Bessie LoveFilmography

Reds

Actors: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosinski, Jack Nicholson

Synopsis: Few filmmakers other than Warren Beatty would have had the courage and vision to fashion an epic film from the life of famed American Communist John Reed (who is the only US citizen buried in the Kremlin). The film is an effort to humanize a political movement that has previously been depicted on Read More

Lady Chatterley's Lover

Actors: Sylvia Kristel, Shane Briant, Nicholas Clay, Ann Mitchell, Elizabeth Spriggs

Synopsis: The once-notorious D. H. Lawrence novel Lady Chatterly's Lover seemed like kid stuff by the time this 1981 adaptation hit the screens. To pep up Lawrence's tale of an aristocratic woman who conducts an affair with her earthy gamekeeper, soft-core porn specialist Just Jaeckin attempted to convert Read More

Ragtime

Actors: James Cagney, Brad Dourif, Moses Gunn, Elizabeth McGovern, Kenneth McMillan, Pat O'Brien, Donald O'Connor, James Olson, Mandy Patinkin, Howard E. Rollins, Jr.

Synopsis: E. L. Doctorow's novel Ragtime was a sprawling fictional account of American manners and mores in the years between 1900 and 1913. Among the mosaic of colorful factual and fictional characters in the novel were escape artist Harry Houdini and radical Emma Goldman. Both characters are all but Read More

Gulliver's Travels

Actors: Richard Harris, Catherine Schell, Norman Shelley, Meredith Edwards

Synopsis: Jonathan Swift's satire about a sailor's strange voyage is the source of this, one of many filmed adaptations of the tale. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

The Ritz

Actors: Jack Weston, Rita Moreno, Jerry Stiller, Kaye Ballard, F. Murray Abraham

Synopsis: With The Ritz, Terrence McNally's hit Broadway play of the same name is cinematized by director Richard Lester. Jack Weston plays Gaetano Proclo, a minor mob flunky who's been targeted for elimination by his brother-in-law, Carmine Vespucci (Jerry Stiller). Gaetano takes refuge in what he thinks Read More

Vampyres

Actors: Marianne Morris, Anulka Dziubinska, Murray Brown

Synopsis: This Hammer-flavored gothic outing (originally titled Daughters of Dracula) involves the sanguinary exploits of two female vampires (Marianne Morris and Playboy centerfold Anulka) who bed down together in a queen-sized coffin by day and seduce male and female victims by moonlight, leading to lots Read More

Mousey

Synopsis: In Mousey a made-for-TV thriller, a disturbed and obsessed man seeks to regain his son from his overbearing, controlling wife. Kirk Douglas, nick-named "Mousey" by his high-school student, is left by his wife, Laura (Jean Seberg) who also takes her young son who "Mousey" has adopted. "Mousey" Read More

Pollyanna

Actors: Elizabeth Archard, Elaine Stritch, Paddy Frost, Stephen Galloway, Ray McAnally

Synopsis: June Wyndham-Davies directs this made-for-TV version of the classic children's novel Pollyanna, written by Eleanor H. Porter. This miniseries was broadcast in six half-hour episodes on the BBC in 1973. Elizabeth Archard plays the overly optimistic orphan Pollyanna who goes to live with her lonely Read More

Catlow

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Louis L'Amour, this comedic western tells of a thieving man who tries to get his hands on two million dollars of government cash while trying to avoid his friend--who happens to be a lawman. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Actors: Cindy Burrows, Emma Schlesinger, Kimi Tallmadge, Patrick Thornberry, Glenda Jackson, Peter Finch, Murray Head, Peggy Ashcroft, Maurice Denham

Synopsis: This British film examines the choices individuals must make when confronted with a romantic relationship which is rewarding but does not offer them everything they want. In this sympathetic and psychologically precise drama, Alexandra Greville (Glenda Jackson), "Alex" to her friends, has a Read More

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Actors: George Lazenby, Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas, Ilse Steppat, Gabriele Ferzetti

Synopsis: It wasn't as well received at the box office as the pictures that preceded it or followed it, but Peter Hunt's On Her Majesty's Secret Service was the finest of the James Bond movies and also arguably the last truly great movie in the series. James Bond, portrayed here by George Lazenby (in his Read More

Battle Beneath the Earth

Actors: Kerwin Mathews, Vivienne Ventura, Robert Ayres, Peter Arne, Al Mulock

Synopsis: In this rabid anti-communist science fiction tract, scientist Arnold Kramer (Peter Arne) convinces the Pentagon that the communist Chinese are digging a complex series of tunnels from China and beneath the United States, from which they plan to detonate nuclear weapons and destroy the free world. Read More

