Gertrude ShortFilmography

Weekend at the Waldorf

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Edward Arnold

Synopsis: Weekend at the Waldorf is an unabashed remake of MGM's 1932 Oscar-winner Grand Hotel: in fact, at several points in the story, the cast makes pointed references to the earlier film. The posh Waldorf Hotel in the heart of New York is the setting for several plots and subplots. Ginger Rogers plays Read More

Tom, Dick and Harry

Actors: Ginger Rogers, George Murphy, Alan Marshal, Burgess Meredith, Phil Silvers, Joe Cunningham

Synopsis: Working girl Ginger Rogers (who dresses like movie star Ginger Rogers, despite her meager salary!) cannot decide which of her three suitors will march her down the aisle. Will it be fast-talking automobile salesman George Murphy, wealthy Alan Marshall, or free-spirited, eternally unemployed Burgess Meredith? Read More

Tip-Off Girls

Actors: Lloyd Nolan, Mary Carlisle, J. Carrol Naish, Harvey Stephens, Roscoe Karns

Synopsis: Tip-Off Girls is a worthwhile entry in Paramount's "FBI" series, based on the various writings of
J. Edgar Hoover. The title refers to a group of pretty young women who are ordered by their gangster bosses to pick up tips on incoming merchandise shipments, thereby expediting a sophisticated Read More

Stella Dallas

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, Anne Shirley, Barbara O'Neil, Alan Hale

Synopsis: Produced by Sam Goldwyn, this second film version of Olive Higgins Prouty's Stella Dallas is by far the best. The combined talents of Goldwyn, director King Vidor and star Barbara Stanwyck lift this property far above the level of mere soap opera. Stanwyck is perfectly cast as Stella Martin, the Read More

Park Avenue Logger

Actors: George O'Brien, Beatrice Roberts, Willard Robertson, Ward Bond, Bert Hanlon

Synopsis: In this drama, a wealthy, aristocratic New Yorker, thinking his son is a bit of a panty-waist, decides to make a real man of him and sends him to work in a lumber camp to prove himself. Unbeknownst to the father, the boy is already a famous wrestler known as the mysterious Masked Marvel. Read More

Wild Money

Actors: Louise Campbell, Lynne Overman, Lucien Littlefield, Esther Dale

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a tightwad accountant for a newspaper becomes friends with a reporter. The bookkeeper goes on vacation, and while there he learns of a kidnapping conspiracy. He quickly phones the paper and they order him to follow up on the story and stay off the phone so the reporter (whom Read More

Follow the Fleet

Actors: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Randolph Scott, Harriet Hilliard, Astrid Allwyn

Synopsis: This lesser Astaire/Rogers vehicle is one of several screen versions of the venerable Hubert Osborne stage play Shore Leave. For reasons unknown, Fred and Ginger are virtually supporting players here, spending most of their time trying to patch up the romance between Fred's fellow sailor Randolph Scott Read More

Thirteen Hours by Air

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Joan Bennett, ZaSu Pitts, John Howard, Bennie Bartlett

Synopsis: Making a transcontinental plane flight in only thirteen hours was quite an achievement when this film was made in 1936 -- but it was not impossible, as indicated by Paramount's last-minute decision to "downsize" the film's original title, Twenty Hours by Air. In anticipation of Airport 34 years Read More

Helldorado

Actors: Richard Arlen, Madge Evans, Ralph Bellamy, James Gleason, Henry B. Walthall

Synopsis: In this drama, an impoverished dreamer saves a group of people during a terrible storm by leading them to shelter in a ghost town containing but one ancient resident. The stranded travelers are surprised by the high-style in which the codger lives. Soon they learn that the man and the drifter's Read More

Woman Wanted

Actors: Maureen O'Sullivan, Joel McCrea, Louis Calhern, Edgar Kennedy

Synopsis: One of four MGM "B"-pictures ground out in quick succession by director George B. Seitz, Woman Wanted is a crime melodrama with occasional bursts of comedy relief. Wrongly convicted of murder, heroine Ann (Maureen O'Sullivan) escapes from the police when the car bearing her to prison is involved Read More

