Francis FordFilmography

The Sun Shines Bright

Actors: Charles Winninger, Arleen Whelan, John Russell, Stepin Fetchit, Russell Simpson

Synopsis: Director John Ford, notoriously difficult to please, regarded The Sun Shines Bright as his favorite film. Laurence Stalllings' screenplay is based on several short stories by Kentucky humorist Irvin S. Cobb, some of which had previously been cinematized in Ford's 1934 Will Rogers vehicle Judge Priest Read More

The Marshal's Daughter

Actors: Laurie Anders, Hoot Gibson, Ken Murray, Harry Lauter

Synopsis: To fully appreciate the western comedy The Marshal's Daughter, one must be aware that its star, a zaftig, wide-eyed lass named Laurie Anders, was in 1953 a popular TV personality. A regular on The Ken Murray Show, Anders had risen to fame with the Southern-fried catchphrase "Ah love the wi-i-i-ide Read More

The Quiet Man

Actors: John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Victor McLaglen, Barry Fitzgerald, Ward Bond

Synopsis: Returning to the Ireland of his birth, director John Ford fashions a irresistable valentine to the "Auld Sod" in The Quiet Man. Irish-American boxer John Wayne, recovering from the trauma of having accidentally killed a man in the ring, arrives in the Irish village where he was born. Hoping to Read More

The Lawless Breed

Actors: Rock Hudson, Julie Adams, Mary Castle, John McIntire, Hugh O'Brian

Synopsis: The Lawless Breed is based on the exploits of Texas bad man John Wesley Hardin, played here quite convincingly by Rock Hudson. The film takes the Cecil B. DeMille approach of condemning evil by showing as much evil as the censor will allow. After nearly an hour of unrepentant perfidy, Hardin Read More

The Toughest Man in Arizona

Actors: Vaughn Monroe, Joan Leslie, Edgar Buchanan, Victor Jory, Jean Parker

Synopsis: In his second and last Western for Republic Pictures, former bandleader Vaughn Monroe plays a marshal returning to Tombstone with a wanted gun-runner (Victor Jory) when he stumbles upon a woman (Joan Leslie) and a couple of children, apparently the only survivors of an Indian raid on a wagon Read More

Father Makes Good

Synopsis: In this comedy, a local citizen, miffed by the mayor's new milk tax, buys his own cow. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Wagon Master

Actors: Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Jr., Ward Bond, Joanne Dru, Charles Kemper, Alan Mowbray

Synopsis: Wagon Master, splendidly directed by John Ford, is a superlative western. The film is the outwardly simple tale of a Mormon wagon train headed for Utah. Along the way, the group, led by Elder Wiggs (Ward Bond) hook up with two horse traders Travis Blue (Ben Johnson) and Sandy Owens (Harry Carey Read More

The Gene Autry Show: The Posse

Synopsis: Gene Autry takes a page out of Lady for a Day in this television western initially released on September 17, 1950. Having majored in animal husbandry, Easterner Mary Darrow (Wendy Waldron) is ready to take command of her father's ranch. But unbeknownst to Mary -- or so everyone assumes -- old Read More

San Antone Ambush

Synopsis: Republic singing cowboy Monte Hale headlines San Antone Ambush. It's the usual melange of fast action, black-hearted villains and blazing guns, expertly assembled by veteran western helmsman Philip Ford. Hale plays an Army officer who investigates the robbery charges levelled against rancher Clint Read More

Frontier Investigator

Actors: Allan Lane, Roy Barcroft, Gail Davis

Synopsis: In Frontier Investigator, Allan "Rocky" Lane plays the title character, spending the bulk of the picture searching for the man who killed his brother. The fact that Lane was central to the plotline was an oddity, since in most of his Republic starrers he usually functioned as last-minute problem Read More

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon

Actors: John Wayne, Joanne Dru, John Agar, Ben Johnson, Victor McLaglen

Synopsis: The second of John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy", She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is the only one of the three to be lensed in Technicolor. In an Oscar-calibre performance, 42-year old John Wayne plays sixtyish Cavalry Captain Nathan Brittles. In his last days before his compulsory retirement, Brittles must Read More

The Plunderers

Actors: Rod Cameron, Ilona Massey, Adrian Booth, Forrest Tucker, George Cleveland

Synopsis: Hero Rod Cameron kills Sheriff Sam Borden (George Cleveland) at point-blank range and in front of several witnesses in the opening of this Republic Pictures Western, released in the company's patented Trucolor system. The "killing," however, is merely a ruse set up to allow army agent Johnny Drum (Cameron Read More

The Timber Trail

Actors: Monte Hale, Lynne Roberts, James Burke, Roy Barcroft, Francis Ford

Synopsis: In this western, an amiable cowpoke rides into town to help the daughter of a stagecoach operator whose business is being destroyed by a wicked banker and his crooks. Naturally, the villains object to the hero's actions and frame him, but not before they jail him and beat him senseless. Read More

The Three Godfathers

Actors: John Wayne, Harry Carey, Jr., Ward Bond, Mae Marsh

Synopsis: John Ford had already directed one of the three previous film versions of Peter Kyne's novel under the title Marked Men (1919) with his mentor Harry Carey, a great cowboy star of the silent era who had recently died. It's not difficult to see how the story's sentimentality and Christian symbolism Read More

The Far Frontier

Actors: Roy Rogers, Gail Davis, Andy Devine, Francis Ford, Roy Barcroft

Synopsis: Roy Rogers stars in the full-color Republic "special" The Far Frontier. This time, Roy deals with a plot to smuggle fugitive criminals into the U.S. Old reliable heavy Roy Barcroft plays Bart Carroll, the head bad guy, who'll mow down anyone--friend and foe alike--to avoid capture. Rogers has a Read More

Fort Apache

Actors: John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Ward Bond, Shirley Temple, John Agar, Pedro Armendáriz, Dick Foran

Synopsis: The first of John Ford's "Cavalry Trilogy", Fort Apache stars John Wayne as captain Kirby York and Henry Fonda as Custer clone Lt. Col. Owen Thursday. Resentful of his loss in rank and transfer to the West after serving gallantly in the Civil War, the vainglorious Thursday insists upon imposing Read More

Eyes of Texas

Actors: Roy Rogers, Lynne Roberts, Andy Devine, Nana Bryant, Roy Barcroft

Synopsis: Few Roy Rogers westerns were as gratuitously violent as the 1948 release Eyes of Texas. This time, Rogers' principal antagonist is a woman lawyer named Hattie Waters (Nana Bryant). With a battalion of homicidal henchmen at her beck and call, Hattie attempts to grab up all the valuable ranch Read More

Feudin', Fussin' and A-Fightin'

Actors: Donald O'Connor, Marjorie Main, Percy Kilbride, Penny Edwards, Joe Besser

Synopsis: Feudin', Fussin' and A-Fightin' starts off on a tense note as a struggling man is led through the streets of a western town, presumably headed for his own execution. Within a few minutes, however, we discover that the "victim" is a reluctant trainee for an upcoming foot-race between the feuding Read More

Bandits of Dark Canyon

Actors: Allan Lane, Bob Steele, Eddy Waller, John Hamilton

Synopsis: Back to his standard Rocky Lane characterization after a brief series of "Red Ryder" westerns, Allan Lane stars in Republic's Bandits of Dark Canyon. In this outing, Lane takes it upon himself to clear ex-convict Ed Archer (Bob Steele) of a trumped-up murder charge. Making things easier is the Read More

High Tide

Actors: Lee Tracy, Don Castle, Julie Bishop, Anabel Shaw, Regis Toomey

Synopsis: In this mystery, set within the newspaper industry, a detective is hired to protect the editor who believes that someone is out to kill him. The editor is the real villain having killed the publisher, the publisher's detective, and a friend so that he could grab the reigns of the company. The Read More