Isadora

Actors: Vanessa Redgrave, John Fraser, James Fox, Jason Robards, Jr., Ivan Tchenko

Synopsis: Vanessa Redgrave stars in this film biography of the free-spirited modern interpretive dancer Isadora Duncan. Trained in classical dance, Duncan shattered the traditional conformities in her art and her personal life. The film begins at the end of her life as she recalls the past while dictating Read More

I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name

Actors: Orson Welles, Oliver Reed, Carol White, Harry Andrews, Michael Hordern

Synopsis: The imprisoning aspects of Success are humorously analyzed in this British-made film. Oliver Reed plays a wealthy advertising man who feels he has sold his soul and wishes to return to his happier earlier existence as a poor but swinging Londoner. Reed is goaded on by his boss, Orson Welles, who Read More

The Wild Affair

Synopsis: In this sexy comedy an affianced woman decides to sow one last wild oat before becoming a devoted wife. She therefore dresses up in a slinky black number and goes to her company Christmas party. The shapely lass impresses both her boss and a sales manager for the cosmetic company. The manager then Read More

The Poppy Is Also a Flower

Actors: Senta Berger, Stephen Boyd, Yul Brynner, Angie Dickinson, Georges Géret

Synopsis: This exciting adventure provides an interesting look into the manufacture and trafficking of opium and heroin. The original story was written by Ian Fleming who died shortly before he was to pen the screenplay. The story is set in Iran and opens as an American undercover agent is murdered in the Read More

Promise Her Anything

Actors: Warren Beatty, Leslie Caron, Keenan Wynn, Hermione Gingold

Synopsis: A woman has to choose between the rich man she wants and the bohemian type who loves her in this comedy. Michele O'Brien (Leslie Caron) is a young widow raising a baby in Greenwich Village. She's decided that her child needs a father, and she determines that her best bet as a prospective mate is Read More

Children of the Damned

Actors: Ian Hendry, Alan Badel, Barbara Ferris, Alfred Burke, Sheila Allen

Synopsis: This sequel to the 1960 Village of The Damned falls short of the original well-made Sci-Fi shocker. The pretentious attempt to give the film a moral message severely weakens the plot and serves to confuse the fans of the previous film. Beautiful, strange children with genius IQ's, destructive Read More

Loss of Innocence

Actors: Kenneth More, Danielle Darrieux, Susannah York, Jane Asher, Claude Nollier

Synopsis: A young Susannah York had her first lead role in this drama about a teenage girl on the cusp of womanhood. When her mother falls ill during a vacation in the French wine country, 16-year-old Joss Grey (York) is left to her own devices as she and her three younger siblings are left in the reluctant Read More

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

Actors: Vivien Leigh, Warren Beatty, Coral Browne, Jill St. John, Lotte Lenya

Synopsis: Vivien Leigh plays Karen Stone, a middle-aged actress whose career is in a tailspin. To assuage her hurt feelings, Karen goes on a vacation to Rome with her husband, who dies en route. Her best friend (Coral Browne) compassionately arranges for a young Italian escort (read: gigolo) to keep Karen Read More

Too Young to Love

Actors: Thomas Mitchell, Joan Miller, Austin Willis, Vivian Matalon

Synopsis: Based on the stageplay Pick-up Girl, this film adaptation by director Muriel Box retains enough of the verbose theatrical styling and single-set focus to wobble as a cinematic effort. The story centers around an unfortunate period in the life of Elizabeth (Pauline Hahn), a fifteen-year-old girl Read More

Nowhere to Go

Actors: George Nader, Bernard Lee, Bessie Love, Maggie Smith, Geoffrey Keen

Synopsis: Influential British critic Kenneth Tynan neglected to review Nowhere to Go--perhaps because he directed it himself. Maggie Smith makes her film debut as an aristocrat whose sheltered existence is shattered by the arrival of George Nader. Nader is a fugitive from justice who can expect no help from Read More

Next to No Time

Actors: Kenneth More, Betsy Drake, Bessie Love, Harry Green, Patrick Barr

Synopsis: In his all too brief life, director Henry Cornelius became the principal standard-bearer of genteel whimsy in British films. Cornelius' Next to No Time (based on a story by Paul Gallico) stars Kenneth More as a milquetoast engineer who has lost a lot of professional and personal opportunities Read More

