I wanted to but couldn't!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

Short-staffed comedies of manners – there are only four main characters in this one – are generally rather boring unless the writers have come up with some delightfully incongruous situations and a fair amount of witty dialogue (or sub-titles). Alas, this entry is especially slow. True, at first the situations seem promising, but not a great deal is made of them. The direction by Sidney Franklin – who is usually quite stylish – is especially bland and the acting leaves much to be desired. Ronald Colman is stiff as a board and the heroine, Constance Talmadge, is obviously under the impression that the constant poking and holding of two or three "funny" faces is all the role needs to liven it up. In this movie, she shows little charisma for a major star and relies almost entirely on close-ups in which she regales us with one of two expressions: wide-eyed or sulky. Other players are equally dull, the direction lacks pace – some shots are held far too long – and production values seem minimal. Available on a good Kino DVD.

This silent comedy stars Constance Talmadge (Dorothy Adams) and Ronald Colman (Paul Menford). It begins with a rich American and his daughter, Dorothy, arriving in Britain. The father is naturally wary of fortune hunters hitting on his daughter and one of them is Paul Menford. However, Menford is so smitten by Dorothy that he soon abandons any desire for her fortune--he wants her. Well, the guy's father (Jean Hersholt) has no such qualms and arranges to sell the family manor to the Americans. This way, he figures, they make money from the sale AND Paul will get it anyway once he marries Dorothy! What follows are some misunderstandings and a nice finale- -but what exactly happens is something you'll just have to see for yourself.The reason I liked this film is that it's a nice combination of romance and humor. It's never a laugh out loud sort of picture-- more just enjoyable and sweet. Worth your time--and with a dandy finale.

The story and the script are terribly weak, to the point where it is hard to understand the motivations of any of the characters. Lord Paul Menford (Ronald Colman) is an upper class twit who apparently does not know how to do anything except look handsome, and as a result he is now on the verge of losing his estate. Fortune falls into his arms in the form of heiress Dorothy Adams (Constance Talmadge) who is instantly smitten. Lord Menford manages to meet Dorothy again by a simple and miraculously unnoticed deception and the romance is off and running. At each difficulty in this twisted plot, Lord Menford's first instinct is to lie and hope for the best, but of course this only complicates matters. In the one critical scene where he actually is innocent, he is strangely silent, and so what follows is the favorite device of script writers everywhere: the misunderstanding that isn't explained and that drives the rest of the plot. Somehow through all of this, Dorothy still loves the cad, and even the Dad is smitten. Well, love prevails in the end, but you already knew that, as did everyone who watched this thing in 1924. But I had to check "spoiler alert" anyway to be legal. As for redeeming qualities, well it is old and as Noah Cross would say, anything gets respectable if it gets old enough. Ronald Coleman does a fine job in the role he is given, Constance Talmadge seems to overact terribly, but this is the style of the silent era. And everyone dresses really well.

Bulldog Drummond meets The Mountain GirlWednesday July 28, 7:30pm, The Colorado Chautauqua Auditorium, Boulder"What do you think of my pulse?"An American businessman, Samuel Adams "The Scrub Brush King" and his frightened mouse of a daughter, Dorothy (Constance Talmadge) travel to England for her health and buy the estate of penniless lord, Paul Menford (Ronald Coleman). Boy meets girl, light-hearted deception and silliness ensues and mighty whoppers from tiny fibs do grow!Produced by Joseph M. Schenck (husband of Norma Talmadge) and directed by Sidney Franklin for First National Pictures, Her Night of Romance is a farcical bon-bon that starts with a little-white-lie (Paul masquerades as a doctor to see Dorothy) and spirals upward with everyone caught in the absurd, far-fetched shenanigans until the entire village believes they are married. A first-rate supporting cast features Jean Hersholt as Paul's business cohort and Sydney Bracey as the butler. The dean of Hollywood art direction, William Cameron Menzies, throws in everything but the kitchen sink for the hilarious and beautifully conceived finale.