E. Mason HopperFilmography

Hong Kong Nights

Crew: Director

Actors: Wera Engels

Synopsis: Action star Tom Keene appeared under his alternate screen cognomen of George Duryea in the 1935 quickie Hong Kong Nights. Tom (or George) and Warren Hymer play a couple of rough-and-tumble customs agents. Lovely Wera Engels co-stars as the innocent companion of crooked businessman Cornelius Keefe. Read More

Curtain at Eight

Crew: Director

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, C. Aubrey Smith, Paul Cavanagh, Sam Hardy, Marion Shilling

Synopsis: Before its absorption into the newly-formed 20th Century-Fox corporation in 1935, feisty little Majestic Pictures turned out quite a few impressive "B-plus" productions. One of the best and best-received was the "locked door" murder mystery, Curtain at Eight. Most of the action takes place at a Read More

Malay Nights

Crew: Director

Actors: Johnny Mack Brown, Dorothy Burgess, Ralph Ince, Raymond Hatton, Carmelita Geraghty

Synopsis: Dorothy Burgess, the fiery Tonia of the Academy award-winning In Old Arizona (1929), plays a woman who will do anything to locate her missing child in Malay Nights, a rather sordid low-budget melodrama from Mayfair Pictures Corp. After reluctantly marrying handsome pearl fisherman Jim Wilson Read More

Sister to Judas

Crew: Director

Actors: Claire Windsor, John Harron, Holmes Herbert, David Callis, Lee Moran

Synopsis: Former silent stars Claire Windsor, John Harron, and Holmes Herbert struggled mightily with a morose script in this low-budget melodrama from producer George W. Weeks. A reader for the Rogers Publishing Company, Annie Frayne (Windsor) successfully campaigns against the company publishing "In Quest Read More

One Year Later

Crew: Director

Actors: Mary Brian, Russell Hopton, Donald Dillaway, George Irving, Will Ahern

Synopsis: In this drama, a recently convicted criminal boards a train bound for the prison where he will be hanged. His wife rides with him and en route tells a reporter how her husband had accidentally killed a man while protecting her. The reporter, who is dying of tuberculosis, is touched by the story Read More

No Living Witness

Crew: Director

Actors: Gilbert Roland, Noah Beery, Sr., Barbara Kent, Carmel Myers, Otis Harlan

Synopsis: Crusading district attorney Jerry Bennett (Gilbert Roland) would give anything to get the goods on unscrupulous criminal lawyer Clyde Corbin (Noah Beery). Alas, Corbin proves too slippery a target -- and besides, he's got too many irons in the fire to be bothered by Bennett. Halfway through the Read More

Midnight Morals

Crew: Director

Actors: Beryl Mercer, DeWitt Jennings, Charles Delaney, Alberta Vaughn, Gwen Lee

Synopsis: The problem with the main characters in Midnight Morals is that they have more midnight than morals in their lives. Rookie cop Charles Delaney falls in love with taxi dancer Alberta Vaughan, much to the consternation of Delaney's chief-detective father DeWitt Jennings. Dad's trepidations seem to Read More

Shop Angel

Crew: Director

Actors: Marion Shilling, Holmes Herbert, Anthony Bushell

Synopsis: In this romantic drama, an ambitious young dress designer decides to make an upward career move by making a play for her employer. Later that night, the two go out, but they are involved in an auto accident. Knowing that a major scandal will erupt if it is discovered that the two are dating, the Read More

Held for Murder

Crew: Director

Actors: Irene Rich, Conway Tearle, Mary Carlisle, Ken Thomson, William B. Davidson

Synopsis: Mayfair Productions had an absolute genius for coming up with titles that would drive away audiences. Wisely, Mayfair's 1932 epic Her Mad Night was retitled Held for Murder when it was reissued, resulting in far better business than the film had enjoyed upon its first release. Irene Rich stars as Read More

Alias Mary Smith

Crew: Director

Actors: Blanche Mehaffey, Myrtle Stedman, Edmund Breese, Alec B. Francis

Synopsis: Alias Mary Smith might have been completely forgotten were it not for the diligent efforts of "B"-picture aficionado John Cocchi, who in such books as Second Feature has elevated this unintentionally hilarious cheapie to near-classic status. John Darrow plays a bibulous playboy who rescues Read More