Driftwood

Actors: James Bell, Walter Brennan, Dean Jagger, Natalie Wood, Hobart Cavanaugh, Howland Chamberlain

Synopsis: Allan Dwan directs the family-oriented drama Driftwood, starring nine-year-old Natalie Wood. Orphan Jenny Hollingsworth (Wood) is found in a rural small town in Nevada that is ravaged by Rocky Mountain fever. She meets the local doctor, Steve Webster (Dean Jagger), who is working on a research Read More

Unconquered

Actors: Gary Cooper, Paulette Goddard, Howard Da Silva, Boris Karloff, Ward Bond, Katherine de Mille

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's first postwar production, the $5 million Technicolor historical spectacular Unconquered lacks only the kitchen sink. The story begins in England in the 1760s, as Abigail Martha Hale (Paulette Goddard), unjustly accused of a crime against the Crown, is sentenced by the Lord Chief Read More

Renegades

Actors: Willard Parker, Larry Parks, Edgar Buchanan, Jim Bannon

Synopsis: Whenever budget-conscious Columbia laid out good money for Technicolor in the 1940s, it was usually for a musical or an "A" western. Renegades falls into the latter category. Fresh from The Jolson Story, Larry Parks stars as the son of a notorious, Scripture-spouting outlaw (Edgar Buchanan). Parks Read More

Wake up and Dream

Actors: John Payne, June Haver, John Ireland, Connie Marshall, Clem Bevans, Charlotte Greenwood

Synopsis: In this adventure, a young woman travels across Europe in search of her brother who was listed as missing in action during WW II. He had earlier told her that should he ever disappear, he could be found on a certain tiny island. She and her brother's girl friend head off and meet a strange old Read More

My Darling Clementine

Actors: Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Jane Darwell, Walter Brennan, Cathy Downs, Ward Bond

Synopsis: One of the greatest movie Westerns, John Ford's My Darling Clementine is hardly the most accurate film version of the Wyatt Earp legend, but it is still one of the most entertaining. Henry Fonda stars as former lawman Wyatt Earp, who, after cleaning up Dodge City, arrives in the outskirts of Read More

California

Actors: Ray Milland, Barbara Stanwyck, Barry Fitzgerald, George Coulouris, Albert Dekker

Synopsis: California began life as a remake of Paramount's silent western epic The Covered Wagon, but by the time it emerged on-screen in 1946, the project had metamorphosed into a standard Technicolor frontier "spectacular", concentrating more on star power than anything else. Set during the 1848 mass Read More

Accomplice

Actors: Richard Arlen, Veda Ann Borg, Tom Dugan, Michael Branden, Marjorie Manners

Synopsis: Accomplice was the "pilot" for a proposed PRC series based on Frank Gruber's short-tempered detective hero Simon Lash. Commendably, Richard Arlen plays Lash as written-brusque, nasty, antisocial. The plot gets under way when socialite Joyce Bonniwell (Veda Ann Borg) hires Lash to located her Read More

State Fair

Actors: Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine, Charles Winninger

Synopsis: Twentieth Century-Fox couldn't make a film version of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's Oklahoma in 1945--that particular Broadway musical would remain a "hot ticket" until the end of the decade--so the studio did the next best thing by hiring Rodgers & Hammerstein to pen the score for the Read More

Hangover Square

Actors: Laird Cregar, Linda Darnell, George Sanders, Glenn Langan, Faye Marlowe

Synopsis: Set in turn-of-the century London, this period thriller stars Laird Cregar as George Harvey Bone, a composer who suffers from a rather severe case of artistic temperament. Driven to distraction by the discordant sounds of the city, the usually sensitive Bone occasionally snaps when exposed to Read More

Incendiary Blonde

Actors: Betty Hutton, Arturo de Cordova, Albert Dekker, Charlie Ruggles, Barry Fitzgerald

Synopsis: Incendiary Blonde is a highly entertaining if historically suspect biopic of "Queen of the Nightclubs" Texas Guinan. As played (or overplayed) by Betty Hutton, Guinan is a hoydenish Texas gal whose showbiz career gets under way when she joins a Wild West show in 1909. A favorite with male patrons Read More

Wildfire

Actors: Bob Steele, Sterling Holloway, William Farnum

Synopsis: Wildfire was the first release from Screen Guild Productions, the adventuresome little independent that would eventually metamorphose into Lippert Pictures Inc. The title character is a magnificent wild horse, slated to be destroyed by a group of ranchers. It seems that Wildfire is being held Read More

Murder, He Says

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Helen Walker, Marjorie Main, Porter Hall, Jean Heather

Synopsis: Though it comes on much too strong at times, Murder, He Says fully justifies its present "cult" status. Professional pollster Pete Marshall (Fred MacMurray) gets more than he bargained for when he heads to hillbilly country to investigate the disappearances of several of his colleagues. Poor Pete Read More

San Antonio

Actors: Errol Flynn, Alexis Smith, S.Z. Sakall, Victor Francen, Florence Bates, Paul Kelly

Synopsis: In his final epic Western, Errol Flynn plays cattleman Clay Hardin, who, on a trek south of the border, has discovered that San Antonio saloon proprietor Roy Stuart (Paul Kelly) is actually a cattle rustler of major proportions. Determined to bring Stuart to justice, Clay runs into difficulties Read More

Bowery Champs

Actors: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Billy Benedict, Jimmy Strand, Bobby Jordan

Synopsis: By the time Bowery Champs came out, the East Side Kids had become so domesticated that they actually had jobs. Muggs (Leo Gorcey), for example, works as a newspaper copy boy, and even aspires to be a crime reporter. He gets his chance when a wealthy man is murdered and the regular reporter isn't Read More

The Big Noise

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Doris Merrick, Stan Laurel, Arthur Space, Veda Ann Borg

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play janitors for a detective agency who pose as super-sleuths when they're hired to protect inventor Alva P. Hartley (Arthur Space). Moving bag and baggage into Hartley's gadget-laden house, Stan and Ollie must first contend with the inventor's bratty son Egbert (Bobby Blake Read More

Home in Indiana

Actors: Walter Brennan, Lon McCallister, Jeanne Crain, June Haver, Charlotte Greenwood

Synopsis: In this touching drama, city-slicker Sparke Thorton goes to live on his aunt and uncle's horse farm in the country. The couple have basically retired from horse-breeding and only have one trotter left. Sparks fly when the young man meets the lovely Char and Cri-Cri, the two farm girls who Read More

The Princess and the Pirate

Actors: Bob Hope, Virginia Mayo, Walter Brennan, Walter Slezak, Victor McLaglen

Synopsis: In his second film for producer Sam Goldwyn, Bob Hope is felicitously teamed with luscious Goldwyn contractee Virginia Mayo. Hope plays Sylvester the Great, a two-bit entertainer "touring" the West Indies in the 18th century. Mayo is Princess Margaret, who is kidnapped by a rough, tough buccaneer Read More

The Ox-Bow Incident

Actors: Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Anthony Quinn, Jane Darwell

Synopsis: This now-classic indictment of mob rule was a pet project of both star Henry Fonda and director William Wellman, both of whom agreed to work on lesser 20th Century-Fox projects in exchange for this film. After a hard winter on the range, cowboys Gil Carter (Fonda) and Art Croft (Harry Morgan) ride Read More

The Desperadoes

Actors: Randolph Scott, Glenn Ford, Claire Trevor, Evelyn Keyes, Edgar Buchanan

Synopsis: In this Western drama, Steve Upton (Randolph Scott) is the sheriff of a Utah community in 1860. Upton's best friend, Cheyenne Rogers (Glenn Ford), was once an outlaw, but under Steve's guidance, he's gone straight and tries to earn an honest living. However, while Cheyenne is in town to pay Upton Read More