The Story of Esther Costello

Actors: Joan Crawford, Rossano Brazzi, Heather Sears, Lee Patterson, Ron Randell

Synopsis: Story of Esther Costello is the cinematic equivalent of eating a whole box of potato chips; you may hate yourself, but you'll relish every bite in the meantime. Joan Crawford plays a well-meaning woman who throws herself whole-hog into every charitable cause that comes down the pike. She is Read More

Touch and Go

Actors: Jack Hawkins, Margaret Johnston, June Thorburn, John Fraser, Roland Culver

Synopsis: Touch and Go stars Jack Hawkins as the head of a British family who decides to kick over the traces and emigrate to Australia. No one in the family, least of all wife Margaret Johnston, is enthused over this move, but they prepare themselves with dignity. As the technical and legal obstacles Read More

The Light Touch

The Barefoot Contessa

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Marius Goring, Rossano Brazzi

Synopsis: The Barefoot Contessa begins at the funeral of Ava Gardner, a former Spanish peasant, cabaret dancer and movie star, who at the time of her death was a full-fledged contessa. Her life story unfolds in flashback recollections from her mourners. Film director Humphrey Bogart recalls how his career Read More

The Weak and the Wicked

Actors: Glynis Johns, John Gregson, Diana Dors, Jane Hylton, Sidney James

Synopsis: Had the women-behind-bars drama The Weak and the Wicked been made in Hollywood, the cast would probably have included the likes of Ida Lupino, Marie Windsor, Peggie Castle and Hope Emerson. Instead, the film was lensed in Britain, with Glynis Johns and Diana Dors heading the cast. Framed on a Read More

The Magic Box

Actors: Robert Donat, Margaret Johnston, Maria Schell, Robert Beatty, John Charlesworth, James Kenney

Synopsis: The Magic Box was the English film industry's contribution to the 1951 Festival of Britain. Its all-star cast generously forsook their usual salaries for the privilege of paying tribute to that unsung pioneer of cinema, William Friese-Greene, here played by Robert Donat. Adapted by Eric Ambler Read More

No Highway in the Sky

Actors: James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Glynis Johns, Jack Hawkins, Ronald Squire

Synopsis: Henry Koster directs the 1951 aviation drama No Highway in the Sky, based on the novel by Nevil Shute. James Stewart stars as Theodore Honey, a widower and single parent to 11-year-old Elspeth (Janette Scott). He's also an absent-minded engineer who has formed a scientific theory about metal Read More

Journey Together

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Richard Attenborough, Hugh Wakefield, Jack Watling, David Tomlinson, Ronald Squire

Synopsis: Filmed in 1945 and released in the US the following year, the Anglo-American Journey Together is a tribute to the Royal Air Force, with several members of the RAF (and the acting profession) in prominent roles. The story follows the progress of two aspiring RAF pilots, cockney David Wilton (Sgt. Richard Attenborough Read More

Sons of the Sea

Actors: Michael Redgrave, Valerie Hobson, Griffith Jones, Hartley Power, Margaretta Scott

Synopsis: Emeric Pressburger was one of the scenarists on the big-budget British seafaring saga Atlantic Ferry. The film is a romanticized recounting of the first-ever steamship crossing of the Atlantic in 1837. Michael Redgrave and Griffith Jones star as the MacIver brothers (the film is based on a story Read More

Live Again

Morals for Women

Actors: Bessie Love, Conway Tearle, John Holland, Natalie Moorhead, Emma Dunn

Synopsis: In this melodrama, a young secretary becomes the Kept Woman of her lascivious employer. When she encounters her high school sweetheart, she ends up leaving and returning to her hometown and her poor, struggling family. They need her income desperately, and after some turmoil, she is forced to Read More

Good News

Actors: Mary Lawlor, Stanley Smith, Bessie Love, Cliff Edwards, Gus Shy

Synopsis: The DeSylva-Brown-Henderson Broadway musical Good News was first brought to the screen by MGM in 1930. The scene is Tait College, where everyone is in a blue funk over the dilemma of gridiron star Tom (Stanley Smith). Since the only thing he's ever passed is a football, Tom is in danger of Read More

See America Thirst

Actors: Harry Langdon, George "Slim" Summerville, Bessie Love, Mitchell Lewis, Matthew Betz

Synopsis: Silent-screen comedian Harry Langdon was the darling of the critics in 1927, but his career quickly lost momentum, and by the time talkies came in, Langdon was considered a has-been, reduced to starring in 2-reelers for comedy producer Hal Roach. In 1930, he made a feature-film comeback bid in a Read More

