The Lady from Hell

• 1926
• NR

• Watchlist

One of D.W. Griffith's most luminous stars, Blanche Sweet's career was in the doldrums when she appeared opposite lower-echelon cowboy star Roy Stewart in The Lady from Hell (the title referred to the kilt-wearing Scottish troops fighting in World War I, not Sweet). She played a Scottish noblewoman whose fiancee (Stewart) takes a job as foreman on a western ranch. He is soon falsely accused of killing his boss but manages to escape back to the Scottish highlands. Stewart and Sweet marry, but he is extradited to the U.S. on the trumped-up murder charge. Found guilty and about to be hanged, the Scotsman is saved in the nick of time by the real culprit, the ranch owner's stepson, who confesses. Blanche Sweet had reached the zenith of her career as Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie (1923), giving a performance that many critics prefer to Greta Garbo's talkie version. Three years on, her career had again lost its momentum and would never quite recover. She later left Hollywood in favor of vaudeville and stock.