Wise Girls

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In this comedy, a plumber does a job for a fellow and ends up conned into marrying his daughter. The daughter only agrees to the absurd union to make her real lover jealous. When the plumber learns of her motives, he has the marriage annulled and ends up marrying her honest younger sister. The Read More

Their Own Desire

Crew: Director, Producer

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

Square Shoulders

Crew: Director

Actors: Louis Wolheim, Philippe DeLacy, Anita Louise

Synopsis: Child star Frank "Junior" Coghlan's final film on his DeMille-Pathe contract was the military-academy drama Square Shoulders. After the death of his mother, young Tad (Coghlan) is made a ward of a newsboy's home. Proud of the Distinguished Service Cross left to him by his reportedly dead war-hero Read More

The Carnation Kid

Crew: Director

Actors: Douglas MacLean, William B. Davidson, Charles Hill Mailes, Francis McDonald

Synopsis: It's a case of mistaken identity in this convoluted comedy that centers around a country bumpkin mistaken for a Chicago hitman. The story begins in Chatham, Illinois as an honest district attorney is about to be elected. This worries the town mob-boss because the new D.A. is sworn to get all the Read More

Blonde for a Night

Crew: Director

Actors: Marie Prevost, Harrison Ford, Franklin Pangborn, Lucien Littlefield, T. Roy Barnes

Synopsis: Previously teamed for a number of boudoir farces like Getting Gertie's Garter and Up in Mabel's Room, star Marie Prevost and director E. Mason Hopper once more pooled their talents in Blonde for a Night. Prevost plays the dowdy brunette wife of roving husband Harrison Ford, who prefers to spend Read More

The Night Bride

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Flamboyant flapper Cynthia Stockton (Marie Prevost) and misogynistic author Stanley Warrington (the "original" Harrison Ford) "meet cute" when their cars collide. Hoping to escape Warrington's wrath, Cynthia hitches a ride on a milk truck and returns home earlier than expected. Upon finding her Read More

The Night Ride

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Actors: Robert Edeson, Franklin Pangborn

My Friend from India

Crew: Director

Wise Wife

Crew: Director

Actors: Phyllis Haver, Tom Moore, Fred Walton, Jacqueline Logan, Joseph Striker

Synopsis: The "wise wife" is Helen Blaisdell (Phyllis Haver), the loving missus of John Blaisdell (Owen Moore). Unfortunately, John's head is turned by a younger woman, saucy flapper Jenny Lou (Jacqueline Logan). Rather than scratch Jenny Lou's eyes out, Helen allows her rival to see what life would be like Read More

The Rush Hour

Crew: Director

Actors: Marie Prevost, Harrison Ford, Seena Owen, Ward Crane, David Butler

Synopsis: Previously teamed in such boudoir farces as Up in Mabel's Room and The Girl and the Pullman, Marie Prevost and the "original" Harrison Ford are again co-starred in The Rush Hour. Tired of the hustle and bustle of urban life, working girl Margie Dolan (Marie Prevost) stows away on a France-bound Read More

Getting Gertie's Garter

Crew: Director

Actors: Sally Rand, Harry Myers, Fritzi Ridgeway, Lila Leslie, William Orlamond

Synopsis: As a follow-up to the successful marital farce Up in Mabel's Room, PDC Productions came out with a film version of the evergreen Avery Hopwood stage comedy Getting Gertie's Garter. Charles Ray, once again trying vainly to shed his "boy next door" image, stars as a bachelor lawyer who gives a Read More

Paris at Midnight

Crew: Director

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Mary Brian, Edmund Burns

Synopsis: Paris at Midnight was freely adapted from Pere Goriot, a novel by Honore de Balzac. Lionel Barrymore stars as the "Robin Hood of Paris," who robs from the rich and keeps it all for himself. When his best friend dies in a shabby boarding house, Barrymore promises to look after the friend's Read More

Almost a Lady

Crew: Director

Actors: Marie Prevost, Harrison Ford, George K. Arthur, Trixie Friganza, John Miljan

Synopsis: Mack Sennett veterans Marie Prevost and Trixie Friganza enliven the proceedings of Almost a Lady. Prevost plays a model who uses the fancy clothes that she's paid to wear to crash into society. She very nearly crashes out when her ruse is exposed, but love, in the form of handsome Harrison Ford Read More

