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These Stars Are on the Rise

From popular franchises to brand new worlds of exploration, science fiction and fantasy stories are more popular than ever. Check out our list of the best and brightest new and upcoming movies and series.

New and Upcoming Sci-Fi and Fantasy

Discover some of the most anticipated sequels, prequels, and spin-offs coming to theaters and streaming.

New Sequels, Prequels, and Spin-Offs

An Alaskan real estate tycoon who's visiting San Francisco loses his fortune to a group of investment sharks.

Doris Kenyon and Milton Sills in Burning Daylight (1928)

This is the third version of Jack London&#39;s novel BURNING DAYLIGHT (1910); others were filmed in 1914 (a two-part version) and 1920. The plot has the city versus wilderness theme typical of the times. Elam Harnish, or &quot;Burning Daylight,&quot; is called this because he has the habit of rousting his comrades out of bed with the admonition that &quot;daylight is burning.&quot; Like many of London&#39;s heroes, he&#39;s a strong, intelligent man, and he prospers because of his foresight in the Klondike gold strike. Burning Daylight&#39;s taste for speculation and gambling leads him to San Francisco, where he&#39;s taken in by the usual suspects: soft living, an over-sized ego, a group of corrupt capitalists, and a Woman from the City who lures him away from the faithful Vergie, the former dance-hall girl turned stenographer who has followed him to the big city. Cheated by his so-called business partners, Burning Daylight realizes his mistake and administers a little frontier justice before escaping with Vergie back to Alaska. The performances here are good at times, although the scenes set in the Klondike rely too obviously on painted sets rather than on the more sophisticated effects typical of Chaplin&#39;s THE GOLD RUSH.

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Burning Daylight

Speaking of blockbusting, one of the biggest draws of the 1920s was former philosophy professor, Milton Sills, who starred in a host of handsomely-budgeted crowd pleasers, such as The Spoilers and The Sea Hawk. Thanksgiving 2009 will go down in my memory as the night I finally met Mr. Sills. (In the movies of course). I had seen him before - as the male lead but actually a very minor role in Miss Lulu Bett. So here he was in Burning Daylight (1928), as the Jack London hero of the Alaskan goldfields who whips the money-men of San Francisco - none too convincingly I might add, but who cares? Sills is certainly a charismatic lead and he receives excellent support from real-life wife, Doris Kenyon, and Jane Winton as a Frisco flirt. Directed with appropriate zest by Charles Brabin, the movie was photographed in a moodily noirish style by Sol Polito, although I thought the DVD was printed too dark. 7/10 at least for this Grapevine release.

Odd film that starts out as a Jack London Klondike adventure with Burning Daylight (Milton Sills) hitting it big in Dawson City and rescuing a saloon girl (Doris Kenyon) from her sordid life. They head to San Francisco to break into society and to score a business success in the bigtime. But the city slickers pull a fast one on Daylight, and even the pretty girl (Jane Winton) who gets Daylight into society turns out to be rotten. This has been filmed many times during the silent era. Imagine my surprise when I noted a new 2010 version of the same old story! Co-stars include Guinn Williams, Arthur Stone, Stuart Holmes, and Edmund Breese.

User reviews

Burning Daylight

Not entirely like the book

Milton Sills to the rescue!

Milton Sills and Doris Kenyon

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