Conspiracy

Actors: Bessie Love, Ned Sparks, Hugh Trevor, Rita La Roy

Synopsis: The "conspiracy" of the title refers not only to a deadly narcotics ring, but also the combined efforts by the good guys to capture the villains. Margaret Holt (Bessie Love) and her brother Victor (Bert Morehouse) team up to destroy the drug peddlers responsible for their father's death. They are Read More

They Learned About Women

Synopsis: Based loosely on Waite Hoyt and Mickey Cochrane, major league baseball players moonlighting as vaudeville entertainers, this early musical comedy starred Gus Van and Joe Schenck, genuine vaudeville headliners famous for their humorous ethnic ballads. On their way to winter practice, Jack Glennon Read More

Hollywood Revue of 1929

Synopsis: With the arrival of talkies, every major studio hopped on the musical bandwagon by turning out lavish "revues," spotlighting their top stars performing specialty numbers. MGM's entry in this all-star genre was Hollywood Revue of 1929, which, though a box-office smash and a "Best Picture" Oscar Read More

The Broadway Melody

Actors: Anita Page, Bessie Love, Charles King, Jed Prouty, Ken Thomson

Synopsis: This landmark MGM backstage musical of the early sound era about broken dreams on the Great White Way features a bevy of standards by the songwriting team of Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown. Freed later became unit producer of the legendary Freed Unit at MGM, which is the reason many of the Read More

Chasing Rainbows

Actors: Bessie Love, Jack Benny, George K. Arthur, Polly Moran

Synopsis: Intended as a follow-up to the fabulously successful Broadway Melody, Chasing Rainbows reunites several of the leading players of MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929. The story concerns a troupe of travelling entertainers, all of whom would like to escape their peripatetic existence but none of whom Read More

The Girl in the Show

Actors: Bessie Love

Synopsis: In this drama, a traveling troupe of actors find themselves in danger of becoming unemployed when their manager up and leaves. Two of the actors decide to marry and settle down. The lead actor helps set up the rest of the troupe with some performances. He then destroys the new marriage. Later the Read More

The Idle Rich

Actors: Conrad Nagel, Bessie Love, Leila Hyams, Robert Ober, James Neill

Synopsis: In this comedy, a middle-class stenographer marries her wealthy boss. Her family is intimidated by his status and when the happy couple comes to call, they spend much of their time lecturing him about class equality. The wealthy husband is particularly moved by a speech from his bride's cousin and Read More

Sally of the Scandals

Actors: Bessie Love

Anybody Here Seen Kelly?

The Matinee Idol

Actors: Bessie Love, Johnnie Walker, Ernest Hilliard, Lionel Belmore, David Mir

Synopsis: For many years considered a "lost" Frank Capra silent, The Matinee Idol was restored in the mid-1990s to very nearly its entire 60-minute length. Johnnie Walker is cast as brash Broadway star Don Wilson, who out of boredom takes a leave of absence from his latest show and heads to the boonies. Read More

Dress Parade

Actors: William "Hopalong" Boyd, Bessie Love, Hugh Allan, Louis Natheaux, Maurice Ryan

Synopsis: Despite his accomplishments as an actor, Donald Crisp's talents as a director were slight at best. What makes Crisp's Dress Parade work are the engaging star performances of William Boyd and Bessie Love. Filmed on location at West Point, the story concerns a brash young cadet (Boyd) who is Read More

Rubber Tires

Actors: Bessie Love, Erwin Connelly, May Robson, Harrison Ford

Synopsis: Those who believe that It Happened One Night was the first film to tap the comic potential of "auto courts" (later known as motels) are referred to the 1927 film Rubber Tires. It all begins when the Stack family sells all its worldly possessions, invests in a car, and heads to California. Every Read More

Amateur Night

Harp in Hock

Actors: Rudolph Schildkraut, Junior Coughlan, May Robson, Bessie Love, Joseph Striker

Synopsis: A Harp in Hock proved to be a felicitous reteaming of veteran Austrian stage star Rudolph Schildkraut and juvenile favorite Junior Coghlan, who'd previously co-starred in The Country Doctor. Upon arriving in New York, Irish lad Coghlan discovers that his mother has just died. Coghlan is Read More

The American

Lovely Mary

Young April

Synopsis: With its mythical kingdom theme, this romance was not terribly original. But it does feature a couple of interesting aspects; it was produced by (although not directed by) Cecil B. DeMille, and it features both Joseph Schildkraut and his father, the esteemed Rudolph Schildkraut as the prince and Read More

