Silent Adventure Classics: The Sky Rider (1928) / The Call of the Wilderness (1926) (DVD)

After Rin Tin Tin saved Warner Brothers from bankruptcy, several independent studios found lookalike dogs and built movies around them, hoping audiences wouldn't know the difference. They had names like Thunder, Champion, Leader, Ranger, Dynamite, Lightning, Tarzan, Napoleon Bonaparte, Sandow, Strongheart, and Peter the Great. These animal acts were usually paired with a clueless young man in need of moral fortification.

THE SKY RIDER (1928): John Wilson, king of commercial aviation, is ready to retire. Suspicious of his greedy nephew Joseph, Wilson instead hands the company over to his son Dick, a daredevil young pilot. Infuriated by his disinheritance, Joseph places a bomb inside Dick's plane. It explodes in mid-air, leaving the fearless aviator near death. As Dick fights for his life on the operating table, Joseph stages a daring kidnapping of his uncle, intending to make him change his will at gunpoint. Dick must survive this crisis if he is to save his father and preserve the future of the Wilson Aviation Company.

THE CALL OF THE WILDERNESS (1926): Andy Horton, Jr., is disowned by his father and kicked out of their palatial home. Hitting the road with his dog Sandow, Andy meets a pretty land agent's daughter, Dorothy Deveau. To impress her, he buys a small plot of land on the edge of town. Prospector "Red" Morgan knows that there is gold in this seemingly worthless real estate, and tries to have Andy and Sandow thrown off the property. He cuts the brake line on Andy's car, causing it to crash against a cliff. As the young man lies broken and bleeding, Sandow must race to save his master's life.

• silent