Some spoilers
This is now available more or less in full on a Kino DVD. Baker's first film (though it's silent, making do with occasional intertitles); it doesn't quite know what to do with her. She becomes sort of second banana in her own film, much as the Marx Brothers occasionally were - doing their stuff, but secondary to the conventional love stories. She performs her vigorous, loose-limbed dancing in several scenes, in close up and long-shot, and even in silence she has undeniable star quality. She's seen as a child of nature, passionate, honest, comic (there's a long slapstick chase on a steamer when she's alternately black, from hiding in a coal bin, and white, from hiding in flour) and finally self-denying as she leaves the hero she adores to marry his fiancée, kills his scheming rival (where did she learn to handle a gun like that?) dances once more while smiling through her tears, then leaves for the USA. Still, the movie respects her talents; she appears near-naked a couple of times but it's not leering or exploitative; her colour is never an issue; and she gets to do her dances. She's still great.
This is now available more or less in full on a Kino DVD. Baker's first film (though it's silent, making do with occasional intertitles); it doesn't quite know what to do with her. She becomes sort of second banana in her own film, much as the Marx Brothers occasionally were - doing their stuff, but secondary to the conventional love stories. She performs her vigorous, loose-limbed dancing in several scenes, in close up and long-shot, and even in silence she has undeniable star quality. She's seen as a child of nature, passionate, honest, comic (there's a long slapstick chase on a steamer when she's alternately black, from hiding in a coal bin, and white, from hiding in flour) and finally self-denying as she leaves the hero she adores to marry his fiancée, kills his scheming rival (where did she learn to handle a gun like that?) dances once more while smiling through her tears, then leaves for the USA. Still, the movie respects her talents; she appears near-naked a couple of times but it's not leering or exploitative; her colour is never an issue; and she gets to do her dances. She's still great.