The story goes that the career of Mary Miles Minter ended when director William Desmond Taylor was found murdered. While she was never a serious suspect, there were hints that she was having an affair with him (purely gossip -- he treated her more like a daughter than anything else), and this spoiled her pristine, little-girl reputation. If the trade papers of the day are to be believed, Minter -- who was near the end of her contract with Paramount -- still had an audience a year after Taylor's death, when this adventure drama was released. "Miss Minter is well known and has many followers," Motion Picture News reminded exhibitors. The truth is that Minter no longer wanted to act and, in fact, was not really that good at it -- "Mary Miles Minter [is] seldom convincing in emotional roles," noted The Film Daily. Unfortunately, this role required the emotional acting of a Pauline Frederick, and Minter was totally out of her league.
by Janiss Garza
review
