The Flaming Crisis

Release Date:  8/21/1924
Genre:  Drama
Director(s):  William H. Grimes, Leo C. Popkin
Studio(s):  Monarch Productions, Mesco Productions
Running Time:  Unknown
Silent
Black & White

Cast:  Calvin Nicholson (Newspaperman Robert Mason), Dorothy Dunbar (Texas ‘Tex’ Miller), Henry Dixon (Mark Lethier), Talford White (Buck Conley), Kathryn Sherman, Marie Chester,
Arthur Yeargan.

Story:  Robert Mason, a young black newspaperman, exposes corrupt labor leader Mark Lethier. In turn, Mason’s engagement to Vivian Lethier is ended. When Mark Lethier is murdered, Mason is convicted on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to prison. After several years in prison, Mason escapes and makes his way to the southwestern cattle country, where he falls in love with Tex Miller, a beautiful cowgirl. Mason endeavors to rid the territory of an outlaw band led by Buck Conley, a.k.a. the “Night Terror.” Once he is successful, he decides to give himself up to the law, thinking that he will be sent back to prison. However, after discovering that the real murderer has confessed, he returns to Tex and the country he has come to love.

Details:  Information in the George P. Johnson Collection at the UCLA Special Collections Library notes that producer Lawrence Goldman was a white former theater owner in Kansas City and head of the Motion Picture Exhibitors of Missouri. On May 12, 1924, Film Daily reported that Goldman and crew had just wrapped shooting and returned to Kansas City from location. A May 24, 1924 Billboard item stated that filming had been delayed for ten weeks while lead actor Calvin Nicholson recovered from injuries sustained during the filming of a cattle rush scene. A review in the April 5, 1924 Pittsburgh Courier named that scene as one of three “big thrills” of the movie, in addition to “the death-defying jump of the hero from a high bridge to a fast train far below,” and the battle between the outlaws and the sheriff’s posse.

This film is considered lost.  Source(s):  AFI Catalog (catalog.afi.com); Photo Source:  DAARAC.org.