The Night of Love

While The Night of Love (1927) is no lost masterwork, it is a beautifully shot period romance, with all the swashbuckling and sensual delights you could ever want from a production like this.

While the plot was praised as original by critics in 1927, it will come across as more or less familiar to a modern crowd. After his bride is kidnapped by a local duke to be ravished and then kills herself to protect her virtue, the young Romani Montero is outraged and becomes a Robvin Hood figure. Swearing vengeance upon the duke, Montero kidnaps his bride, Princess Marie, before their marriage can be consummated. As these things usually go, the two fall in love and the duke is ready to exact his own counterattack for his humiliation.

Ronald Colman flourished in talkies due to his velvet voice, but in TNOL, he projects a different image. I was skeptical as to whether or not he would pull off playing a lusty bandit, but he is excellent. While the delicate Vilma Banky is mostly known as Rudolph Valentino's leading lady in The Eagle (1925) and Fitzmaurice's other romantic-adventure The Son of the Sheik (1926), she was also paired with Ronald Colman quite a bit. The two have fabulous chemistry, erotic and sweet. Montagu Love will no doubt be familiar to silent film buffs, being one of the go-to character actors for villainous roles. He leers and hisses with the best of them.

The sets and costumes are gorgeous. The cinematography just gleams, so beautiful in black and white. George Fitzmaurice was certainly one of the most visually sumptuous directors in Hollywood at the time.

A pretty and entertaining movie. Warner Archive needs to release it on DVD.