The Dictator on AllMovie

Although Wallace Reid stars in this picture (based on the comic opera by Richard Harding Davis), Walter Long just about steals the show. Brooke Travers (Reid) is the easygoing son of a banana merchant. He runs up a 60-dollar fare by playing stage-door Johnny up and down all the Broadway theaters, and cab driver Biff Dooley (Long) is determined that Travers will ante up. But Dooley's task proves to be more difficult than he first suspected when Travers follows pretty Juanita Rivas (Lila Lee) to her home country of San Manana, in South America. First off, the two men have to work for their passage on the boat; then when they arrive in San Manana, they find it in the midst of a revolution. Travers has to save Dooley from a firing squad and he helps put Juanita's father Carlos (Theodore Kosloff) into power. The grateful Rivas makes Travers, who marries Juanita, Minister of Finance. While trade paper Motion Picture News gave the film good marks, it notes that Reid "has lost some of his dash and spontaneity" -- an ominous statement considering that the star died from his addiction to drugs six months after its release.