Belle BennettFilmography

Night Work

Synopsis: In this heartwarming drama, an amiable department store worker gets more than he bargained for when he accidentally slips a $10 tip he'd received into the hands of a nurse looking for donations to an orphanage on the way to the bank. By doing this, he unwittingly committed himself to supporting Read More

Big Money

Actors: Eddie Quillan, Miriam Seegar, Margaret Livingston, Dorothy Christy

Synopsis: Breezy comic actor Eddie Quillan starred in several amiable Pathe programmers in 1929, 30' and '31. Big Money finds Quillan cast as a go-getting bank messenger, who falls in with unsuccessful gambler Jimmy Gleason. Entering a high-stakes card game, Quillan bets the bank's money, and is promptly Read More

One Romantic Night

Actors: Lillian Gish, Conrad Nagel, Marie Dressler, O.P. Heggie

Synopsis: The second of three versions of the Ferenc Molnar play The Swan, One Romantic Night represented the talkie debut of the great Lillian Gish. The star plays Alexandra, a mittel-European princess who falls in love with Dr. Hafler (Conrad Nagel), her brother's tutor. Alas, affairs of state demand that Read More

Courage

Actors: Belle Bennett, Marian Nixon, Rex Bell, Richard Tucker, Leon Janney

Synopsis: Belle Bennett, the star of the 1925 version of Stella Dallas, once again goes the "long-suffering" route in Warner Bros.' Courage. Bennett plays Mary Colbrook, the widowed mother of a large and rambunctious brood. All but one of her seven kids have inherited her late husband's nasty, selfish Read More

Recaptured Love

Actors: Belle Bennett, John Halliday, Dorothy Burgess, Richard Tucker, Junior Durkin

Synopsis: In this drama, a married woman's life is destroyed when her husband falls in love with a pretty chorine and divorces her. He then marries the chorus girl who uses him, then merrily cheats on him at every turn causing him to go sniveling and crawling back to his ex-wife who lovingly takes the Read More

Molly and Me

Actors: Belle Bennett, Alberta Vaughn, Charles Byer

Synopsis: In this early talkie, a burlesque team grows tired of playing rural gigs. When the fellow is offered a chance to do a solo act in the big-city Frolics, he accepts leaving his partner to keep working in hicksville. Meanwhile, back in the Big Apple, the fellow begins falling for a voluptuous vamp Read More

My Lady's Past

Actors: Belle Bennett, Joe E. Brown, Alma Bennett, Russell Simpson, Joan Standing

Synopsis: Not even Joe E. Brown's most fervent fans have much to say about his appearance in the 1929 part-talkie My Lady's Past -- mainly because the film seems to have long since disappeared. In her first talking role, Belle Bennett (who previously co-starred with Brown in Molly and Me) plays another of Read More

Their Own Desire

Actors: Norma Shearer, Belle Bennett, Robert Montgomery, Helene Millard

Synopsis: Yet another early talkie about love, jealousy and divorce among the upper classes, Their Own Desire remains a dramatically stilted if technically efficient star vehicle. Lewis Stone is married to frumpy Belle Bennett, whom he leaves for the more streamlined Helene Millard. Stone's daughter, Norma Read More

The Iron Mask

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Belle Bennett, Nigel de Brulier, Marguerite de la Motte, Dorothy Revier, Rolfe Sedan, Vera Lewis

Synopsis: The Iron Mask was Douglas Fairbanks' sequel to his popular 1921 vehicle The Three Musketeers. Fairbanks returns to his original role of D'Artagnan, while Marguerite de La Motte and Nigel De Brulier briefly reprise their Musketeers roles as, respectively, Constance and Cardinal Richelieu. After Read More

Mother Machree

Actors: Belle Bennett, Philippe DeLacy, Neil Hamilton, Victor McLaglen, Ted McNamara

Synopsis: Technically, Mother Machree was director John Ford's first sound film -- even though the sound was limited to a Fox Movietone musical score and sound-effects track. The story begins in a tiny Irish village at the turn of the century. Having lost her husband to a lightning storm, Ellen McHugh (Belle Bennett Read More

Sporting Age

Actors: Belle Bennett, Holmes Herbert, Carroll Nye, Josephine Borio

Synopsis: Belle Bennett, the long-suffering leading lady of Stella Dallas (1926), heads the cast of Columbia's The Sporting Age. The story is motivated by a train wreck which causes racetrack owner Holmes Herbert to temporarily lose his eyesight. Taking advantage of this, Herbert's straying wife Bennett Read More

Power of Silence

Actors: Belle Bennett, Marian Douglas, Anders Randolf, John St. Polis

Synopsis: Belle Bennett once more goes the martyred "Stella Dallas" route in the aptly titled Power of Silence. To ensure the future happiness of her son John Westwood, Bennett refuses to defend herself in a sensational murder trial. Only through the introduction of a diary as evidence is it proven that she Read More

