by Hal Erickson
synopsis
Long before her "official" film debut in 1929's Charming Sinners, stage actress Laura Hope Crews -- best remembered as Aunt Pitty-Pat in Gone With the Wind -- starred in a handful of pre-1920 silent films. In Blackbirds, an incongruously glamorous Crews was cast as "international adventuress" Leonie Sobatsky, the head of an Algerian smuggling ring. Leonie falls in love with Nevil Trask (Thomas Meighan), never realizing that he is actually an American Secret Service Agent (for that matter, Nevil doesn't know that she's a crook). Upon rounding up the smugglers, Nevil puts Leonie under personal arrest, promising to let her off easy if she becomes his wife. Gee, almost like Real Life, isn't it?