G-Men

Actors: James Cagney, Margaret Lindsay, Lloyd Nolan, Ann Dvorak, Robert Armstrong, Barton MacLane

Synopsis: In G Men, Warner Bros. "bad boy" James Cagney plays James "Brick" Davis, a young lawyer whose education has been financed by soft-hearted racketeer McKay (William Harrigan). When Cagney's best pal, detective Eddie Buchanan (Regis Toomey), is killed in a gangland shooting, James decides to become a Read More

The Key

Actors: William Powell, Edna Best, Colin Clive, Hobart Cavanaugh, Halliwell Hobbes

Synopsis: The Key is a story of the Irish "troubles" which avoids taking sides, but spends most of its screen time with the British occupation troops. William Powell stars as a soldier for hire who works on behalf of the British in the Dublin of the early 1920s. Powell is as celebrated for his boudoir Read More

Love Birds

Actors: George "Slim" Summerville, ZaSu Pitts, Mickey Rooney, Frederick Burton, Emmett Vogan

Synopsis: Birdlike ZaSu Pitts and gangly Slim Summerville are together again in the Universal programmer Love Birds. The stars are cast respectively as schoolmarm Araminta Tootle and chicken farmer Henry Whipple, both of whom are sold the same abandoned ranch by the same fast-talking con artist. Neither Read More

The St. Louis Kid

Actors: James Cagney, Patricia Ellis, Allen Jenkins, Robert H. Barrat, Hobart Cavanaugh

Synopsis: James Cagney manages to retain his pre-Code cockiness within post-Code limitations in the likeable St. Louis Kid. Cagney and Allen Jenkins, Eddie Kennedy, and Buck Willetts play long-distance truck drivers who get entangled in a battle between a crooked trucking firm and striking milk farmers (a Read More

The Thin Man

Actors: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan, Nat Pendleton, Minna Gombell

Synopsis: Filmed on what MGM considered a B-picture budget and schedule (14 days, which at Universal or Columbia would have been considered extravagant), The Thin Man proved to be "sleeper," spawning a popular film, radio, and television series. Contrary to popular belief, the title does not refer to star William Powell Read More

The Son of Kong

Actors: Robert Armstrong, Helen Mack, Frank Reicher, John Marston, Victor Wong

Synopsis: Hoping to immediately cash in on its blockbuster hit King Kong (1933). RKO Radio commissioned producers Willis O'Brien and Ernest B. Schoedsack to hastily slap together a sequel. Son of Kong begins where King Kong left off, with foolhardy entrepreneur Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) facing hundreds Read More

The Girl in 419

Actors: James Dunn, Gloria Stuart, David Manners, William Harrigan, Shirley Grey

Synopsis: A large urban hospital provides the setting for this drama. The staff there has seen it all and this is reflected in their hard-bitten demeanor, their cynicism, and the cruel jokes they play. One of them, an excellent surgeon gains a new outlook on life after he gets involved with investigating Read More

Secret Sinners

Actors: Jack Mulhall, Sue Carol, Nick Stuart, Cecilia Parker, Armand Kaliz

Synopsis: A whole slew of former silent-film favorites shows up in Mayfair's Secret Sinners. Dilettante songwriter Jack Mulhall falls in love with chorus girl Sue Carol and promises to marry her -- as soon as he can get a divorce from his wife Natalie Morehead. As the months pass, Carol becomes convinced Read More

Blonde Venus

Actors: Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant, Dickie Moore, Gene Morgan, Francis Sayles

Synopsis: Marlene Dietrich stars as Helen Faraday, a German cabaret singer in the States whose husband, Ned, falls ill and his only hope is to receive expensive medical treatment at a clinic in Europe. Struggling to afford his care and to support their son Johnny, she works at a nightclub and succumbs to Read More

