1924 - Colonial Theater Ad - 3 Mar MC - Allentown PA

''The Humming Bird'' (also known as ''Les loups de Montmartre'') is a 1924 American silent

crime drama film Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as drama or gangster film, but al ...

directed by

Sidney Olcott Sidney Olcott (born John Sidney Allcott; September 20, 1872 – December 16, 1949) was a Canadian-born film producer, director, actor and screenwriter. Biography Born John Sidney Allcott in Toronto, he became one of the first great dire ...

and starring

Gloria Swanson Gloria Mae Josephine Swanson (March 27, 1899April 4, 1983) was an American actress. She first achieved fame acting in dozens of silent films in the 1920s and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, most famously for h ...

. Produced by

Famous Players–Lasky The Famous Players–Lasky Corporation was an American motion picture and distribution company formed on June 28, 1916, from the merger of Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Companyoriginally formed by Zukor as Famous Players in Famous Playsan ...

and distributed by

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

, the film is based on the play of the same name by Maude Fulton, who also starred in the Broadway production.Progressive Silent Film List: ''The Humming Bird''
at silentera.com

Plot

As described in a film magazine review, Toinette, alias "The Humming Bird" and member of the

Apaches The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...

, commits many successful robberies in Paris while disguised as a young man. She falls in love with Randall Carey, an American newspaper correspondent. Randall joins the army when

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

breaks out. Toinette persuades her Apache confederate to enlist. She is jailed, but escapes during a Zeppelin bombardment and joins her wounded lover at his aunt's residence. The authorities pardon her and she finds happiness with Randall.

Cast

Production

The film was shot at the

Kaufman Astoria Studios The Kaufman Astoria Studios is a film studio located in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens in New York City. The studio was constructed for Famous Players–Lasky in 1920, since it was close to Manhattan's Theater District. The property was ...

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

Preservation

A print of ''The Humming Bird'' is housed at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

and the

Nederlands Filmmuseum Eye Filmmuseum is a film archive, museum, and cinema in Amsterdam that preserves and presents both Dutch and foreign films screened in the Netherlands. Location and history Eye Filmmuseum is located in the Overhoeks neighborhood of Amsterdam in ...

.''Catalog of Holdings The American Film Institute Collection and The United Artist Collection at The Library of Congress'', p. 85, c.1978 by The American Film Institute

References

External links

*
Lobby card and still
at silenthollywood.com

at website dedicated to Sidney Olcott
Long poster; probably an Australian daybill
1924 films 1924 crime drama films Silent American crime drama films American silent feature films American black-and-white films Famous Players-Lasky films American films based on plays Films directed by Sidney Olcott Films shot in New York City Paramount Pictures films Films shot at Astoria Studios 1920s American films 1920s English-language films English-language crime drama films {{silent-crime-drama-film-stub