AllMovie

Had it not been for the casting of John David Horsley in the male lead, The Flaming Signal might have been a contender, albeit a minor one. As it is, Horsley's wooden acting nearly capsizes this little melodrama and there is not much that Noah Beery, at his most delightfully despicable, can do to stabilize things. In the non-human starring role, Flash does what all those movie canines used to do and is neither better nor worse than his predecessors. Meanwhile, Mischa Auer, as the colorful high priest, is surprisingly restrained, and former silent starlet Marceline Day is as beautiful as always, but Horsley, in his only major screen role, keeps getting in the way of things, and The Flaming Signal ultimately becomes tedious.