Lovey Mary

Actors: Bessie Love, William Haines, Mary Alden, Vivian Ogden

Synopsis: The frequently filmed Alice Hegan Rice novel Lovey Mary was given the slick MGM treatment in 1926. Bessie Love plays the title character, a 17-year-old orphanage runaway. Taken in by poor-but-kindly Mrs. Wiggs (Mary Alden), Lovey Mary spreads good cheer wherever she goes, even "curing" the town's Read More

The Song and Dance Man

Actors: Tom Moore, Bessie Love, Harrison Ford, Norman Trevor, Bobby Watson

Synopsis: Song and Dance Man was based on the play of the same name by George M. Cohan. Tom Moore plays vaudevillian Happy Farrell, who gives up show biz to take a "civilian" job. Finding success in the business world, Happy tries to go back on stage, only to find that it isn't quite so easy the second time Read More

Going Crooked

Actors: Bessie Love, Oscar Shaw, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Leslie Fenton

Synopsis: Going Crooked was based on the stage play by Winchell Smith, William Collier Sr. and Aaron Hoffman. An armored car driver has been killed in a robbery, and an innocent man (Leslie Fenton) has been charged with the murder. DA John Banning (Oscar Shaw) suspects a frame-up, but the only person he is Read More

Son of His Father

Actors: Bessie Love, Warner Baxter, Raymond Hatton, Walter McGrail, Carl Stockdale

Synopsis: Based on a story by Harold Bell Wright, this average silent western starred Warner Baxter as the son who almost loses his ranch to cover his late father's debts. Star-billed Bessie Love had little to do other than looking pretty as Baxter's Irish romantic interest. A former leading man with the Read More

The Lost World

Actors: Bessie Love, Lloyd Hughes, Wallace Beery, Arthur Hoyt

Synopsis: This adventure virtually butchers its source, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novel. But with stop-motion photography and special effects that were incredibly innovative in 1924 and 1925, who cared? These effects were the whole film, and Wallace Beery's inspired performance was a bonus. The tale Read More

King on Main Street

Actors: Adolphe Menjou, Bessie Love, Greta Nissen, Oscar Shaw, Joseph Kilgour

Synopsis: Although there was nothing really fresh about the story to this romantic comedy (based on the play The King, by Leo Ditrichstein), director Monta Bell and star Adolphe Menjou gave it a pleasantly sophisticated veneer. Serge IV (Menjou), King of Molvania, has come to the United States to secure a Read More

New Brooms

Actors: Neil Hamilton, Bessie Love, Phyllis Haver, Robert McWade, Fred Walton

Synopsis: This warm comedy, based on the play by Frank Craven, was typical of William C. deMille's directing work. Thomas Bates Sr. (Robert McWade) takes his broom manufacturing business very seriously, and his idle son, Tom Jr. (Neil Hamilton), calls him a grouch. As a result, Bates decides to teach his Read More

Soul-Fire

Actors: Lee Baker

Synopsis: Eric Fane (Richard Barthelmess) studies music in Paris, but his parents (Lee Baker and Effie Shannon) call him home and ask him to give it up to go into business. He refuses and returns to France. He gets involved with Rhea, a Russian princess (Carlotta Montery), is swept up by the Parisian Read More

Those Who Dance

Actors: Blanche Sweet, Bessie Love, Warner Baxter, Robert Agnew

Synopsis: This melodrama was personally supervised by producer Thomas Ince, and, depending on how one looked at it, it was either anti-alcohol, or against the Volstead Act, which caused the bootlegging of bad liquor. Mary Kane (Lucille Ricksen) is killed during a wreck when the boy driving the car in which Read More

Tongues of Flame

Actors: Thomas Meighan, Bessie Love, Eileen Percy, Berton Churchill, John Miltern

Synopsis: An attorney (Thomas Meighan) becomes the intermediary between an Indian tribe and the territory's settlers in this fine silent western based on a novel by Peter Clark MacFarlane. Meighan, however, gets in hot water when, upon his advice, the Indians sell their land to an outright crook (Berton Churchill Read More

Sundown

Actors: Bessie Love, Roy Stewart, Hobart Bosworth, Charlie Murray

Synopsis: John Brent (Hobart Bosworth) returns from the East to tell his fellow cattlemen that they will have to leave the range and make way for the homesteaders by heading for Mexico. On the train, Brent's son Hugh (Roy Stewart) has met Ellen Crawley (Bessie Love), one of a family of homesteaders. When Read More

Woman on the Jury

Actors: Sylvia Breamer, Frank Mayo, Bessie Love, Hobart Bosworth

Synopsis: Although the plot to this heavy-handed drama sounds like typical Hollywood hokum, it actually came from a very successful stage play by Bernard K. Burns. The conniving George Wayne (Lew Cody) entices Betty Brown (Sylvia Breamer) to accompany him to his cabin with promises of marriage. Only after Read More

