The Mating Call (film)

Infobox Film | name = The Mating Call
director = James Cruze
producer = Howard Hughes (uncredited)
writer = Novel:
Rex Beach
Adaptation:
Walter Woods
Titles:
Herman J. Mankiewicz
starring = Thomas Meighan
Evelyn Brent
Renée Adorée
Alan Roscoe
Gardner James
Helen Foster
Luke Cosgrave
Cyril Chadwick
music = Frances Ring
Martin Roones
Robert Israel (2004)
cinematography = Ira H. Morgan
editing = Walter Woods (uncredited)
distributor = Paramount Pictures
released = July 21, 1928
runtime = 72 min (2004 alternate version)
country = USA
language = Silent film
English intertitles
imdb_id = 0019152

"The Mating Call" (1928) is a silent movie about a WWI vet who takes on the Ku Klux Klan when he loses his wife to a womanizing Klansman. The film was produced by Howard Hughes for his Caddo Corporation, and was originally released by Paramount Pictures. In 2006, the film was restored and re-released by Turner Classic Movies in partnership with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, along with two other Hughes-produced films "Two Arabian Knights" (1927) and "The Racket" (1928).

ynopsis

After the Armistice, Leslie Hatton, a Florida farmer, returns home to discover that his wife, Rose, has had their marriage annulled in order to marry wealthy Lon Henderson. Leslie returns to farming for solace, and Rose, quickly disillusioned by Henderson's infidelity, again offers herself to Leslie. He wants no part of her, however, and goes instead to Ellis Island, where he persuades Catherine, an aristocratic Russian immigrant, to marry him in return for a home in the United States. Jessie Peebles, a young girl disillusioned by an affair with Henderson, drowns herself in a pond on Leslie's farm, and Henderson, head of the local Ku Klux Klan, orders Leslie tried before a Klan tribunal. Leslie is found not guilty when letters are produced that link Henderson with the dead girl. Leslie's ordeal has had a good side, however, for he and Catherine have realized that what was to have been a marriage of convenience has become a marriage of love.

Background

Although the story takes place immediately after World War I (1918-1919), all of Evelyn Brent's and Helen Foster's clothes are strictly in the 1928 short skirt mode, completely out of place in the time frame of the story.

Adorée received positive reviews for her performance in "The Mating Call", even though it differed little from the wide-eyed "Euro-damsels" that were her trademark.

This film long thought to be lost, was discovered in the archives of Howard Hughes memorabilia, by the curators of University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

References

* [http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/title.jsp?stid=498285&atid=1578&category=Articles&titleName=The%20Mating%20Call&menuName=MAIN Article on "The Mating Call" at TCM Movie Database]

External links

*imdb title|id=0019152|name=The Mating Call
*tcmdb name|id=498285|name=The Mating Call