It's always a pleasure to watch a nice tinted print of a silent picture, even a tatty effort like this one. Admittedly, it does have one redeeming quality in the agreeable performance rendered by Gladden James who bravely figures in the tables-turned climax.
Otherwise we are stuck with two of the wettest, dullest and least charismatic principals of all time. Instead of playing the lookout girl with appropriate spice and gusto, Miss Logan (who can look alluring when she wants to) has opted to play her as the matronly heroine of a Victorian melodrama who keeps her feelings under cover and does little else than pose enigmatically or strike attitudes of mental anguish. It amazes me that she was quite a popular star even in the days when exaggerated posturing was all the rage.
As the hero of this dime-novel saga, stiff-as-a-scarecrow Ian Keith only seems to do a little better because the camera doesn't focus on him so often.
And what a sorry excuse for a camera it is! It spends all but two location shots bolted to the studio floor. In fact, to describe Dallas Fitzgerald's direction as dreary, uninspired and deadly dull would be totally accurate, although it does come to life briefly at the climax. In all, if it were not for this brief spurt of climactic action and the presence of Mr James, "The Lookout Girl" would be a dead loss. Except for the tints.
Otherwise we are stuck with two of the wettest, dullest and least charismatic principals of all time. Instead of playing the lookout girl with appropriate spice and gusto, Miss Logan (who can look alluring when she wants to) has opted to play her as the matronly heroine of a Victorian melodrama who keeps her feelings under cover and does little else than pose enigmatically or strike attitudes of mental anguish. It amazes me that she was quite a popular star even in the days when exaggerated posturing was all the rage.
As the hero of this dime-novel saga, stiff-as-a-scarecrow Ian Keith only seems to do a little better because the camera doesn't focus on him so often.
And what a sorry excuse for a camera it is! It spends all but two location shots bolted to the studio floor. In fact, to describe Dallas Fitzgerald's direction as dreary, uninspired and deadly dull would be totally accurate, although it does come to life briefly at the climax. In all, if it were not for this brief spurt of climactic action and the presence of Mr James, "The Lookout Girl" would be a dead loss. Except for the tints.
