The Little Pirate

Frank Brownwell sulks immobilely because he is in a business bind, so he asks wife Gretchen Lederer to use some bonds left in trust for their daughter, Zoe Rae as security. She says that if they were hers, he could have them, but as they aren't, no, which makes Brownlee sulk immobilely. Then she overhears Brownwell's financial advisor say that given the need, he should just take them. Miss Lederer asks her old friend Charles West to take the bonds from the bank. Later she changes her mind, but on hearing West has them, Brownlee decides they are having an affair, and sulks immobilely. So Miss Lederer goes to stay with her aunt. On reading the note she left him, Brownlee sulks, but moves his head slightly.

Meanwhile, Mistress Rae forges a letter from her father to her mother, goes to mail it, and meets Burwell Hamrick, who's playing pirate, and promptly forgets everything. Also the bonds disappear. Also, Brownlee sulks.

All fans of very old movies are pleased when a rarity like this shows up, but looking at it is not such a pleasure. The direction of the adults by Elsie Jane Wilson is rather monotonous, and Mistress Rae seems to wear a great deal of mascara for a seven-year-old. While I am usually delighted by David Drazin's scores, his extensive and quite appropriate quoting from THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE was distracting.

Sometimes it's good to remember that just because a movie is old, it is not a classic. While it's nice to have this early kiddie movie available again, it makes me wish that other, better movies of the period were available, ones, perhaps, in which Mr. Brownlee sulks a little less, and in which the overly cute behavior of well-paid child actors (Mistress Rae was getting $100 a week from Universal) did not show off their eyelash extensions so much.