[3] The credits (accompanied by organ music endemic to silent films), segue into title card: "A city street-----where laughter and tragedy rub elbows."
While he passes along sidewalks teeming with human activity, an Irish American policeman (unbilled Don Terry) berates an arriving driver for parking in front of a hydrant, but when the driver removes his scarf, revealing a priest’s clerical collar, the abashed officer apologizes, ushers him into the car, and warns him not to park illegally on the beat of "that cop on the next corner, he's not one of us!” The cop steps on the running board and says that he will ride along and help with any traffic.
Continuing to walk through sidewalks crowded with children, shooter pauses to help a small boy (unbilled Delmar Watson) who has fallen and skinned his knee.
The judge (Henry Kolker) proclaims, "it is the duty of this court to sentence you to be executed at the state's prison during the week of August seventeenth and may God have mercy on your soul.” Another title card: "Meanwhile------in a far-away home...." In the backyard of a modest old countryside house, a young woman (Marguerite Churchill) is attending to her collie dogs, while her wheelchair-bound mother (Edith Yorke) is sitting nearby.
He is brought to the office of the warden (DeWitt Jennings) who asks him about any family members whom he might like to contact, but the condemned man replies that he has no one, no mother or father or sister or wife or sweetheart, and his name is Dyke.
A newspaper's printing presses are seen churning out the evening edition with the headlines: "Mystery of Dyke's Identity / Secret as Hour of Death Nears / Prisoner Staunchly Refuses to Divulge / Secret of Himself or the Motive for / His Crime Though He Faces Chair / James Dyke Maintains Silence as He Writes News- / paper Articles Warning Youth on the Folly of Crime" One of the pressmen (unbilled Robert Homans) tells another that he heard the paper was paying Dyke $2,500 for his writings and another (unbilled Tom Wilson) jokes that Dyke might be buying Liberty Bonds with the money and adds that he will probably do something with it before he dies ($2,500 in 1929 is worth $36,600 today using the CPI—a very conservative measure—or $76,500.00 using the “real” price) [4] Sitting in her bedroom, the infirm Mrs. Douglas visualizes old memories of teenage Joe (unbilled Barton Hepburn) telling his little sister Mary about being cast in a school production of a Shakespeare play—Macbeth, judging by his description of the “terrible witches”—and how, at bedtime, instead of "goodnight", he taught her to recite to him the "parting is such sweet sorrow" lines, while he would respond with "sleep dwell upon thine eyes...”.
Briefly leaving their guests to check on Mrs. Douglas, Mary and Bob hear from her that, despite fragile health, she has decided to make the long trip to visit "James Dyke" in prison.
Also present is the chaplain (Richard Carlyle) who, along with the warden, tries to convince him to see the young lady who traveled a thousand miles to speak with him in the hope that he might be her long-lost brother.
After Mary's explanation of her reasons for coming, Dyke, who avoids making eye contact with her throughout most of the scene—denies being her brother and does not react to her questioning or to the verses, which he dismisses as silly.
Her eyes never leave his face as he gives an animated description of an act of heroism — a young soldier showed great valor in risking his life, braving shot and shell to rescue a wounded officer, but dying when a 5.9 landed on them both.
Dyke says, “Alright, let’s go.” Back in Pennington, Mary and Bob sit at the piano, playing “Love's Old Sweet Song”, and talking of how much better it is now that her mother knows and is so very proud of her “hero boy.” Mrs. Douglas rests In a chair on the porch in front of the open door, hearing in her mind a marching band briskly playing "There's a Long Long Trail A-Winding" and seeing a parade of soldiers, while her young son, fresh-faced in his doughboy uniform, smiles down at her.
Screenwriters John Hunter Booth and Tom Barry adapted the 1926 one-act play by Holworthy Hall [on-screen credits indicate the name as Halworthy Hall] and Robert Middlemass, which twice closed on its respective Broadway opening nights: at the Nora Bayes Theatre on May 4, 1926 (with William L. Hildeburn in the leading role)[5] and a revival (with John H. Brown) at the Frolic Theatre on May 8, 1928.
The protagonist was portrayed by Juan Torena, the role played by Marguerite Churchill went to Angelita Benítez, while John Mack Brown's part was taken by Guillermo del Rincón.
Carlos Villarías who, the following year, would play Bela Lugosi's iconic role as Dracula in that production's concurrently filmed Spanish-language version, was cast in Henry Kolker's part as the judge.
[9] Ten years later, Fox revived the property as The Man Who Wouldn't Talk, a B-picture directed by David Burton, with stars Lloyd Nolan, Jean Rogers, and Richard Clarke.
Released in January 1940, the film followed Hall's and Middlemass' basic plot outline, but used a different screenplay, reworked by a number of writers, and appended an extended World War I flashback, resolving it all with a happy ending.
On November 29, 1948, NBC's half-hour anthology drama program Chevrolet on Broadway presented Paul Muni in a live, abbreviated recreation of his film performance from nearly twenty years earlier, with Augusta Dabney, Whitford Kane and Curtis Cooksey.
Almost two years later, on October 23, 1950, CBS' half-hour anthology drama Lux Video Theatre broadcast another abbreviated version, with Zachary Scott as the man claiming to be "James Dyke", Wendy Drew as "The Girl", Harold Vermilyea as Warden Holt, Graham Velsey as Father Daly and Hy Anzell as Dan.
Shortly after The Valiant's premiere on May 19, 1929, Fox cast the two leads, Paul Muni and Marguerite Churchill, in their next feature, Seven Faces, directed by Berthold Viertel, which was released less than seven months later, on December 1.
Between 1929 and 1933, Marguerite Churchill appeared in a total of fifteen features, while Paul Muni acted in only five, with the remaining three being 1932's Scarface and I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, followed by 1933's The World Changes.
At the 2nd Academy Awards, held on April 3, 1930, Paul Muni was one of the five nominees for Best Actor, but lost to Warner Baxter's portrayal of The Cisco Kid, O. Henry's legendary outlaw In Old Arizona.