Dynamite Smith

Synopsis: The meek and mild Gladstone Smith (Charles Ray) is a reporter for the morning edition. While following a lead on a murder case, he meets Violet (Bessie Love), the wife of the supposed killer, Slugger Rourke (Wallace Beery). Rourke finds them talking and beats up both of them. Violet, who is Read More

Torment

Synopsis: This tale of international thievery was rather an odd film for director Maurice Tourneur, and it wasn't up to his usual standard. In fact, the climax--a Japanese earthquake--is obviously a combination of newsreel footage and movie sets. When it is discovered that he has the crown jewels, Count Read More

Silent Watcher

Actors: Glenn Hunter, Bessie Love, Hobart Bosworth, Gertrude Astor, George Nichols

Synopsis: After his impressive directorial effort on The Sea Hawk, Frank Lloyd made this far smaller and more intimate film. The idealistic Joe Roberts (Glenn Hunter) adores his wife Mary (Bessie Love) and looks up to his boss, John Steele (Hobart Bosworth), who is a candidate for U.S. senator. Steele Read More

Purple Dawn

Actors: Bert Sprotte, William E. Aldrich, Edward Peil Sr., Bessie Love

Synopsis: Generally, during the silent era, Caucasian actors, not Asians, would play "Oriental" roles. In this romantic drama, Bessie Love is not exactly the most realistic Chinese girl. Bob, a sailor (William E. Aldrich), gets involved in drug smuggling through his brutal boss, sea captain Red Carson (Bert Read More

The Eternal Three

Actors: Hobart Bosworth, Claire Windsor, Raymond Griffith, Bessie Love, George Cooper

Synopsis: Writer/director Marshall Neilan once more makes lemonade from a lemon in The Eternal Three. Hobart Bosworth plays Frank R. Walters, an elderly doctor who takes for himself a young bride, portrayed by Claire Windsor. Feeling neglected, the new wife starts up an affair with Walter's adopted son Bob (George Cooper Read More

Human Wreckage

Actors: James Kirkwood, Bessie Love, George Hackathorne, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: Dorothy Davenport billed herself by her private name, Mrs. Wallace Reid, for this melodrama about drug addiction. She was making a powerful point by doing so because her husband, film star Wallace Reid, had died at the beginning of 1923 as a result of his morphine habit. An exploitative bit of Read More

Night Life in Hollywood

Actors: Gale Henry

Synopsis: Burned by a recent series of scandals that included the Fatty Arbuckle manslaughter case and the February 1, 1922, murder of director William Desmond Taylor, Hollywood took great pains in attempting to convince Middle America that the film community was anything but "out of control." One of the Read More

Ghost Patrol

Actors: Ralph Graves, Bessie Love

Synopsis: Sinclair Lewis wrote the story to this heartwarming drama. Don Dorgan (George Nichols) has been patrolling his beat in a rough section of town for the past 30 years and has managed to keep the peace through friendship and understanding. One young neighborhood tough, Terry Rafferty (Ralph Graves) Read More

Souls for Sale

Actors: Eleanor Boardman, Mae Busch, Barbara La Marr, Richard Dix, Frank Mayo

Synopsis: This comedy-melodrama, based on the novel by Rupert Hughes (who also directed), blends fiction and reality to tell the story of a young woman's rise in Hollywood; the film uses real stars and productions (even Charles Chaplin filming A Woman of Paris) as its backdrop. Eleanor Boardman plays Read More

St. Elmo

Actors: John Gilbert, Barbara La Marr, Bessie Love, Warner Baxter, Nigel de Brulier

Synopsis: Starring New Zealander Shayle Gardner in the title role, this British screen version of Augusta J. Evans-Wilson's sentimental novel and stock company perennial was often mentioned when citing the poor state of British filmmaking in the 1920s. Gardner played the title role, a man who killed his Read More

Slave of Desire

Actors: Bessie Love, Carmel Myers, Wally Van, Edward Connelly

Synopsis: George Walsh, usually known for his athletic roles, stars in this fantasy based on the famous story by Honoré de Balzac. Poet Raphael de Valentin (Walsh) is down on his luck until a friend introduces him into society. He meets the Countess Fedora (Carmel Myers), and after she reads his poems, his Read More