Jitterbugs

Actors: Vivian Blaine, Bob Bailey, Douglas Fowley, Noel Madison

Synopsis: If Jitterbugs is, as has often been claimed, the best of Laurel & Hardy's 20th Century-Fox films (an otherwise fair-to-mediocre lot), it is because the studio was using the picture as a showcase for their newest singing discovery Vivian Blaine. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play a couple of Read More

Girls in Chains

Actors: Arline Judge, Roger Clark, Robin Raymond, Barbara Pepper, Dorothy Burgess

Synopsis: In this unique murder mystery, that reveals the killer at the beginning of the film. The story concerns some women living in a prison reformatory and centers around a vengeful teacher who works there. With the help of a detective, an inmate endeavors to get her corrupt brother-in-law arrested and Read More

Outlaws of Pine Ridge

Actors: Don "Red" Barry, Lynn Merrick, Noah Beery, Sr., Donald Kirke, Emmett Lynn

Synopsis: Director William Witney puts his distinctive stamp on the Don "Red" Barry western Outlaws of Pine Ridge by opening the picture with a body sailing through the plate-glass window of a frontier saloon. Barry stars as gun-slingin' Chips Barrett, who makes it his mission in life to prevent the Read More

The Loves of Edgar Allan Poe

Actors: John Shepperd, Shepperd Strudwick, Linda Darnell, Jane Darwell, Virginia Gilmore, Mary Howard

Synopsis: John Shepperd, later known as Shepperd Strudwick, stars as the tragic Edgar Allan Poe in this low-budget biopic. Adopted as a child, Poe grows into a directionless adult, disgracing himself and his foster family through his inability (or unwillingness) to conform to the status quo of 19th century Read More

The Man Who Wouldn't Die

Actors: Lloyd Nolan, Marjorie Weaver, Helene Reynolds, Henry Wilcoxon, Richard Derr

Synopsis: 20th Century-Fox's The Man Who Wouldn't Die is based on No Coffin for the Corpse, a "Merlini the Great" mystery penned by Clayton Rawson. Alas, magician-sleuth Merlini has been reduced to an expository bit role, and the property has been converted into a "Michael Shayne" series entry. In the first Read More

King of the Mounties

Tobacco Road

Actors: Charles Grapewin, Marjorie Rambeau, Gene Tierney, William Tracy, Elizabeth Patterson

Synopsis: Erskine Caldwell's once-scandalous novel Tobacco Road resulted in an equally steamy stage play by Jack Kirkland, which became one of the longest-running productions in Broadway history. This story of indigence and amorality amongst inbred "poor whites" (based on people Caldwell had known while Read More

The Last of the Duanes

Actors: George Montgomery, Lynne Roberts, Eve Arden, Francis Ford, George E. Stone

Synopsis: With Paramount abandoning its "Zane Grey" western series in 1941, 20th Century-Fox took up the cudgel with such films as The Last of the Duanes. George Montgomery stars as Buck Duane, who in 1870 returns to his Texas hometown, only to find out that his father has been murdered. Following the most Read More

Western Union

Actors: Robert Young, Randolph Scott, Dean Jagger, Virginia Gilmore, Barton MacLane, John Carradine

Synopsis: 20th Century-Fox's Western Union was loosely based on a story by Zane Grey. The basic historical facts behind the connecting of telegraph wires between Omaha and Salt Lake City serve as a backdrop for a fictional story straight out of Manhattan Melodrama. Randolph Scott and Barton MacLane are cast Read More

They Died With Their Boots On

Actors: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Arthur Kennedy, Charles Grapewin, Regis Toomey, Gene Lockhart, Stanley Ridges

Synopsis: Though history is distorted almost beyond recognition in Warner Bros.' They Died With Their Boots On, audiences in 1941 ate it up like cotton candy. In the gospel according to Warners, General George Armstrong Custer (Errol Flynn) is neither an arrogant fool nor a rabid Indian hater. Instead, he Read More

Viva Cisco Kid

Actors: Cesar Romero, Jean Rogers, Chris-Pin Martin, Minor Watson, Stanley Fields

Synopsis: While Cesar Romero could usually be relied upon to ladle out the charm in his film roles, Romero's handful of appearances as O. Henry's "Cisco Kid" were disturbingly cold and distant. In Viva Cisco Kid, the "Robin Hood of the Old West" and his sidekick Pancho (Chris-Pin Martin) save a stagecoach Read More

Lucky Cisco Kid

Actors: Cesar Romero, Mary Beth Hughes, Dana Andrews, Evelyn Venable, Chris-Pin Martin

Synopsis: Despite the title, the Cisco Kid (Cesar Romero) doesn't feel too lucky at the beginning of this film. It seems that someone else has been committing crimes while passing himself off as Cisco. The scheme was cooked up by a corrupt judge (Willard Robertson), who hopes to drive the settlers off the Read More

South of Pago Pago

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Jon Hall, Frances Farmer, Olympe Bradna, Gene Lockhart

Synopsis: Beefcake star Jon Hall shows off his sleek physique in the exotic melodrama South of Pago Pago. The son of an island chieftan, young Kehane (Hall) defiantly opposes the efforts by crooked pearl hunter Bucko Larson (Victor McLaglen) to invade his domain. Larson and his minions hope to dissuade our Read More

The Grapes of Wrath

Actors: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charles Grapewin, Doris Bowden

Synopsis: The adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of dirt-poor Dust Bowl migrants by 4-time Oscar-winning director John Ford starred Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, who opens the movie returning to his Oklahoma home after serving jail time for manslaughter. En route, Tom Read More

Diamond Frontier

Actors: Victor McLaglen, John Loder, Anne Nagel, Philip Dorn, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: Characterized by some critics as a "South African western", Diamond Frontier stars Victor McLaglen as ruthless diamond hunter Regan. The villain's reign of terror as he searches for the precious gems is checked by Charles Clayton (John Loder), freshly escaped from a brutal penal colony. A wild Read More

The Man from Dakota

Actors: Wallace Beery, John Howard, Dolores Del Rio, Donald Meek, Robert H. Barrat

Synopsis: Wallace Beery trots out his "lovable lout" act for the zillionth time in Man From Dakota. Beery plays a Union army sergeant who, along with his superior officer (John Howard), is captured and incarcerated in a Confederate prison. Upon escaping, Beery and Howard cross the path of Dolores Del Rio Read More

Stagecoach

Actors: Claire Trevor, John Wayne, Andy Devine, Thomas Mitchell, George Bancroft, John Carradine

Synopsis: Although there were Westerns before it, Stagecoach quickly became a template for all movie Westerns to come. Director John Ford combined action, drama, humor, and a set of well-drawn characters in the story of a stagecoach set to leave Tonto, New Mexico for a distant settlement in Lordsburg, with Read More

Bad Lands

Actors: Robert H. Barrat, Noah Beery, Jr., Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Douglas Walton, Andy Clyde

Synopsis: Bad Lands is a remake of John Ford's The Lost Patrol, with the locale changed from the Mesopotamian to the Arizona desert. The year is 1875: A posse headed by sheriff Robert Barrat is held at bay by Apache warriors. Following the pattern established by the Ford film, the posse members are Read More

Colorado Sunset

Actors: Gene Autry, Smiley Burnette, June Storey, Barbara Pepper, Larry "Buster" Crabbe

Synopsis: Gene Autry goes up against another "protection" racket in this tuneful series entry, which also features country & western singer Patsy Montana and the CBS-KMBC Texas Rangers. Doc Blair (Robert Barrat), a crooked veterinarian, is doing a good business terrorizing the local dairy farmers into Read More