Up in Mabel's Room

Crew: Director

Actors: Marie Prevost, Harrison Ford, Phyllis Haver, Harry Myers, Sylvia Breamer

Synopsis: This first film version of the Otto Harbach-William Collison stage farce Up in Mabel's Room was released in 1926, the same year that the original play premiered on Broadway. Newlywed Garry Ainsworth (played by the "original" Harrison Ford) discovers that his ex-wife Mabel (Marie Prevost) is in an Read More

The Crowded Hour

Crew: Director

Actors: Bebe Daniels, Kenneth Harlan, T. Roy Barnes, Frank Morgan, Helen Lee Worthing

Synopsis: When Billy Laidlaw (Kenneth Harlan) sees Peggy Laurence (Bebe Daniels) and her partner, Matt Wilde (T. Roy Barnes), performing at a Bowery amateur night, he resolves to help them. They do well on Broadway, thanks to Laidlaw, who begins falling in love with Peggy, even though he already has a wife Read More

Great White Way

Crew: Director

Actors: Anita Stewart, T. Roy Barnes, Oscar Shaw, Tom Lewis

Synopsis: If the Hearst newspapers seem to get a lot of attention in this comedy-drama, it only makes sense -- William Randolph Hearst's production company, Cosmopolitan, produced the picture, which blends a fictional story with real-life events. Press agent Jack Murray (T. Roy Barnes) is having trouble Read More

Janice Meredith

Crew: Director

Actors: Marion Davies, Harrison Ford, Maclyn Arbuckle, Spencer Charters, Olin Howland

Synopsis: Newspaper magnate and movie producer William Randolph Hearst created this massive epic about the American Revolution to showcase the talents of his mistress Marion Davies. The results were far better than anyone could have imagined, given these circumstances; both film content and Marion were Read More

Love Piker

Crew: Director

Actors: Anita Stewart, William Norris, Robert W. Frazer, Arthur Hoyt

Synopsis: The talents of screenwriter Frances Marion and star Anita Stewart are wasted in this flimsy, overlong comedy-drama. Stewart's starring role, as snobbish society maiden Hope Warner, is surprisingly unsympathetic. Hope meets handsome Martin Van Huisen (Robert W. Frazer) when he offers to pay her Read More

Daddy

Crew: Director

Actors: Jackie Coogan, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Cesare Gravina, Bert Woodruff

Synopsis: Little Jackie Coogan, the most popular child star of his generation, once again played a poor but spunky ragamuffin in this lachrymose silent drama from independent producer Sol Lesser. Believing her husband to be unfaithful, Helene Savelli (Josie Sedgwick) takes her little son Jackie (Coogan) to Read More

Hungry Hearts

Crew: Director

Actors: Bryant Washburn, Helen Ferguson, E. Alyn Warren, Rosa Rosanova, George Siegmann

Synopsis: Humoresque (1920) spawned a large number of human interest films featuring Jewish immigrant mothers in the style of Vera Gordon. This picture's mother was played by Rosa Rosanova. Russian immigrants Abraham and Hannah Levin (E.A. Warner and Rosanova) bring their family to America. Like many Read More

All's Fair in Love

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Wife May Collins is convinced by a homewrecking female (Marcia Manon) that her husband Richard Dix is unfaithful. Upon learning that she's been hoodwinked, Collins decides to use a few underhanded feminine wiles herself. By proving herself the equal of the woman who broke up her home, wifey wins Read More

From the Ground Up

Crew: Director

Actors: Tom Moore, Helene Chadwick, DeWitt Jennings, Grace Pike, Hardee Kirkland

Synopsis: Dependable leading man Tom Moore carries the lighthearted storyline of From the Ground Up. Moore is cast as a burly skyscraper worker who's a whole lot smarter than he looks. Before he, or we, quite know what is happening, Moore ends up owning the building on which he'd been working, and also wins Read More

Dangerous Curve Ahead

Crew: Director

Actors: Helene Chadwick, Richard Dix, Maurice B. Flynn, James Neill, Edythe Chapman

Synopsis: When she starred in this drama, Helene Chadwick was being referred to as "the most photographed girl in America." Phoebe Mabee (Chadwick) has two suitors: Harley Jones (Richard Dix) and the wealthy Anson Newton (Maurice B. Flynn). Jones wins her and the newly married couple move to the big city Read More