Gentle Julia

Actors: Bessie Love, Harold Goodwin, Frank Elliott, Charles French, Clyde Benson

Synopsis: Julia (Bessie Love) is a small-town girl who falls in love with George Crum (Frank Elliott) a much-older man. Though the object of her affection regards her as a nuisance, Julia tags after Crum all the way to Chicago. Just when it looks as though Julia's dream romance is about to be consummated Read More

Village Blacksmith

Actors: William Walling, Virginia True Boardman, Virginia Valli, David Butler

Synopsis: Everybody at Mack Sennett's Keystone studios was expected to do a little bit of everything, which is why bassett-faced comedian Hank Mann both directed and co-starred in the 2-reel laughfest The Village Blacksmith. Burly Tom Kennedy plays the title character, while gawky Polly Moran is cast as Read More

Forget Me Not

Actors: Irene Hunt, Will Machin, Bessie Love, Gareth Hughes, Otto Lederer

Synopsis: Although this drama tugged a little too insistently at the heartstrings, Billie Dove -- still a fresh star -- stands out as the crippled young orphan girl. She is left in an asylum by her mother (Irene Hunt), who can't afford to keep her. As the years pass, the girl forms a friendship with another Read More

The Vermillion Pencil

Actors: Sessue Hayakawa, Ann May, Misao Seki

Synopsis: This melodramatic programmer had a Chinese backdrop and Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa as its star. Tse Chan (Hayakawa) is the viceroy of China, and when he believes his wife has been unfaithful, he raises "the vermillion pencil," thus sentencing her to a death of "a thousand torments." Read More

Bulldog Courage

Actors: Frank Whitson, Bessie Love, George Larkin, Albert MacQuarrie, Carl Silvera

Synopsis: Several westerns of the '20s centered around a foppish Easterner toughening up in a Western atmosphere, a role made popular by Douglas Fairbanks in the previous decade. George Larkin -- no Fairbanks by any stretch of the imagination -- portrays the Easterner in this inexpensive version of the Read More

Deserted at the Altar

Actors: Bessie Love, Frankie Lee, Tully Marshall, Wade Boteler, William Scott

Synopsis: This melodrama, with all its standard trappings, was adapted the stage play by Pierce Kingsley, which in turn was based on Grace Miller's novel. Bessie Love stars as orphaned country girl Anna Moore, who, along with her brother, Tommy (Frankie Lee), is being raised by hypocritical Squire Simpson Read More

The Sea Lion

Synopsis: John Nelson (Hobart Bosworth) is a cruel sea captain who has harbored a grudge against humankind ever since his wife deserted him 16 years ago. When Tom Walton (Emory Johnson) is cast aside by his family for his debaucherous behavior, he takes a job as a deck hand on Nelson's whaling ship. The Read More

The Swamp

Actors: Sessue Hayakawa, Bessie Love, Janice Wilson, Frankie Lee, Lillian Langdon

Synopsis: Sessue Hayakawa wrote the story for this simple little drama. Wang (Hayakawa) is a Chinese vegetable peddler in the slum area of a big city. He befriends a little boy, Buster (Frankie Lee), and meets the boy's mother, Mary (Bessie Love). Mary has been deserted by her no-good husband, and when Wang Read More

Penny of Top Hill Trail

Synopsis: Bessie Love stars in this comedy, adapted from a novel by Belle K. Maniates. Love, as Penny, arrives in the West by aeroplane. She is considered a suspicious character and thrown into jail. Kurt Walters, a ranch foreman and deputy sheriff (Wheeler Oakman), discovers that she is the same girl that Read More

Carolyn of the Corners

Synopsis: When she played this Peg O' My Heart-type character, Bessie Love was 20 -- still very young, but nevertheless rather old to play a youngster. But like other silent stars -- Mary Pickford and Mary Miles Minter, to name a couple -- she pulls it off. Joseph Stagg (Charles Elder) is the leading Read More

Yankee Princess

Synopsis: Clumsy direction went a long way to sink this minor Bessie Love vehicle. Love plays an Irish girl whose parents suddenly come into wealth. They want their daughter to break into society, so they buy a coat-of-arms at an auction. The deception is found out, but Love's charm wins the true owner of Read More

The Great Adventure

Synopsis: No relation to the 1915 British film of the same name, 1918's The Great Adventure is a showcase for that delightful screen gamine Bessie Love. The star plays a small-town girl who heads to New York in pursuit of a show-business career. She falls in love with a chorus boy (Chester Barnett), but Read More

Dawn of Understanding

Synopsis: This Western romance was adapted from Bret Harte's novel, The Judgment of Bolinas Plains, which had been made into a stage play prior to its translation to film. It's the story of Sue Prescott (Bessie Love), who is accompanying her parents to the gold fields. When her mother dies, her father (George A. Williams Read More

