The Shady Lady

Produced byRalph BlockStarringCinematographyJohn J. MescallEdited byDoane HarrisonDistributed byPathé Exchange60 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguages

The Shady Lady is a 1928 sound part-talkie American drama film directed by Edward H. Griffith and starring Phyllis Haver, Robert Armstrong and Louis Wolheim.^[1] Although the film featured a few sequences with audible dialogue, the majority of the film had a synchronized musical score with sound effects. The film was released in both the sound-on-disc and sound-on-film format.

An innocent woman is unjustly mixed-up in a murder case in New York and flees to Havana where she is widely known as the "Shady Lady". In Cuba she becomes mixed up with a gang of gunrunners.

• Phyllis Haver as Lola Mantell
• Robert Armstrong as Blake
• Louis Wolheim as Professor Holbrook
• Russell Gleason as Haley
• Jim Farley
• Joyzelle Joyner

The film featured a theme song entitled "Shady Lady" which was composed by Howard E. Johnson, Francis Gromon, Jack Grun and Josiah Zuro.

A review in Harrison's Reports said that the film was a good story, keeping the viewer's interest throughout, with "pretty tense suspense" in its second half.^[2] It added, "The manner by which the different threads of the story are interwoven in the closing scenes is intelligent, and satisfies the discriminating spectator."^[2] The review praised Haver, Armstrong, and Wolheim for their work.^[2]

• List of early sound feature films (1926–1929)

• Quinlan, David. The Illustrated Guide to Film Directors. Batsford, 1983.

• The Shady Lady at IMDb