| The Mating Call | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | James Cruze |
| Produced by | Howard Hughes (uncredited) |
| Written by | Novel: Rex Beach Adaptation: Walter Woods Titles: Herman J. Mankiewicz |
| Starring | Thomas Meighan Evelyn Brent Renée Adorée Alan Roscoe Gardner James Helen Foster Luke Cosgrave Cyril Chadwick |
| Music by | Frances Ring Martin Roones Robert Israel (2004) |
| Cinematography | Ira H. Morgan |
| Editing by | Walter Woods (uncredited) |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 21, 1928 |
| Running time | 72 minutes (2004 alternate version) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | Silent film English intertitles |
The Mating Call is a 1928 silent drama film about a WWI vet who takes on the Ku Klux Klan when he loses his wife to a womanizing Klansman. The film was produced by Howard Hughes for his Caddo Corporation, and was originally released by Paramount Pictures. In 2006, the film was restored and re-released by Turner Classic Movies in partnership with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, along with two other Hughes-produced films Two Arabian Knights (1927) and The Racket (1928).
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After the Armistice, Leslie Hatton, a Florida farmer, returns home to discover that his wife, Rose, has had their marriage annulled in order to marry wealthy Lon Henderson. Leslie returns to farming for solace, and Rose, quickly disillusioned by Henderson's infidelity, again offers herself to Leslie. He wants no part of her, however, and goes instead to Ellis Island, where he persuades Catherine, an aristocratic Russian immigrant, to marry him in return for a home in the United States. Jessie Peebles, a young girl disillusioned by an affair with Henderson, drowns herself in a pond on Leslie's farm, and Henderson, head of the local Ku Klux Klan, orders Leslie tried before a Klan tribunal. Leslie is found not guilty when letters are produced that link Henderson with the dead girl. Leslie's ordeal has had a good side, however, for he and Catherine have realized that what was to have been a marriage of convenience has become a marriage of love.
Although the story takes place immediately after World War I (1918-1919), all of Evelyn Brent's and Helen Foster's clothes are strictly in the 1928 short skirt mode, completely out of place in the time frame of the story.
Adorée received positive reviews for her performance in The Mating Call, even though it differed little from the wide-eyed "Euro-damsels" that were her trademark.
This film, long thought to be lost, was discovered in the archives of Howard Hughes memorabilia by curators at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.[1]