The Battle of the Sexes

Actors: Jean Hersholt, Phyllis Haver, Belle Bennett, Don Alvarado, Sally O'Neil

Synopsis: A remake of a 1914 D.W. Griffith potboiler, The Battle of the Sexes is a highly entertaining, if cautionary, tale of a middle-aged family man, J.C. Judson (Jean Hersholt), who despite his devotion to wife and offspring falls for what is obviously a gold digger, Marie Skinner (Phyllis Haver). When Read More

Devil's Trademark

Actors: Belle Bennett, William V. Mong, Marian Douglas, William Bakewell, William Desmond

Synopsis: Belle Bennett and William V. Mong play a pair of veteran crooks who decide to "go straight" when their daughter is born. When the girl reaches maturity, however, Mong tries to indoctrinate his daughter (played as an adult by Marion Douglas) into a life of crime. Bennett reluctantly goes along with Read More

Devil's Skipper

Actors: Belle Bennett, Montagu Love, Cullen Landis, Mary McAlister, Gino Corrado

Synopsis: The Devil's Skipper was based on Demetrios Contos, a seafaring yarn by Jack London. Effectively cast against type, Belle Bennett plays a wronged woman who becomes the most brutal and feared slave-ship captain on the Seven Seas. Though her crews constantly threaten to mutiny, "The Devil Skipper" Read More

Mother

Actors: Belle Bennett, Mabel Julienne Scott, Crauford Kent, William Bakewell, Joyce Coad

Synopsis: Based on a story by Kathleen Norris, Mother stars Belle Bennett in the title role. In the tradition of her previous screen assignment in Stella Dallas, Bennett dedicates herself to improving the lot of her two rambunctious children. Using a $10,000 inheritance, she sets up her ne'er-do-well Read More

The Way of All Flesh

Actors: Emil Jannings, Belle Bennett, Phyllis Haver, Donald Keith, Fred Kohler

Synopsis: This was Emil Jannings' first American-made picture, and his portrayal is reminiscent of his characters in his previous films, The Last Laugh and Variety, and would later be echoed in The Blue Angel. Jannings' powerful performance, along with his acting in The Last Command, would win him the first Read More

Fourth Commandment

Actors: Henry Victor, June Marlowe, Belle Bennett, Mary Carr

Synopsis: In the tradition of her previous appearance as the title character in Stella Dallas, Belle Bennett suffers her way through all six reels of The Fourth Commandment. Bennett plays Virginia, the selfish wife of Edmund Graham (Leigh Willard), unable to tolerate her amiable but intrusive mother-in-law (Mary Carr Read More

Wild Geese

Actors: Belle Bennett, Russell Simpson, Eve Southern, Donald Keith, Jason Robards, Sr.

Synopsis: Wild Geese is based on a novel by Martha Ostenso, originally serialized in the pages of The Pictorial Review. The story is set in rural Minnesota, where farm wife Amelia Gare (Belle Bennett) is forced to endure the tyranny of her domineering husband Caleb Gare (Russell Simpson). In spite of Read More

The Reckless Lady

Actors: Belle Bennett, James Kirkwood, Lois Moran, Lowell Sherman, Ben Lyon

Synopsis: Belle Bennett, the unforgettable star of the original Stella Dallas (1926), again suffers nobly through the "mother love" melodrama Reckless Lady. Just to make Bennett feel at home, she is here reunited with her Stella Dallas co-star Lois Moran. Bennett is cast as the prodigal Mrs. Fleming, whose Read More

The Amateur Gentleman

Actors: Richard Barthelmess, Dorothy Dunbar, Gardner James, Nigel Barrie, Brandon Hurst

Synopsis: The 1926 Amateur Gentleman was the second film version of Jeffrey Farnol's novel of the same name. Richard Barthelmess stars as Barnabas Barty, the rough-hewn son of a prizefighter (Edwards Davis). Barty's dad is accused of a crime he didn't commit; almost simultaneously, Barnabas inherits a Read More

Lily

Actors: Barry Norton, Richard Tucker, John St. Polis, Ian Keith

Synopsis: Belle Bennett stars as Odette, who early in life is forced to give up all dreams of love so that she can look after her irresponsible father (John St. Polis). Despite her "old maid" status, Odette lives her life vicariously through her younger sister Christiane (Reata Hoyt). Unfortunately Read More

