Captain Fly-By-Night (Silent)

Swords flash in this silent action-adventure in the Fairbanks tradition, set in a 19th-century California of Spanish rule, with daring caballeros and beautiful senoritas.

Two strangers arrive at a sleepy presidio, both claiming to be on a secret mission from the governor. One is the governor's emissary Senor Rocha and the other is Captain Fly-by-Night, a highwayman and outlaw leader. But which is which? Senorita Fernandez would like to know, because her arranged marriage to Senor Rocha - whom she has never met - is looming, and she too is unsure. The action comes to a boil when Captain Fly-by-Night's revolutionary followers begin a series of bloody attacks geared to make their leader ruler of California!

Captain Fly-by-Night has a distinctly Zorro-like flavor due to the Spanish California setting, swordplay and derring-do and buffoonish comic relief. This is because Zorro creator Johnston McCulley wrote the original story. The film is also historically important as one of the earliest surviving credits of director William K. Howard, who went on to helm the 1933 masterpiece The Power and the Glory.

A confusing silent melodrama set at San Francisco's famous Presidio, this film starred light leading man Johnnie Walker as a mysterious stranger thought by the soldiers to be a notorious masked highwayman. Senorita Anita (Shannon Day), however, is drawn to the young man -- who proves to be a government agent in disguise. Produced by poverty row company Robertson-Cole, CAPTAIN FLY-BY-NIGHT was directed by William K. Howard, a fine craftsman who would later helm such powerful pictures as THE POWER AND THE GLORY (1933) and the British FIRE OVER ENGLAND (1937).