On the sailing vessel the Lady Letty, we meet Moran (Dorothy Dalton), a Norwegian tomboy, reared as a seaman, who wears pants and works the ship right alongside the men. In San Francisco on Nob Hill lives rich and handsome Ramon (Valentino), idol of the débutantes, who spends his time throwing house parties and sailing on yachts. One day he's late for one of his yacht parties and gets himself shanghaied by a ship full of sea-outlaws. Forced to become Second Mate on a voyage headed towards Mexico, Ramon seems to take a shine to being shipboard and changes rapidly from dandy to able-bodied seaman, and before you know it he's happily swabbing the decks and looking gorgeous in white sleeveless t-shirt. Meanwhile, sailing in the same waters is the Lady Letty which suddenly catches on fire, and the outlaws go aboard to loot it, coming back with nothing but rum and a "loco sailor" - actually Moran dressed as a boy, brought over by Ramon who tries to keep her hidden away from the evil Captain. Now Ramon seems to develop a crush on Moran, but this may not work out for him - see, she wishes she were born a boy!
This film is packed with lots of shipboard action, fights, etc. - a bit too much for my taste actually. There is also a plot element that seems a little odd to me and that is the fact that Ramon seems so happy being on the ship with bad men who kidnapped him and are committing crimes. I am also not sure I like the match between Valentino and the woman, I kind of like them better as just "mates". The mainly sepia-tinted print shown on TCM looked okay, a tiny bit washed-out here and there but pretty good as a whole, and featured an excellent music score that matched the action well. For me, Valentino is the main reason to see this - he looks stunningly handsome in all of his scenes - sigh! I like Dorothy Dalton too, well cast in her tomboy part. Worth seeing for the beauty of Valentino alone.