Young Mr. Lincoln

Actors: Henry Fonda, Alice Brady, Marjorie Weaver, Arleen Whelan, Pauline Moore, Richard Cromwell

Synopsis: John Ford's fine direction distinguishes this highly fictionalized account of the early life of Abraham Lincoln. The film shows Lincoln (Henry Fonda) as he rises from a country boy born in a log cabin to a lawyer in Springfield, Illinois defending two young men unjustly accused of murder. The Read More

Drums Along the Mohawk

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Henry Fonda, Edna May Oliver, Arthur Shields, Eddie Collins, Ward Bond, John Carradine

Synopsis: John Ford directed this outdoor adventure set in the American Colonial period. Gilbert and Lana Martin (Henry Fonda and Claudette Colbert) are a young couple trying to make a home in New York State's Mohawk Valley, but repeated attacks by Indians drive them, along with other settlers in the Read More

Geronimo

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Ellen Drew, Andy Devine, Gene Lockhart, William Henry

Synopsis: The late cinema historian William K. Everson once wrote an article titled "Movies Out of Thin Air", referring to films that were comprised almost exclusively of stock footage from earlier productions. A prime example of this sort of patchwork entertainment is the 1939 Paramount production Read More

Kentucky Moonshine

Actors: The Ritz Brothers [Al, Jimmy, Harry], Tony Martin, Marjorie Weaver, George "Slim" Summerville, John Carradine

Synopsis: Those zany Ritz Brothers are at it again--good news or bad, depending on one's feelings toward the team. This time they're a trio of Manhattan entertainers who can't get anywhere because hillbilly acts are "in" with radio and theatrical producers. Also left out in the cold by the new fad is singer Marjorie Weaver Read More

In Old Chicago

Actors: Tyrone Power, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Alice Brady, Andy Devine, Brian Donlevy

Synopsis: In Old Chicago was 20th Century-Fox's spin on MGM's San Francisco--a personal saga played out against the backdrop of a famous 19th Century disaster. Alice Brady plays Mrs. O'Leary, a widow who brings her two young boys to the sleepy village of Chicago. As the city grows in prominence and Read More

The Texans

Actors: Joan Bennett, Randolph Scott, May Robson, Walter Brennan, Robert Cummings

Synopsis: In the rough-and-tumble world of post-Civil War Texas, ex-Confederate soldier Kirk Jordan (Randolph Scott) crosses paths with ranch owner Ivy Preston (Joan Bennett). Although a loyal Southerner, Jordan can't get past the waste and tragedy of the four years that have just ended, but Ivy is eager to Read More

The Girl of the Golden West

Actors: Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Walter Pidgeon, Leo Carrillo, Buddy Ebsen

Synopsis: MGM's leading musical team of the 30's, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy are paired once again in this fourth film version of David Belasco's creaky melodrama, featuring music by Sigmund Romberg and Gus Kahn. Jeanette MacDonald is Mary Robbins, the owner of a bawdy, rough-house saloon in a Read More

The Last Train from Madrid

Actors: Dorothy Lamour, Lew Ayres, Gilbert Roland, Karen Morley, Lionel Atwill

Synopsis: Set during the terrible Spanish Civil War, this film avoids political commentary in favor of objectively centering on the plight and personal lives of refugees preparing to board a train that will take them far away from the bloody horrors of war-besieged Loyalist-controlled Madrid. Once safely on Read More

The Road Back

Actors: Richard Cromwell, George "Slim" Summerville, Andy Devine, Barbara Read

Synopsis: A handful of German soldiers readjust to civilian life in the bitter wake of World War I in this follow-up to the classic All Quiet On The Western Front, which like the first film was based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque. After the signing of the armistice, Capt. Von Hagen (John Emery) Read More

A Star Is Born

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Fredric March, Adolphe Menjou, May Robson, Andy Devine

Synopsis: A Star is Born came into being when producer David O. Selznick decided to tell a "true behind-the-scenes" story of Hollywood. The truth, of course, was filtered a bit for box-office purposes, although Selznick and an army of screenwriters based much of their script on actual people and events. Janet Gaynor Read More

The Prisoner of Zenda

Actors: Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Mary Astor, David Niven, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Ronald Colman stars in David O. Selznick's classic production of Anthony Hope's swashbuckling adventure. The film takes place in a mythical Central European kingdom with Colman in a dual role as King Rudolf V and Rudolph Rassendyl, a visitor from England who's a distant cousin to the prince. Read More

Checkers

Actors: Jane Withers, Stuart Erwin, Una Merkel, Marvin Stephens, Andrew Tombes

Synopsis: The owner of a racehorse, the owner's lovely niece and a jockey must deal with a number of travails before the big race in this comedy. The uncle must win so he can afford to keep the bank from foreclosing on his horse farm. Unfortunately, his horse breaks his leg and all seems to be lost. Read More

Slave Ship

Actors: Warner Baxter, Wallace Beery, Elizabeth Allan, Mickey Rooney, George Sanders

Synopsis: This period adventure drama was directed by Tay Garnett and adapted from a story by William Faulkner. The skipper of a slave trading vessel operating along the West African coast in 1860, Captain Jim Lovett (Warner Baxter) is troubled by his flesh-peddling trade. He's marrying the beautiful Nancy Read More

Mannequin

Actors: Joan Crawford, Spencer Tracy, Alan Curtis, Ralph Morgan, Mary Philips

Synopsis: Mannequin stars Joan Crawford as Jessie Cassidy, a girl of the tenements (though this being an MGM film, her slum dwellings are cleaner and more lavish than most middle-class bungalows!) Hoping to escape her grimy surroundings, Jessie marries Eddie Miller (Alan Curtis), a childhood acquaintance Read More

The Plainsman

Actors: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, James Ellison, Charles Bickford, Helen Burgess

Synopsis: One is immediately aware that The Plainsman is a Cecil B. DeMille production in the opening scene, wherein President Abraham Lincoln (Frank McGlynn Sr.), on the verge of signing crucial legislation which will determine the future of the American West, is dragged away from his Cabinet by a scolding Read More

Sins of Man

Actors: Jean Hersholt, Don Ameche, Allen Jenkins, J. Edward Bromberg, Ann Shoemaker

Synopsis: A bell ringer's wife dies while giving birth to his second son who turns out to be deaf. His oldest son moves to America where he becomes a successful engineer. Meanwhile, back at home in Austria, the bell ringer gives his remaining son to a monastery and then wanders off to become a bum. Years Read More

The Plough and the Stars

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Preston S. Foster, Barry Fitzgerald, Denis O'Dea, Arthur Shields, Eileen Crowe

Synopsis: John Ford, whose fierce pride in his Irish heritage often manifested itself in his work, directed this historical drama which uses as its backdrop the 1916 Easter Rebellion of Irish patriots against British rule. Nora Clitheroe (Barbara Stanwyck) runs a rooming house in Dublin and tries to stay Read More

The Prisoner of Shark Island

Actors: Warner Baxter, Gloria Stuart, Claude Gillingwater, Arthur Byron, Harry Carey, O.P. Heggie

Synopsis: Warner Baxter plays Dr. Samuel Mudd, American history's most famous victim of circumstance. In 1865, Dr. Mudd, a known Confederate sympathizer, sets the broken leg of a mud-caked stranger who stumbles into his home. The injured man turns out to be John Wilkes Booth, and Mudd is accused of Read More

Educating Father

Actors: Jed Prouty, Shirley Deane, Dixie Dunbar, Spring Byington, Ken Howell

Synopsis: This second entry in the "Jones Family" series finds Pa Jones (Jed Prouty) once again at loggerheads with his oldest son Jack (Kenneth Howell). Sonny boy wants to become a pilot, but dad wants the boy to follow in his own footsteps as a druggist. But when Jones Senior is flown back by Jones Junior Read More

