The Fighting American (Silent) (DVD)

To win a drunken bet, all-American Bill Pendleton proposes to beautiful Mary Brainard. When she learns of the wager, the humiliated girl leaves school and sails for China with her missionary father. Realizing he has just lost the girl of his dreams, Bill hops a freighter, determined to find Mary. He arrives in China in the midst of a bloody revolution, and learns that Mary and her father are captives of the insurgents. Bill, a decorated pilot in the World War, must fly into mortal combat once more, determined to save them or die trying.

Leading lady Mary Astor was one of Hollywood's most popular and durable actresses. As a teenager, she starred in the silent classics Beau Brummel (1924) and Don Juan (1926), then found even greater success in the sound era with strong performances in Red Dust (1932), Dodsworth (1936), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Midnight (1939), The Maltese Falcon (1941) and Little Women (1949). She won the Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for The Great Lie (1941). The Fighting American also features a young Raymond Hatton as the inebriated general. Perennial comic sidekick to western stars Bob Livingston and Johnny Mack Brown, Hatton will always be best remembered riding alongside Tim McCoy and Buck Jones in The Three Mesquiteers series .

• silent