Rin Tin Tin - Skull And Crown

The director of this film, Elmer Clifton, worked as an actor with "the man himself," D.W. Griffith, on the Civil War epic 'The Birth of a Nation." Twenty years later, Griffith was completely out of work, but Clifton was quite busy directing little poverty-row pot-boilers like "Skull & Crown." Regis Toomey and Rinty, Jr. shine out in an otherwise leaden but hard working cast. The film moves quite briskly and is fairly suspenseful. It is sad that there was not enough time to build more on the relationship between Bob (Toomey) and Ann (Molly O'Day), but when you gotta get it in under an hour running time, well, "them's the breaks!" The low-budget of the film tends to show from time to time in the extremely rough sound mix. No background music to speak of, and you can often hear the ol' Mitchell cameras grinding away in the background. I believe there is even a shot, where Rinty is digging his way out of a barn, where you can hear his trainer whispering "Dig! Dig!" Oops. The print used for this DVD seems to be an original era print; it is very sharp with good contrast. Sadly, as with so many of these independent films, it was heavily used and bears the scars of many a splicer. Nonetheless, it remains an entertaining little film and a good example of the "dog adventure" story, so popular with James Oliver Curwood and Albert Payson Terhune.