Charlie Chan at the Circus

Actors: Warner Oland, Keye Luke, J. Carrol Naish, Francis Ford, Maxine Reiner

Synopsis: Enjoying a break from crime-solving, oriental sleuth Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) takes his 12 children to the circus. It isn't long, however, before he's sucked into yet another murder case, with a more colorful array of suspects than usual. Meanwhile, Number One Son Lee Chan (Keye Luke) tries to Read More

Gentle Julia

Actors: Jane Withers, Tom Brown, Marsha Hunt, Jackie Searl, Francis Ford

Synopsis: After several appearances as a "good girl," little Jane Withers returns to her patented screen brattiness in Gentle Julia. Based on a novel by Booth Tarkington, the film stars Withers as Florence Atwater, precocious kid-sister of flirtatious Julia Atwater (Marsha Hunt). After spending most of the Read More

This Is the Life

Actors: Jane Withers, John McGuire, Sally Blane, Sidney Toler, Gloria Roy

Synopsis: Marshall Neilan had fallen from the top ranks of directors by the time he helmed the Jane Withers vehicle This is the Life, but he still had it in him to deliver a first-rate job. Withers is cast as pint-sized vaudeville artiste Geraldine Revier. Tired of being professionally exploited by her Read More

Goin' to Town

Actors: Mae West, Paul Cavanagh, Gilbert Emery, Ivan Lebedeff, Tito Coral, Marjorie Gateson

Synopsis: Mae West is Goin' to Town in this elegant post-Production Code vehicle. West plays Cleo Borden, a nouveau riche cattle rancher who hopes to crash into high society. Though she is willing to subject herself to "refinement" lessons, she still has a high old time puncturing the pretensions of those Read More

The Arizonian

Actors: Richard Dix, Margot Grahame, Preston S. Foster, Louis Calhern, James Bush

Synopsis: The Arizonian came at a time when Richard Dix's popularity was slipping, providing a welcome shot in the arm for the star and plenty of coin at the box office. Dix plays Clay Tallant, a territorial marshal assigned to Silver City, Arizona. Tallant's chief antagonist is crooked town boss Jake Read More

Steamboat Round the Bend

Actors: Will Rogers, Anne Shirley, Irvin S. Cobb, Eugene Pallette, John McGuire

Synopsis: Two of America's most distinguished humorists, Oklahoma's Will Rogers and Kentucky's Irvin S. Cobb, costar in Steamboat Round the Bend. Cobb isn't much of an actor, so it is Rogers who carries the comic weight of this fast-paced slice of Americana. Will uncharacteristically sticks to the script Read More

Charlie Chan's Secret

Actors: Warner Oland, Rosina Lawrence, Charles Quigley, Henrietta Crosman, Edward Trevor

Synopsis: A serial-like pace and some stylish directorial choices by Gordon Wiles distinguish this "Charlie Chan" entry. The reading of a will is delayed until one of the principal heirs to the fortune, can be located. He shows up at the family mansion, only to be promptly murdered. It is now up to Read More

Paddy O'Day

Actors: Jane Withers, Pinky Tomlin, Jane Darwell, George Givot

Synopsis: Eight year old Paddy O'Day (Jane Withers) arrives at Ellis Island after a long sea voyage from Ireland, to be with her mother. But her mother is nowhere to be found when the ship docks, and the authorities are notified that Mrs. O'Day has died, only a few days ago -- the little girl will have to Read More

The Whole Town's Talking

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Jean Arthur, Wallace Ford, Arthur Hohl, Donald Meek, Arthur Byron

Synopsis: The film that revived Edward G. Robinson's career after a string of flops, along with A Slight Case of Murder (1938), it was one of the few comedies on his lengthy list of credits. The gangster-comedy was unusual in the composition of its writing staff, which included frequent Frank Capra Read More

The Informer

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Heather Angel, Preston S. Foster, Margot Grahame, Wallace Ford

Synopsis: The Informer, Liam O'Flaherty's novel of the the Irish "troubles" of the early 1920s, was first filmed in England in 1929, with Cyril McLaglen in the lead. When director John Ford remade The Informer in 1935, the role of the tragic Irish roisterer Gypo Nolan went to Cyril's brother Victor Read More

Pirate Treasure: Mutiny

Actors: Richard Talmadge, Lucille Lund, Walter Miller, Pat O'Malley, William Desmond

Synopsis: His dramatic fall broken by sacks of flour, Dick (Richard Talmadge) once again emerges unharmed and the voyage to the Caribbean island can begin. En route, Dorothy (Lucille Lund) accidentally discovers the group of gang members hiding in the hold of the Lottie Carson. Unaware that he is the secret Read More

Judge Priest

Actors: Will Rogers, Tom Brown, Anita Louise, Henry B. Walthall, Rochelle Hudson, David Landau

Synopsis: Will Rogers stars as Judge William "Billy" Priest, the common-sense Kentucky jurist created by humorist Irvin S. Cobb. The Judge's easygoing manner bothers many of the self-righteous good citizens of his small 19th-century hometown, imperiling his chances for re-election. The anecdotal plot boils Read More

The Lost Patrol

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Boris Karloff, Wallace Ford, Reginald Denny, J.M. Kerrigan

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1929, Philip MacDonald's novel Patrol was lensed by director John Ford as The Lost Patrol in 1934. Sergeant Victor McLaglen is in charge of a World War I-era British cavalry regiment, stranded somewhere in the Mesopotamian desert. McLaglen hasn't asked for the responsibility Read More

Murder in Trinidad

Actors: Nigel Bruce, Heather Angel, Victor Jory, Murray Kinnell, Douglas Walton

Synopsis: What a shame that the 1934 Fox crime meller Murder in Trinidad is currently unavailable for viewing. In one of his best performances, Nigel Bruce is cast as Bertram Lynch, a slovenly, sweat-stained detective with a mind like a steel trap. Lumbering his way through a tropical outpost, Lynch Read More

The World Moves On

Actors: Madeleine Carroll, Franchot Tone, Lumsden Hare, Raul Roulien, Reginald Denny, Dudley Digges

Synopsis: In the tradition of Fox Studios' Oscar-winning Cavalcade, The World Moves On covers over one hundred years in the lives of two Louisiana families: The Girards, of French extraction, and the Warburtons, formerly of Manchester. Forming an alliance by marriage in 1825, the families rapidly corner the Read More

Charlie Chan's Courage

Actors: Warner Oland, Drue Leyton, Donald Woods, Paul Harvey, Murray Kinnell

Synopsis: Warner Oland made his fifth appearance as wily Honolulu-based detective Charlie Chan in Fox's Charlie Chan's Courage. Hired to deliver a valuable necklace, Chan shows up at a ranch estate, posing as a servant. His task is complicated when Victor Jordan (Jack Carter), the man who engaged his Read More

Gun Justice

Actors: Ken Maynard, Hooper Atchley, Walter Miller, Jack Rockwell

Synopsis: In this western, a band of avaricious men kill a rancher in order to take over his land. The dead man's nephew was slated to inherit the ranch, but he has vanished so the outlaws hire another to impersonate the heir. Trouble ensues when the real heir, a state ranger, appears, gets his revenge, and Read More

Pilgrimage

Actors: Henrietta Crosman, Heather Angel, Norman Foster, Marian Nixon, Maurice Murphy

Synopsis: John Ford directed this emotional drama, which was a considerable change of pace from the westerns and war pictures for which he was best known. Hannah Jessop (Henrietta Crosman) fears being abandoned by her son Jim (Norman Foster), and she doesn't approve of his romance with Mary Saunders (Marian Nixon Read More

