Captain January (1924) in the presence of Baby Peggy: Diana Serra Cary

Baby Peggy, Diana Serra Cary, at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Sacile, 2004.

CAPTAIN JANUARY (Principal Pictures, US 1924)
Dir: Edward F. Cline; prod: Sol Lesser; sc: Eve Unsell, John Grey, dal romanzo di / from the novel by Laura Elizabeth Richards (1891); ph: Glen MacWilliams; art titles: William J. Sackheim; cast: Baby Peggy, Hobart Bosworth, Irene Rich, Lincoln Stedman, Harry T. Morey, Barbara Tennant, John Merkyl, Emmett King; prima proiezione pubblica / rel: 6.7.1924; lunghezza originale / orig. length: 6194 ft.; 35mm, 5040 ft., 61’ (22 fps), Library of Congress.Titolo edizione italiana: Capitan Baby. Didascalie in inglese / English intertitles.
    GCM Sacile, Teatro Zancanaro, 14 Oct 2004

GCM: "A little girl is the sole survivor of a shipwreck, but is rescued by a kindly lighthouse keeper who raises the child as his own until inevitable complications — meddling moralists and the girl’s relatives among them — ensue. Captain January is very much a star vehicle for "Baby Peggy" Montgomery, and, like Jackie Coogan in the almost identical My Boy (First National, 1922), she takes to the role of urchin-with-a-heart-of-gold with great gusto. Avuncular Hobart Bosworth is ideally cast as her surrogate father, and although one might wish director Eddie Cline had used more of his estimable comic sensibility to enliven the proceedings (and dampen some of the more treacly sentimentality), the overall effect is that of a charming story, well told. — Mike Mashon"

"I left Universal for Lesser’s Principal Pictures in September of 1922 and started work on Captain January immediately. I was supported by veteran stage and screen actor Hobart Bosworth and the popular actress Irene Rich. Most of the filming was done on location aboard a yacht anchored off scenic, sparsely populated Laguna Beach, sixty miles south of Los Angeles. Its one hotel, where we were put up, had no electricity, heat, or indoor plumbing."

"Throughout my life, whenever movie buffs have seen this film, they’ve been sure to ask, ‘Surely you can’t remember that movie? You were much too young!’ The truth is, every time I watch it, the same feeling sweeps over me that I experienced sharply on the first day of shooting — a feeling of being suddenly very old. This was a big production, an expensive one, and my part very demanding. I felt the weight of the load I was carrying. True, I was four and a half, but by now I had been working without letup for the past two and a half years, having made close to one hundred fifty comedies and three feature films. By the time I started Captain January, the day my fancied ‘stars’ began pouring rain through the roof of Century’s Barn seemed ages ago." — Diana Serra Cary (What Ever Happened to Baby Peggy? 1996)

AA: A good children's film. Actual duration of the screening: 64 min. It was amazing to see this delightful film in the presence of its star, Baby Peggy, Diana Serra Cary, 85 years old. ***

NB. Baby Peggy died on 24 Feb 2020, age 101.