The Ne'er-Do-Well

The main attraction to the rarely (if ever) shown early silent feature is its age. After well more than three quarters of a century, it opens a dusty window to some distant (but still familiar) attitudes, especially regarding Central America, where the dispossessed heir of the film's title ("Kirk Anthony: football coach and man about town") ends up after an unfortunate encounter with a crafty thief. At ten reels the film was extraordinarily long for its day, with most of its running time spent in a complicated romance between our plucky hero and the influential, freethinking wife of a U.S. diplomat. In between the melodramatic plot twists are more than one revealing glimpse of the young American Empire throwing its weight around a typically backward banana republic, reaching a climax of sorts when Kirk is saved from unjust accusations of murder by his billionaire Yankee father, who threatens the country with economic reprisals! All of which helps make it a fascinating if undistinguished relic, with travelogue glimpses of the Panama Canal, still under construction when the film was made.