This week’s mystery movie was the 1925 MGM picture Zander the Great, with Marion Davies, Holbrook Blinn, Harrison Ford, Harry Watson, Harry Myers, George Seigman, Emily Fitzroy, Hobart Bosworth, Richard Carle, Hedda Hopper, Olin Howland and Master John Huff.

Photography by George Barnes and Harold Wenstrom.

Assistant director Frank O’Neil.

Edited by James McKay.

Costumes by Gretl Urban.

Settings by Joseph Urban.

Adaptation by Lillie Hayward.

Editorial direction by Frances Marion.

Direction by George Hill.

Further information on Zander the Great is available from the AFI Catalog.

The restored version of Zander the Great is available on DVD from Critics’ Choice Video. By all means avoid the dreadful print at Archive.org, which seems to be a 125th-generation dupe from VHS.

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I decided on Zander the Great because it was mentioned last week during a showing of Ramona (1928) at the Autry Museum of the American West. As far as I can tell, it hasn’t yet aired on TCM.  The restoration by the Library of Congress is nice and sharp, and uses the tinted stock at various points in the film. Ben Model performs the score on a virtual theater pipe organ console.

I’m guessing we are in Mordaunt Hall territory at The New York Times. What will they say about a film connected to publishing rival William Randolph Hearst? Then again, it’s adapted from a play, which tends to work in a film’s favor.

Well, Mordaunt Hall, all right (May 4, 1925):

Marion Davies makes great sacrifices in the early stages of the screen conception of Salisbury Field’s play Zander the Great by appearing as a plain little girl, dressed in a short, shabby frock, with her crowning glory reduced to two pathetic pigtails that stick out from the back of her head. She impersonates Mamie Smith, the role created on the stage by Alice Brady. Mamie is a hoyden, cheerful and mischievous, the inmate of an orphan asylum, who frequently finds the forbidding countenance of the matron glowering down upon her at the height of her fun. Miss Davies is lively, perhaps too lively in these introductory sequences, but occasionally in her moods there is a flash of Mary Pickford….

….Zander the Great begins with touches of pathos and sunshine in a small place in New Jersey and winds up with an exciting hail of bullets in a Mexican hacienda. It is rather a dull story as presented in film form, but George Hill, the director, has stirred up the interest with comedy and drama when the opportunity arose.

For Monday, we have a mysterious lad.

Update: This is Jack Huff.

For Tuesday, we have a mysterious fellow.

Update: This is Harry Myers.

Brain Trust roll call: Mary Mallory (mystery movie and Monday’s mystery lad).

For “Hm Wednesday,” we have a mystery guest who … oh my. She really, really does not approve of such goings-on.

Update: This is Emily Fitzroy.

Brain Trust roll call: Mary Mallory (Tuesday’s mysterious cowboy), Mike Hawks (mystery movie and both mystery guests), Bob Hansen (Tuesday’s mysterious cowboy) and Sheila (Tuesday’s enigmatic cowpoke).

For “Aha Thursday,” we have a mysterious fellow.

Update: This is Hobart Bosworth.

We also have this mystery woman.

Update: This is Hedda Hopper.

Brain Trust roll call: Mary Mallory (Wednesday’s mysterious woman), Mike Hawks (Wednesday’s mystery woman) and Sheila (mystery movie and Monday’s mysterious lad).

For Friday, we have our mysterious leading lady.

Update: This is Marion Davies.

Brain Trust roll call: Mary Mallory (Thursday’s mystery guests), Howard Mandelbaum (mystery movie, Wednesday’s and Thursday’s mystery guests), Mike Hawks (Thursday’s mystery guests), Suzanne Stone (mystery movie, Monday’s mystery lad and Wednesday’s and Thursday’s mystery women, predicting Friday’s mysterious leading lady) and Anne Papineau (Thursday’s mysterious sheriff.