Stella Dallas

Actors: Jean Hersholt, Belle Bennett, Ronald Colman, Alice Joyce, Lois Moran

Synopsis: One of the silent era's most popular tearjerkers, this soapy melodrama was adapted by legendary screenwriter Frances Marion from the 1923 novel by Olive Higgins Prouty. Belle Bennett stars as Stella Dallas, a small town girl who is devastated by her father's death and quickly marries the upper Read More

If Marriage Fails

Actors: Jacqueline Logan, Belle Bennett, Clive Brook, Jean Hersholt, Mathilde Comont

Synopsis: F.B.O. was primarily known for its Westerns and low-budget programmers, but the film company did make an attempt at creating some prestige pictures -- this society drama, with a story by C. Gardner Sullivan, was one of them. Eleanor (Belle Bennett) has married Joe Woodbury (Clive Brook) only for Read More

His Supreme Moment

Actors: Blanche Sweet, Ronald Colman, Belle Bennett, Cyril Chadwick

Synopsis: John Douglas, a down-on-his-luck engineer (Ronald Coleman), takes his sweetheart, Sara Deeping (Kathleen Myers), to a play starring Carla King (Blanche Sweet), and he falls in love with the actress. Douglas proposes to Carla but, wary of marriage, she hesitates. Instead she proposes that she Read More

East Lynne

Synopsis: This most famous of Victorian melodramas was more than half a century old, and had already been filmed several times when it came to the screen once again in 1925. Director Emmett J. Flynn had an all-star cast and kept close to the original story. East Lynne, Lord Mount-Severn's debt-ridden Read More

Playing With Souls

Actors: Jacqueline Logan, Mary Astor, Belle Bennett, Clive Brook

Synopsis: This silent drama, based on the novel by the Countess de Chambrun, had quite a few unusual twists. Amy and Matthew Dale (Belle Bennett and Clive Brook) separate and they place their young son, Matthew Jr., in a London boarding school. The boy grows up without knowing his parents, and is taunted by Read More

In Hollywood with Potash and Perlmutter

Synopsis: Most of the elements that made the first Potash and Perlmutter film so successful are brought back here: Frances Marion is the scenario's author, Alexander Carr plays Mawruss Perlmutter, and Vera Gordon is Rosie Potash. The original Abe Potash, Barney Bernard, had died, but George Sidney does a Read More

Your Best Friend

Actors: Vera Gordon, Harry Benham, Stanley Price, Belle Bennett

Synopsis: During the Victorian era and for quite a while afterwards -- in other words, before modern-day psychology put a darker spin on parenthood -- mothers were reverently put on pedestals. That's why 1920's Humoresque was such a big success, and in this drama Vera Gordon once again plays a Read More

Courage of Marge O'Doone

Synopsis: All the elements are here that one would expect from a picture based on a story by James Oliver Curwood: it takes place in the wilds of the Northwest, there are evil trappers (one of them happens to be a young Boris Karloff), and there is a courageous animal, or in this case two -- a grizzly bear Read More

The Reckoning Day

Synopsis: Since Jane Whiting (Belle Bennett) has shown that she has both brains and street smarts, her boss at the DA's office assigns her the task of nabbing a group of German spies who are running a supposedly charitable organization. The money they get is being handed over to the Kaiser's government, and Read More

The Atom

Synopsis: Maid Pauline Starke works in a theatrical boarding house. She calls herself "The Atom", because no one pays attention to her. She worships actor Harry Mestayer, but he doesn't know she's alive. Success soon goes to Mestayer's head, but a fire at theatre ends his starring career, and loses him his Read More

The Devil Dodger

Synopsis: The name Roy Stewart might mean little today, but in the mid to late 1910s, Stewart was a close competitor to western stars such as William S. Hart and Tom Mix. In this typical western from the period, Stewart portrays Silent Scott, a gambler who runs a frontier town with an iron fist. Onto the Read More

Fires of Rebellion

Synopsis: The drudgery of the working class is conveyed in this drama, directed by Ida May Park. Madge Garvey (Dorothy Phillips) works in a shoe factory. Her father Joe (Richard de la Reno) is a drunk who beats his wife (Alice May Youss), and her sister Helen (Belle Bennett) has repeated the pattern by Read More

Ashes of Hope

Synopsis: Belle Bennett, who later achieved big-time stardom in the title role of Stella Dallas, is the leading lady in Ince's Ashes of Hope. Set in the Great White North, the film stars Bennett as the object of affections for several rugged northerners, including a couple of disreputable gamblers. Well Read More

Around the World

Sweet Kitty Bellairs

Synopsis: Previously filmed in England as The Incomparable Bellairs, Agnes and Egerton Castle's romantic novel Sweet Kitty Bellairs(originally The Bath Comedy) served as an early movie vehicle for Mae Murray. Set in 18th-century England, the story concerns a flirtatious debutante who falls in love with a Read More