Stranded

Synopsis: Broadway luminary DeWolfe Hopper was felicitously cast as a broken-down ham actor in the 5-reel comedy-drama Stranded. The title accurately describes the dilemma faced by H. Ulysses Watts (Hopper) and his fellow performers when travelling-show manager Stoner (Carl Stockdale) skips town with the Read More

Wee Lady Betty

Synopsis: When her father goes broke, Irish colleen Betty (Bessie Love) is forced to sell her ancestral home. But rather than part with the domicile completely, Betty stays on as a housemaid, while her dad is hidden away in one of the darker wings of the building. Thanks to papa's drunken nocturnal Read More

Sawdust Ring

Synopsis: For reasons unknown, it took two directors to put the modestly budgeted The Sawdust Ring together. Bessie Love stars as Janet Magie, an awkward country girl who aspires to become a circus bareback rider. Together with her bucolic boyfriend Peter Weldon (Harold Goodwin), Janet runs away from home Read More

Nina, the Flower Girl

Actors: Alfred Paget

Synopsis: In this completely implausible silent picture, Bessie Love plays Nina, a blind flower girl and Elmer Clifton is Jimmie, the hunchbacked newsboy who loves her. Nina has some wealthy friends and one of them decides to pay to have her sight restored. Jimmie, who knows that Nina imagines him to be Read More

The Good Bad Man

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks

Synopsis: The Good Bad Man is at once a straight western and a gentle spoof of the genre. Douglas Fairbanks plays a fellow who calls himself "Passin' Through." Orphaned at birth, Our Hero grows up to be a Robin-Hood-like bandit, robbing the rich so that he can finance a home for unwanted children. In this Read More

The Flying Torpedo

Synopsis: Unlike most "preparedness" films of the WWI era, Flying Torpedo sidesteps preaching in favor of non-stop action. With California in imminent danger of enemy invasion, the American government commissions a noted inventor to develop a flying torpedo. Unfortunately, the inventor's plans and prototype Read More

The Mystery of the Leaping Fish

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks

Synopsis: Silent superstar Douglas Fairbanks lampoons both his dashing onscreen persona and the detective mystery genre in this curious little two-reeler. Detective Coke Ennyday (Fairbanks) wears a drooping mustache, odd clothes, and starts his day with some hootch and a few hypodermics. The police call and Read More

The Aryan

Actors: William S. Hart

Synopsis: With the assistant of his trusted associate Clifford Smith (who handled most of the second-unit stuff), William S. Hart directed his own starring vehicle The Aryan. Hart plays a westerner who suffers betrayal at the hands of seductive Louise Glaum. Seeking revenge, he resorts to robbery and Read More

Hell-To-Pay Austin

Synopsis: Veteran Biograph leading man/director Wilfred Lucas essays the title role in Hell-to-Pay Austin. A rough-and-tumble lumberman, Austin nonetheless has a sentimental side. When the minister father of winsome Briar Rose (Bessie Love) dies of excessive drinking, the girl is unofficially adopted by Read More

Intolerance

Actors: Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Miriam Cooper, Walter Long, Tully Marshall, Alfred Paget

Synopsis: Sometime during the shooting of the landmark The Birth of a Nation, filmmaker D.W. Griffith probably wondered how he could top himself. In 1916, he showed how, with the awesome Intolerance. The film began humbly enough as a medium-budget feature entitled The Mother and the Law, wherein the lives Read More

Acquitted

Synopsis: Wilfred Lucas plays a distinguished banker, falsely accused of murder. Though acquitted in court, Lucas' reputation is destroyed, and he force from his job. Like George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life, Lucas decides that he's worth more dead than alive; thus, he plans to kill himself so his family Read More

Reggie Mixes in

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks

Synopsis: The lines of demarcation are clearly drawn in the Douglas Fairbanks vehicle Reggie Mixes In. We know that Reggie (Fairbanks) is rich because he's the best-dressed person in the picture. We know that the criminal gang is a criminal gang because of their grimy costumes. And we know that W.E. Lowery Read More

The Birth of a Nation

Actors: Henry B. Walthall, Miriam Cooper, Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish, Robert Harron, Ralph Lewis

Synopsis: The most successful and artistically advanced film of its time, The Birth of a Nation has also sparked protests, riots, and divisiveness since its first release. The film tells the story of the Civil War and its aftermath, as seen through the eyes of two families. The Stonemans hail from the Read More