Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

The Sky Rider (1928)

This B-studio aviation drama, directed by Alvin J. Neitz, stars Gareth Hughes and Josephine Hill, with Sheldon Lewis, J.P. Lockney, John Tansey, Aline Goodwin, Lew Meehan and . . . oh, yes . . . Champion, America’s foremost police dog.

Things are amiss in the privileged Wilson home, as old man Wilson (Lockney) is busy writing his ne’er-do-well nephew Joseph (Tansey) out of his will. Adopted daughter Alice Allan (Hill) is blessed with a share of the estate as is aviator son Dick Wilson (Hughes). No time is wasted by Joseph who plots to not only steal the Wilson millions but also to steal Alice’s heart from Dick.

Joseph sabotages Dick’s new airplane and Champion attacks the villains but is shot and Dick kidnapped. But, no! Champion was faking it and pursues the bad men to ‘Doc’ Shade (Lewis) and his crooked sanitarium. The resourceful Champion rescues Dick before a nefarious operation can be performed on him.

Desperate Joseph provokes old man Wilson into a heart episode, kidnaps him and makes off with the Wilson will. Confronting Alice, Joseph theatens to kill Dick if she doesn’t keep quiet about the theft and marry him. Gathering at the sanitorium, the gang is held at gunpoint as the old man manages to call Dick with an update of the current situation. Wrestled into submission, the old man is prepared for an unidentified but apparently very nasty operation.

Our hero arrives with the police and a fight with much comical flailing and wrestling ensues turning the office set into a pugilist dance floor. As the dancing continues, Dick rescues the old man and Joseph spirits Alice out of the building into an escaping car and off to the Glendale airfield. Stealing a Wilson airplane to fly Alice off to a whirlwind Nevada wedding, it is no surprise that in the closing minutes of the film Dick pursues the villain in his own, faster airplane. See Dick go. Go Dick, go!

Boyish Gareth Hughes, somewhat miscast here, is an ineffectual hero with much walking about in a daze and straining his body forward to portray his character’s intense survey of the situation before him, seemingly always two steps behind the progress of the story.

Tansey is a skinny, comical villain that may evoke a funny Nicolas Cage / Walt Disney vibe for some modern viewers. Hall is OK in a thankless heroine role typical of this sort of genre film. And, astoundingly, it is our understanding that Champion did all of his own stunts (except for a shot in the wingwalk scene where he is seemingly substituted for with a white mop head).

— Carl Bennett

The film is accompanied by a music score composed and performed on cellos by Chris Rorrer. While a valiant effort has been made to score the film with appropriate and diverse musical motifs, the monotonous scratching sound of solo cello gets irritating after a while we are sorry to say.

Supplemental material includes audio commentaries by the prolific Anthony Slide (including one for The Sky Rider); interviews with archivists and curators of this collection Lynanne Schweighofer and George Willeman (21 minutes); and an interview with composer Andrew Earle Simpson (12 minutes).

This is our recommended home video edition of this film.

This Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc edition is available directly from . . .

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a very-good 16mm reduction print. The greyscale range is relatively open, with not so many details-swallowing shadows as in most budget home video releases. We have not confirmed it yet but there may be footage here that is not present in the print utilized for the Kino edition noted above.

The film is presented with a theater organ music score performed by David Knudtson. We are always thankful for David’s work on Grapevine releases, as it saves us from enduring the lo-fi, cobbled-together scores that appear on so many Grapevine home videos.

For now, this is our recommended DVD home video edition of the film.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from ALPHA VIDEO through . . .

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music recordings.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .

Other AVIATION FILMS of the silent era available on home video.