It's a Great Life

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This Eminent Authors-Goldwyn production was based on the Mary Roberts Rineheart story about boarding school life, "Empire Builders," which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. The scanty plot involves a pair of boys, Stoddard (Culen Landis) and "the Wop" (Howard Halston) -- an unfortunate Read More

Wife or Country

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Gretchen Barker (Gretchen Lederer) has gotten herself involved with a group of German spies in the U.S. This is particularly unfortunate since her husband, Dale (Harry Mestayer), gives up his law practice to help the government track down enemy agents. She's also jealous of the closeness between Read More

As the Sun Went Down

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Although a New Yorker by birth, silent screen actress Edith Storey had appeared in westerns as early as 1910 when she was engaged by Gaston Mèliés as the leading lady of his San Antonio-based Star Film Ranch. Storey's career was on the wane, however, when she played the dainty "Colonel Billy" in Read More

The Answer

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Socialism is given sympathetic, if unrealistic, treatment in this Triangle drama. John Warfield (Joe King) has been raised a socialist and after his father dies, he continues speaking out against wealth and luxury. Goldie Shepard (Claire Anderson), a telephone operator, takes an interest in him Read More

Mystic Faces

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In this charming, yet highly dramatic picture, Yano (Jack Abbe) works as a delivery boy in his uncle's Chinatown antique shop. One of the shop's customers is Letty Stanford (Clara Morris), a wealthy girl who is working for the Red Cross and who is engaged to army Lieutenant Frank Maxwell (Larry Steers Read More

Love's Pay Day

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Although Judith (Rosemary Thebe) is engaged to the prosaic Jean Laroque, she wishes for the glitter of the big city. She finds life in a Newfoundland fishing village rather dull, and when she encounters George Wilton (Harvey Clarke), she sees a way out. Wilton, a representative for a fish Read More

Unexpected Places

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Dick Holloway (Bert Lytell) is a New York reporter who is sent to investigate the death of the valet of Lord Harold Varden (Colin Kenney). He arrives at the hotel just as Lord Varden himself collapses from poisoning. The Englishman is apparently in possession of some papers that are wanted by a Read More

Wax Model

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Melville Ilchester (Thomas Hardy) sees a wax model on display in a dressmaker's shop and is enraptured by its beauty. He is even more enraptured when he meets Julie (Vivian Martin), the girl who posed for the figure. Their romance grows, but one day she causes him to doubt her fidelity and he Read More

Without Honor

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Roy Hanford (Darrel Foss) lives under the domination of a cold wife (Laura Sears) and a stern father (Walt Whitman) who's the town's deacon. Finally, Hanford leaves home for another city, and in a saloon, he meets "Breeze" Ballard (Arthur Moon), a traveling salesman who gets him a job as a Read More

The Tar Heel Warrior

Crew: Director

Synopsis: As tipped off by its title, A Tar Heel Warrior begins in North Carolina. On the verge of losing his plantation, Colonel Dabney Mills (Walt Whitman) heads to New York, hoping to float a loan from his stockbroker grandson-in-law. With all his money tied up in a big business deal, the stockbroker is Read More

Prison without Walls

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Heiress Helen Ainsworth (Myrtle Stedman) is interested in prison reform; Norman Morris (William Conklin), who administrates the Ainsworth estate, is interested in getting his hands on the Ainsworth fortune. He also deals drugs to inmates every time he visits the prison with the innocent Helen. One Read More

As Men Love

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The "love" alluded to in the film's title is twofold. First, we have a man's love for his wife: in this case, the Mister is played by J.W. Johnston, and the Missus by Myrtle Stedman. Second, we have the platonic love between two male friends: specifically, Johnston and his best pal House Peters. Read More

Selfish Woman

Crew: Director

Actors: Cleo Ridgely

Synopsis: The aptly-described title character is Alice Hale, played by Cleo Ridgely. Urged on by her mercenary mother and by her own desire for creature comforts, Alice enters into a loveless marriage with wealthy young Tom Morley (Wallace Reid). Though promised a prestigious job by his businessman father (Charles Arling Read More

Gloriana

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Gloriana (Zoe Rae), a child of the stage, is taken in by Doctor Manning (William Canfield) and his family when her mother (Virginia Foltz) dies of shock after hearing her husband has been killed in France. Mrs. Manning (Clarissa Selwynne) spends her time helping the needy in India. One day Read More