Doctor Bull

Actors: Will Rogers, Vera Allen, Marian Nixon, Howard Lally, Berton Churchill

Synopsis: Will Rogers is Dr. Bull, a small-town physician with precious little book learning. This doesn't stop him from ministering to the citizens, often substituting advice and witticisms for pills and sutures. There are those who resist Dr. Bull's everyday doses of common sense and humanity, especially Read More

Charlie Chan's Greatest Case

Actors: Warner Oland, Heather Angel, Roger Imhof, John Warburton, Walter Byron

Synopsis: Warner Oland returns as wily, philosophical oriental detective Charlie Chan in this expensive-looking series entry. This time, Chan follows the trail of clues when a "respectable" Honolulu businessman sidelining in blackmail and other unsavory activities is murdered. Like the earlier Black Camel Read More

Life in the Raw

Actors: George O'Brien, Claire Trevor, Greta Nissen, Francis Ford, Warner P. Richmond

Synopsis: When a man commits a crime, his sister (Claire Trevor) frames the man she loves to free her brother. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Roman Scandals

Actors: Eddie Cantor, Ruth Etting, Gloria Stuart, David Manners, Veree Teasdale

Synopsis: Easily the best of Eddie Cantor's gargantuan musical comedies for producer Sam Goldwyn, Roman Scandals begins in the middle-America community of West Rome, where our hero Eddie (Cantor) is employed as a delivery boy. A self-styled authority of Ancient Roman history, Cantor bemoans the fact that Read More

The Man from Monterey

Actors: John Wayne, Ruth Hall, Luis Alberni, Donald Reed, Francis Ford

Synopsis: The Man From Monterey was the last of John Wayne's "B"-westerns for Warner Bros. The Duke plays U.S. army captain John Holmes, dispatched to Monterey to convince the ranchers to register their long-standing Spanish land grants, lest their property fall into the hands of undeserving strangers. This Read More

Secrets

Actors: Mary Pickford, Leslie Howard, C. Aubrey Smith, Blanche Frederici, Doris Lloyd

Synopsis: Silent screen legend Mary Pickford makes her final movie appearance in Secrets, adapted from the play by Rudolph Besier and Mary Edgerton. Edgerton plays a 19th century New England belle who accompanies her husband Leslie Howard to the wilds of California. Pickford's first baby is killed when her Read More

Rider of Death Valley

Actors: Tom Mix, Lois Wilson, Fred Kohler, Forrest Stanley, Edith Fellows

Synopsis: A semi-sequel to Tom Mix's 1932 Destry Rides Again, Rider of Death Valley finds Mix protecting the gold-mine claim of little Edith Fellows. Fellows' father has met his end at the hands of villain Fred Kohler. Kohler confronts Mix in the wastes of Death Valley, hoping to leave Mix to perish beneath Read More

Destry Rides Again

Actors: Tom Mix, ZaSu Pitts, Earl Foxe, Claudia Dell, Frederic Howard

Synopsis: The 1932 Tom Mix version of Destry Rides Again bears no more relation to the original Max Brand novel than does the 1939 James Stewart remake. Thanks to his crooked partner (Earle Foxe), Jim Destry (Mix) is thrown into jail. Finally released, he "rides again" to prove his innocence and bring the Read More

The Last Ride

Actors: Charles Morton, Dorothy Revier, Virginia Brown Faire, Frank Mayo, Tom Santschi

Synopsis: Former silent-screen star Frank Mayo plays a big-city bootlegger at odds with gangster chieftain Tom Santschi, the man who's been hijacking his shipments. The cops decide not to get involved but instead remain on the sidelines, hoping that Mayo and Santschi will knock each other off. But young Read More

The Lost Special

Synopsis: Ostensibly based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, this action serial was actually closer in spirit to the blood-and-thunder days of silent "railroad queen" Helen Holmes. The story, in fact -- a train vanishing into thin air -- bore a strong resemblance to Holmes' 1917 effort The Lost Express. Jack Read More

Air Mail

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Ralph Bellamy, Russell Hopton, George "Slim" Summerville, Gloria Stuart

Synopsis: The air-mail pilots who fly from a small airport in the Rocky Mountains are determined but not paid well, and there are occasional fatal crashes. It's a tradition of long standing that when this happens, chief pilot Mike Miller (Ralph Bellamy) makes the next flight himself. Daredevil Duke Talbot (Pat O'Brien Read More

Battling with Buffalo Bill

Synopsis: "Suggested" by the book The West That Was by legendary showman William F. Cody, this 12 chapter Universal serial was merely another slam-bang affair in which Cody (Tom Tyler) and his younger sidekick, Dave Archer (Rex Bell), battle a nasty claim jumper, Jim Rodney (Francis Ford), and his gang. Read More

The Seas Beneath

Actors: George O'Brien, Marion Lessing, Mona Maris, Walter "Judge" Kelly, Walter McGrail

Synopsis: The first of director John Ford's three films for 1931 was the now-forgotten The Seas Beneath. Essentially a reworking of Ford's 1930 effort Men Without Women, the story concentrates on the WWI submarine crew captained by rough-and-tumble Bob Kingsley (George O'Brien). While trying to coerce a Read More

A Free Soul

Actors: Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable, James Gleason

Synopsis: In this Academy Award-winning film, Stephen Ashe (Lionel Barrymore) is a hotshot Californian lawyer from a well-to-do family, whose main failing is his indulgence in alcohol. After winning a case for mobster Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable), Stephen brings his client along to a party at his parents' Read More

Frankenstein

Actors: Colin Clive, Boris Karloff, Mae Clarke, John Boles, Dwight Frye, Edward Van Sloan

Synopsis: Still regarded as the definitive film version of Mary Shelley's classic tale of tragedy and horror, Frankenstein made unknown character actor Boris Karloff a star and created a new icon of terror. Along with the highly successful Dracula, released earlier the same year, it launched Universal Read More

The Indians Are Coming

Synopsis: This western serial chronicles the adventures of a young girl whose uncle has discovered gold out West. Accompanied by her father and a friend of her uncle, she journeys to her uncle's gold mine, encountering bandits, Indians on the warpath and other adventures. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide Read More

Song of the Caballero

Actors: Ken Maynard, Doris Hill, Francis Ford, Gino Corrado

Synopsis: This early sound western was cowboy-star Ken Maynard's second to last under his 1929-1930 contract with Universal. The studio's emphasis on bringing music to the western genre despite Maynard's rather limited vocal capabilities was not paying off at the box-office. Sound in general was increasing Read More

Sons of the Saddle

Actors: Doris Hill, Francis Ford, Joseph W. Girard, Carroll Nye, Harry Todd

Synopsis: The dashing Ken Maynard, who always warned that he sang loudly rather than well, finished his 1929-1930 stay at Universal with this average early sound western. Maynard sang several heart-felt prairie ballads in the film and even cut a record for Columbia. One of his songs, Down the Home Trail Read More

Abraham Lincoln

Actors: Walter Huston, Kay Hammond, Una Merkel, Jason Robards, Sr., Ian Keith

Synopsis: To date, this D.W. Griffith epic is the only talking-picture effort to encapsulate the entire life of Abraham Lincoln, from cradle to grave. The script, credited to Stephen Vincent Benet, manages to include all the familiar high points, including Lincoln's tragic romance with Ann Rutledge (Una Merkel Read More

Mounted Stranger

Actors: Buddy Hunter, Milton Brown, Francis Ford

Synopsis: Nearing the end of his long association with Universal, rough-edged silent screen cowboy Hoot Gibson released eight sound Westerns in 1930 before the studio dropped him in favor of the more streamlined Ken Maynard. Mounted Stranger, a remake of Gibson's 1924 The Ridin' Kid From Powder River Read More

