin, Juliette Compton, who wants him as more than a cousin, but he seems unaware of it. Miss Compton is backing a show of Wyndham Standing, who has just taken Miss Sylva out of the chorus to be his co-star. He tries to make love to her, but she resists his oily charms. Instead, she and Byron fall in love. This suits neither Standing nor Miss Compton, who convince him that the picture Burleigh had of her indicates they were lovers; the titles already have informed the audience they are sister and brother.

It's a shabbily written movie. Briggs' murder is never mentioned after Byron leaves Nice, a subplot involving Miss Sylva's uncaring father never goes anywhere and similar dead ends show up in the plot. Visually it has some nice scenes of boating of the Thames, and the scenes backstage are nicely handled. The latter is probably due to the director, Thomas Bentley. His stage act consisted of imitations of Dickensian characters, and he entered the movies in 1914 to handle similar subjects. Like many, his transition to talkies was rocky, and he found himself in the quota quickies. His last movie as director was an Old Mother Riley in 1941. He died in 1966, aged 82.