SHOOTING STARS. British Instructional, UK, 1927. Brian Aherne, Annette Benson, Chili Bouchier, David Brookes, Donald Calthrop. Director: A. V. Bramble, assisted by Anthony Asquith. Shown at Cinefest 28, Syracuse NY, March 2008.

   A stylish silent film, with Annette Benson as the wife of actor Brian Aherne and his co-star, who has a fling with film baggy-pants comedian Donald Calthrop.

   She wants to leave Aherne for her lover, but fears it will destroy her career. She substitutes real bullets for blanks in the gun that will be fired at Aherne in their thriller, but even though she decides not to go through with it, a series of misadventures results in the shooting of Calthrop and Benson’s withdrawal from films and her marriage.

   There’s a final sequence in which, several years later, she has a walk-on in a film directed by Aherne, unrecognized by him or anyone else in the crew, with a poignant fade-out as she appears to walk away walks away forever from her former husband and the movies.

   The behind-the-scenes look at the filming of silents, made this absorbing, ironic drama of unusual interest.