Kathleen Mavourneen

Synopsis: Based on Dion Boucicauls's Irish play, this early talkie from lower-echelon company Tiffany starred one of the victims of sound, Sally O'Neil, formerly of MGM. A young Irish lassie, Kathleen arrives in New York to marry Terry (Charles Delaney), a poor but honest plumber. At a party given by her Read More

The Lariat Kid

Actors: Hoot Gibson, Ann Christy, Cap Anderson, Mary Foy, Francis Ford

Synopsis: One of the more used plots in silent westerns was the one about the son searching for the villain who killed his father. In The Lariat Kid, a thoroughly average oater on all fronts, Hoot Gibson played the son, a lawman just like his murdered father. Ann Christy was the inevitable girl, and the Read More

The Black Watch

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Myrna Loy, David Rollins, Roy D'Arcy, Lumsden Hare, Walter Long

Synopsis: In this early talkie from director John Ford, a Scottish captain and his regiment are sent to India during WW I and assigned to quell a native uprising in the Northern mountains. Unfortunately, soon after arriving, he gets drunk and seemingly kills another officer during a barroom fight. He Read More

Sisters of Eve

Actors: Anita Stewart, Betty Blythe, Creighton Hale

Synopsis: Sisters of Eve was based on The Tempting of Tavenake, a story by the prolific E. Phillips Oppenheim. Creighton Hale plays a naive young minister who falls under the spell of married temptress Betty Blythe. Supposedly a woman of independent means, Blythe is actually a four-flusher who keeps her Read More

Call of the Heart

Crew: Director

Actors: Dynamite the Dog, Edmund Cobb, William A. Steele, Maurice Murphy

Synopsis: One of Rin Tin Tin's many canine imitators, Dynamite, starred in his own series of silent action melodramas produced in 1927-1928 by Universal. Stuart Paton directed most of the entries but Call of the Heart was helmed by John Ford's older brother, Francis Ford. This time around, Dynamite and Read More

Upstream

Actors: Nancy Nash, Earl Foxe, Grant Withers, Lydia Yeamans Titus, Raymond Hitchcock

Synopsis: This long-lost John Ford production was based on The Snake's Wife, a story by Wallace Smith. The scene is a theatrical boarding house, populated by all manner of colorful show-biz characters. Knife-thrower Jack (Grant Withers) is in love with his vaudeville partner Gertie (Nancy Nash), but she Read More

Wreck of the Hesperus

Actors: Sam de Grasse, Virginia Bradford, Francis Ford, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Wreck of the Hesperus was "suggested" by the poem of the same name by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It will be recalled that the bulk of the Longfellow original was devoted to an impassioned dialogue between the captain of the ill-fated Hesperus and his daughter, whom he has lashed to a post to keep Read More

One Glorious Scrap

Actors: Fred Humes, Francis Ford

Synopsis: A crooked rancher (George B. French) and his nasty son (Cuyler Supplee) buy up the area's water rights to drive out the local farmers. Enter Fred Humes, the stalwart cowboy hero of the Francis Ford Ranch, who manages to lure the villains into a trap. The prize for ridding the community of outlaws Read More

Men of Daring

Actors: Jack Hoxie, Ena Gregory

Synopsis: Cowboy star Jack Hoxie is definitely a "man of daring," but just how daring he really can be isn't demonstrated until the final reel. The story is set in the Black Hills of South Dakota circa 1876. While making their way through the Badlands, a religious cult is terrorized by a bandit known only Read More

Wolf's Trail

Crew: Director

Actors: Dynamite the Dog

Synopsis: Heralded as a "Universal Thrill Feature," this minor outdoor melodrama starred Dynamite, one of canine phenomenon Rin Tin Tin's legion of imitators. Veteran actor Edmund Cobb headed the human cast as Captain Tom Grant, a Texas ranger impersonating an outlaw in order to infiltrate a gang of Read More

Speed Cop

Actors: Billy Sullivan

Synopsis: Stuntman Billy Sullivan stars as the "Speed Cop" in the motion picture of the same name. The picture begins as Sullivan gives a ticket to motorist Rose Blossom, who happens to be the daughter of a judge. Though she could very well "break" our hero, Blossom falls in love with him instead. She Read More

Taming of the West

Actors: Hoot Gibson, Francis Ford, Albert J. Smith

Synopsis: One of the more popular western plots of the silent era detailed the trials and tribulations of a spoiled Easterner growing muscles and character on a tough western ranch. This time around Raymond L. Schrock based his screenplay on a none too original story by B.M. Bowers (AKA Bertha Muzzy Read More

Sign of the Cactus

Actors: Jack Hoxie, Helen Holmes, Gordon Russell, Francis Ford, Josef Swickard

Synopsis: Silent western hero Jack Hoxie assumes the guise of an avenging angel called "Whitehorse Cactus" when his father is killed during a dispute over water rights with a large corporation. He tracks down the killer, a hired gunslinger from back East (Frank Newberg) and then confronts the water company Read More

Soft Shoes

Actors: Harry Carey, Lillian Rich, Paul Weigel, Francis Ford, Stanton Heck

Synopsis: Produced and co-written by Hunt Stromberg, this silent crime melodrama was advertised as a Western solely because of its august leading man, Harry Carey. Carey played Pat Halahan, a Western lawman who on a trip to San Francisco catches a pretty burglar, Faith O'Day (Lillian Rich), red-handed in Read More

Fighting Heart

Synopsis: Track star Frank Merrill stars as Jack Melford in this hackneyed melodrama. Jack wins the track meet at the local college before being notified his father is on his deathbed. He arrives to find his father has died and left all his money to Dr. Delhi (Alphonse Martell), the shady physician who was Read More

The Measure of a Man

Actors: William Desmond, Francis Ford, Marin Sais, William J. Dyer, Bobby Gordon

Synopsis: This crude melodrama starring William Desmond seems like it came from an earlier age when it's compared to other films of the roaring '20s, and in a way it did; this was a remake of the 1916 film starring J. Warren Kerrigan. Desmond plays John Fairmeadow, a Bowery drunk who finds redemption when Read More

Lash of the Whip

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Poverty row actor-director-producer Ashton Dearholt, as Pinto Pete, battles a gang of railroad saboteurs led by the spiteful Hurricane Smith (Francis Ford who also directed). Dearholt collaborated with genre specialist Ben Wilson on this little oater, casting Mrs. Dearholt (Florence Gilbert) in Read More

Hearts of Oak

Actors: Hobart Bosworth, Pauline Starke, Theodore Von Eltz, James Gordon

Synopsis: Hearts of Oak is, alas, one of the many "lost" silent films of pantheon director John Ford. Filmed not long after Ford's epic western The Iron Horse, Hearts was the story of elderly seaman Terry Dunnivan (Hobart Bosworth). In love with the much-younger Chrystal (Pauline Starke), Terry is incensed Read More

Three Jumps Ahead

Actors: Tom Mix, Francis Ford, Buster Gardner, Joseph W. Girard

Synopsis: This above-average Tom Mix western contains one of the star's more spectacular stunts -- a jump on horseback across the 20-foot Beale's Cut. Truth be told, the star, who frequently did his own stunt work, was forced to use a double this time, former rancher from Searchlight, Nevada Earl Simpson. John Ford Read More

Another Man's Boots

Actors: Francis Ford, Elvira Weil, Harry Smith, Frank Lanning, Bob Kortman

Synopsis: A drifter known only as "The Stranger (Francis Ford) promises a supposedly dying man, Ned Hadley (Harry Smith), to assume his identity and care for the family back home. Fifteen year's passes with "The Stranger" successfully fooling the blinded Hadley, Sr. and Ned's lovely sister Nell (Elvira Read More

