The Silver Screen Oasis

Thanks for dropping in here, Dan. Your posts are always a welcome site, perhaps even more so since you are one of the few individuals who enjoyed Stingaree as much as I did! Your choice of avatar is quite distinctive too.

Though I've seen many Dix movies, I've never seen Richard Dix's sports films, do you have any that you'd recommend? Thanks in advance for your opinion.

Thanks for having me, Moira; also for "the use of the hall." That 1927 Liberty cover is from my own collection, which probably numbers close to 500 issues now.

I have to confess, though, that I've seen little of Richard Dix prior to CIMARRON. His home studio, Paramount, has still not released any of his silent films. One notable exception is THE VANISHING AMERICAN (1925), based on the Zane Grey novel, in which Dix plays a Native American coming to grips with the white man's ways. He gives a great performance, and the cinematography (shot in Monument Valley about 14 years before John Ford discovered it) is breathtaking. That and SOULS FOR SALE are the only Dix silents I've seen.

Interestingly enough, I've read an article in a 1926 issue of Liberty entitled "Who Will The Next Great Lover Be?" in which film critic Frederick James Smith speculates on who will fill the late Valentino's shoes. He named Dix among several others (Ronald Colman, Ramon Novarro, and John Gilbert). citing his youthful appeal and success in the recent film THE QUARTERBACK. But what Dix had will not be apparent to us moderns until we can see more of his silent and early sound films.

I must add myself to the list of people who've enjoyed "Stingaree". I too took this film as kind of parody and, in a way, a sort of predecessor of some the the MacDonald-Eddy films (like "Naughty Marietta").

In more than one way "Stingaree" reminded me of the the little-known musical comedy "The Gay Desperado", a wonderfully funny parody set in the Mexican Border with Nino Martini, Ida Lupino and Leo Carrillo, directed by the masterful Rouben Mamoulian, although the latter is superior IMO.