Captain January (1924)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Edward F. Cline

Writers:

John Grey (writer)
Laura E. Richard (novel)

Release Date:

6 July 1924 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A lighthouse keeper finds a little girl who is washed ashore tied to some wreckage. He adopts her and they become inseparable. Eventually her real family finds her and tries to take her away. |

Plot Keywords:

Lighthouse | Melodrama | Orphan | Based On Novel | Character Name In Title

Cast

Hobart Bosworth	...	Jeremiah Judkins
Baby Peggy	...	Capt. January
Irene Rich	...	Isabelle Morton
Lincoln Stedman	...	Bob Pete
Harry T. Morey	...	George Maxwell
Barbara Tennant	...	Lucy Tripp
John Merkyl	...	Herbert Morton
Emmett King	...	John Elliott

Runtime:

64 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Filming Locations:

Laguna Beach, California, USA

Company:

Sol Lesser Productions

Movie Connections:

Version of Captain January (1936)

You can almost feel her in your lap!

I was thrilled to find this movie, along with two other of Baby Peggy's films: "Family Secret" and "Helen's Babies", available from silent film video dealers. Baby Peggy is one of the most adorable child actresses of all times. She is on a heavenly cloud inhabited only by Margaret O'Brien and Virginia Lee Corbin. For utter adorability, only Margaret O'Brien in "Meet Me in St. Louis" is comparable. The stills of Baby Peggy that one finds on auction sites do no justice to this little girl's ability to make one laugh and cry at the same moment. Her smile is stellar. Her pain palatable. When she cuddles with Judkins, you can almost feel her in your lap! It a strange experience, a very rare ability for any actress. No wonder Baby Peggy was a box office sensation and the world's first five-year-old self-made millionaire.

Hobart Bosworth's performance as Jerimiah Judkins, the lighthouse keeper who finds Baby Peggy washed up on shore during a storm, is also infectious, indescribable and delicious. I'm with him on this one! Anyone takes Baby Peggy away from Judkins will have to deal with me and the rest of you viewers as well. Down with busybodies and despicable social workers!

Captain January is from a script written for Baby Peggy. Later, when her fortune had been robbed by her father's business manager, and the studios no longer wanted her and the Montegomery's were broke, her father sold her half-ownership of the script for $500 to Shirley Temple's studio. In my opinion this was an ignominious rip-off, and Shirley's remake wasn't nearly as good.

I love this movie.