Angel Citizens

Crew: Director

Actors: Franklin Farnum, Peggy O'Day, Shorty Hamilton

Synopsis: Also known as Texas Angel Citizens, this minor silent Western from poverty row producer William M. Smith starred Franklyn Farnum as a drifter who solves a murder in the ill-named frontier town of Angel Citizens. Directed by Francis Ford, the older brother of John Ford, this Western also featured Peggy O'Day Read More

Boss of Camp 4

Actors: Charles "Buck" Jones, Fritzi Brunette, G. Raymond Nye, Francis Ford, Sid Jordan

Synopsis: At the beginning of his career, Charles "Buck" Jones didn't always play a cowboy. Here he is the foreman on a road construction job. To fulfill a contract entered into by his boss, Chet Fanning (Jones) agrees to finish the construction within a certain amount of time. However, Andrew Paxton Read More

So This Is Arizona

Crew: Director

Actors: Franklin Farnum, Genevieve Bert, Francis Ford, Al Hart, Art Phillips

Synopsis: Silent Western star Franklyn Farnum travels West to locate a missing girl in this comedy-oater directed by John Ford's older brother Francis. Attempting to return a lost purse to a girl, Farnum finds himself in the middle of a furious labor dispute among miners. Poor Farnum is soon falsely accused 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

Trail's End

Crew: Director

Actors: Franklin Farnum, Peggy O'Day, Shorty Hamilton

Synopsis: More a prairie whodunit than a straight western, this minor silent melodrama starred the veteran Franklyn Farnum as a rancher solving the mystery of the missing Jack Frayne (George Rheem). It seems that Frayne was shot, in self defence, by his twin brother (also Rheem), who then assumed his Read More

They're Off

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Francis Ford -- elder brother of director John Ford -- directed, wrote, and acted in this old-timey meller. But his isn't the only tour de force here -- the star, Peggy O'Day, had a dual role. Twin girls have been separated as babies; one of them, called Slats (O'Day), has grown up in the Read More

Storm Girl

Crew: Director

Actors: Peggy O'Day

Synopsis: Director Francis Ford miscast himself as the romantic interest of Peggy O'Day in this rags-to-riches drama. Patsy (O'Day) is the scrub girl at a boarding house, but her singing talent draws the attention of an old musician. She gets a job in the chorus of a burlesque show and quickly works her way Read More

The Lady from Longacre

Actors: William Russell, Mary Thurman, Jean de Briac, Francis Ford

Synopsis: Mary Thurman, in a double role, stars along with William Russell in this story of mistaken identity. When Sir Anthony Conway (Russell) saves Isabel from the clutches of malevolent molesters. He soon discovers she is a princess and is slated to marry the exiled King Pedro (Jean de Briac). When the Read More

Action

Synopsis: With this picture, Western star Hoot Gibson graduated to full-length features. He plays Sandy Brouke, one of three prospectors who wind up buying a ranch from Molly Casey (Clara Horton), whose father has been killed. But some bandits believe that there must be gold on the property and manipulate Read More

Thunderbolt Jack

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Produced by Gower Gulch regular Benjamin F. Wilson and co-directed by Francis Ford, the older brother of John Ford, this 15 chapter Western serial starred a very young Jack Hoxie, a former rodeo rider who was positioning himself to become the next cowboy star. Hoxie's wife, Marin Sais played the Read More

Crimson Shoals

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Francis Ford -- elder brother of director John Ford -- was the whole show in this strapping drama. He directed it, wrote it, and played all three lead roles: father, son, and grandson. Thomas Fielding (Ford) and William Quinn (Pete Gerald) are bitter rivals. Fielding owns Crimson Shoals, an Read More

The Avenging Trail

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Henry Oyen's novel Gaston Olaf was the saga of a two-fisted French Canadian lumberjack. The film version of Gaston Olaf, 1918's The Avenging Trail, starred Harold Lockwood as Olaf. Amidst all the brawling and "Timberrrr"-ing, this 5-reeler finds time to accommodate Lockwood's romance with Sally Crute Read More

The Craving

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Most moviegoers tend to associate Francis Ford with the "loveable drunk" characterizations he essayed for his director brother John in the 1930s and 1940s. In the teen years, however, Francis Ford was not only a virile action hero, but an accomplished director in his own right. In The Craving (aka Delirium Read More

Delirium

Crew: Director

The Silent Mystery

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In one of the more sensationalistic serials of the 1910s (which says a lot), veteran femme fatale Rosemary Theby appeared as an Egyptian princess wreaking havoc in the lives of those who stole a priceless jewel, "The Eye of the World," from the tomb of an ancient Pharaoh. Director Francis Ford Read More

John Ermine of the Yellowstone

Crew: Director

Synopsis: John Ermine (Francis Ford who also directed) has been raised among the Crow Indians, never knowing that he is a white man who was captured as a baby. On a trip to a nearby post he falls in love with Katherine Searles (Mae Gaston), but when he proposes to her, she is insulted because she believes Read More

Who Was the Other Man?

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This tale of international intrigue was directed by Francis Ford, who also starred in a dual role. At a Paris hotel, Ludwig Schumann, a spy (Ford), and James Walbert of the American Secret Service (also Ford) meet and are struck by how closely they resemble each other. Walbert is given papers Read More

Chicken-hearted Jim

Lumber Yard Gang

The Purple Mask

Synopsis: The popular action adventure team of Grace Cunard and Francis Ford (older brother of John) wrote, directed, and starred in this 16 chapter serial in which Cunard plays a female Robin Hood. Playing lovely Patricia Montez by day, Cunard turns into The Queen of the Apaches, an outlaw who steals from Read More

Bandit's Wager

Peg O' the Ring

Deserter

Synopsis: The Deserter bore traces of the earlier Charles Ray vehicle The Coward. This time around, Ray is cast as Lieutenant Parker, a hotheaded U.S. Cavalry officer. After getting into a fight and indulging in a drunken spree when he is spurned by Barbara Taylor (Rita Stanwood), the daughter of his Read More

The Heart of Lincoln

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Prominent actor/director Francis Ford played the title role in the multi-reel historical drama The Heart of Lincoln. Co-starring with Ford was his wife, Grace Cunard, cast as Betty, the daughter of a Southern Colonel staying in Washington at the outbreak of the Civil War. Once the shooting begins Read More

Doorway of Destruction

Hidden City

The Campbells Are Coming

Crew: Director

Synopsis: We could be cute and say that The Campbells are Coming is about invading hordes of tomato soup cans. But we won't. Set during the Sepoy uprising of 1857, the film recounts the courageous activities of a Scottish regiment. Star Francis Ford (the brother of John Ford) also directed, bringing a keen Read More

Broken Coin

Three Bad Men and a Girl

Washington at Valley Forge

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: The popular screen team of Francis Ford and Grace Cunard were co-stars and co-directors of the historical drama Washington at Valley Forge. Those familiar only with Ford's "drunk" characterizations in the films directed by his brother John might be surprised to discover that, once upon a time, Francis Ford Read More

Lucille Love: The Girl of Mystery

Synopsis: Begun as yet another two-reel Western, Universal's Lucille Love, Girl of Mystery was so promising that the studio stretched it into 15 chapters. The resulting serial, Universal's first, became a serious rival for Pearl White's inferior but better remembered The Perils of Pauline (1914), and Read More

Mysterious Rose

The Invaders

Crew: Director

Actors: Francis Ford

Custer's Last Fight

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Producer Thomas H. Ince often took credit for directing his films as well, even though he rarely appeared on set. It is therefore impossible to determine whether Ince actually did direct Custer's Last Fight, a 3-reel version of the infamous battle, or whether the film was helmed by its star, Francis Ford Read More

The Immortal Alamo