Captain January (1924)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Lighthouse keeper Jeremiah Judkins (Hobart Bosworth) has one friend in this world and it's a young girl known as Captain January (Baby Peggy). He found her as a baby when she washed up from a ship wreckage but five years later he's afraid he's going to lose her when her aunt and uncle come looking for her. CAPTAIN January was quite a story when it was released as the young Baby Peggy had just been signed to an unheard of $1.5 million deal. Baby Peggy's main rival in this era was Jackie Coogan and it's easy to see why since this here is basically just a reworked version of Charles Chaplin's THE KID. In both films, a young child is left with someone who really loves them but the drama kicks in when an outsider comes to break that love apart. This film here goes overboard in the cute department as there are way too many scenes that are meant to show you that Baby Peggy is cute. We get it, she is cute. The film runs less than a hour but very little actually happens because so much of the running time has "cute" title cards telling us how cute the child is. Still, fans of silent films will still want to check this out for a couple reasons. The biggest are the performances as both Baby Peggy and Bosworth are extremely good in their parts. Another reason to check it out is just for the curious wanting to see THE KID reworked. CAPTAIN January isn't a masterpiece but it's certainly not a horrid film either and with so few Baby Peggy movies surviving, this here is certainly worth watching.
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Lighthouse keeper Jeremiah Judkins (Hobart Bosworth) has one friend in this world and it's a young girl known as Captain January (Baby Peggy). He found her as a baby when she washed up from a ship wreckage but five years later he's afraid he's going to lose her when her aunt and uncle come looking for her. CAPTAIN January was quite a story when it was released as the young Baby Peggy had just been signed to an unheard of $1.5 million deal. Baby Peggy's main rival in this era was Jackie Coogan and it's easy to see why since this here is basically just a reworked version of Charles Chaplin's THE KID. In both films, a young child is left with someone who really loves them but the drama kicks in when an outsider comes to break that love apart. This film here goes overboard in the cute department as there are way too many scenes that are meant to show you that Baby Peggy is cute. We get it, she is cute. The film runs less than a hour but very little actually happens because so much of the running time has "cute" title cards telling us how cute the child is. Still, fans of silent films will still want to check this out for a couple reasons. The biggest are the performances as both Baby Peggy and Bosworth are extremely good in their parts. Another reason to check it out is just for the curious wanting to see THE KID reworked. CAPTAIN January isn't a masterpiece but it's certainly not a horrid film either and with so few Baby Peggy movies surviving, this here is certainly worth watching.