The Midnight Girl

Bela Lugosi, 1925, six years before Dracula: a wealthy music patron with a goatee who keeps a fading diva and wants the next one. Lila Lee is Anna, a Russian singer who becomes the Midnight Girl in a nightclub run by his estranged stepson (Gareth Hughes). Wilfred Noy directed for Chadwick; Billy Bitzer, Griffith's cameraman, shot some of it. From a Garrett Fort story. Lugosi plays the role Warren William would later own: charming, predatory, suddenly repentant when a gun meant for him hits the woman behind the curtain. The ending marries everyone. The reason to watch is Lugosi before the cape, already holding the frame.