Laughing Sinners

Actors: Joan Crawford, Neil Hamilton, Clark Gable, Marjorie Rambeau, Guy Kibbee

Synopsis: The Kenyon Nicholson play Torch Song was the source for the Joan Crawford vehicle Laughing Sinners. Crawford plays nightclub entertainer Ivy Stevens, who loses her zest for living when she's thrown over by her salesman sweetheart Howard Palmer (Neil Hamilton). At her lowest ebb, Ivy is befriended Read More

The Little Accident

Actors: Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Anita Page, Sally Blane, ZaSu Pitts, Joan Marsh

Synopsis: Based on a play by Floyd Dell and Thomas Mitchell, Little Accident stars Douglas Fairbanks Jr. as bridegroom-to-be Norman Overbeck. On the eve of his wedding to Madge (Sally Blane), Norman is visited by his first wife Isabel (Anita Page), who tells him that he's just become a father. Stuck with a Read More

Once a Gentleman

Actors: Edward Everett Horton, Lois Wilson, Francis X. Bushman, King Baggot, Emerson Treacy

Synopsis: A devoted valet takes a vacation in this lively drama. After 15 years of faithful service, he has earned it. He goes to India where he ends up mistaken for a colonel and gets into trouble. After it is straightened out, he brings home the charming widowed housekeeper he met, and she begins working Read More

The Last Dance

Actors: Vera Reynolds, Jason Robards, Sr., George Chandler, Gertrude Short, Harry Todd

Synopsis: Last Dance was loosely based on the real-life story of a newspaper mogul who married a Broadway taxi dancer. For the purposes of the film, Jason Robards Sr. plays wealthy Tom Malloy, while Vera Reynolds is cast as dime-a-dance damsel Sally Kelly. Though she enjoys Tom's company, Sally has no Read More

The Broadway Hoofer

Actors: Jack Egan, Louise Fazenda, Howard Hickman, Ernest Hilliard

Synopsis: Blonde Broadway dancer Marie Saxon came to the screen in 1929 courtesy of Columbia Pictures, who starred her opposite popular stage emcee Jack Egan in Broadway Hoofer, a rather leaden musical concoction that played mostly in the hinterlands. Saxon appeared as Broadway dancing star Adele Dorey who Read More

Gold Diggers of Broadway

Actors: Nancy Welford, Conway Tearle, Winnie Lightner, Ann Pennington, Lilyan Tashman

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1923, Avery Hopwood's 1920 comedy The Gold Diggers was resurrected in 1929 as the Technicolor musical Gold Diggers of Broadway. Nancy Welford, Winnie Lightner and Ann Pennington stars as Jerry, Mable and Ann, three chorus girls who try to entice a wealthy backer to put his Read More

Bulldog Drummond

Actors: Ronald Colman, Claud Allister, Joan Bennett, Lilyan Tashman, Lawrence Grant, Montagu Love

Synopsis: Tired of his sedentary postwar existence, Col. Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond (Ronald Colman) offers his services as adventurer for hire. This gets him mixed up with lovely Joan Bennett, whose wealthy father is being held against his will in a gloomy sanitarium. Armed with little more than bravado Read More

Trial Marriage

Actors: Norman Kerry, Sally Eilers, Jason Robards, Sr., Thelma Todd, Charles Clary

Synopsis: Capricious Constance Bannister (Sally Eilers) has had 12 fiances, but has yet to take her marital vows. Fiance number 13, Oliver Mowbray (Norman Kerry), suffers the same fate as his predecessors when Constance impulsively weds doctor Thorvald Ware (Jason Robards Sr.) Grace (Thelma Todd), Ware's Read More

In Old California

Synopsis: In this western, set aboard a California bound stagecoach, a man and woman passenger begin a flirtation that is interrupted when an robber band attacks the stage. They are saved by dashing cowboy who immediately wins the heart of the woman, much to the consternation of the man. Not willing to give Read More

None But the Brave

Actors: Charles Morton, Sally Phipps, Tyler Brooke

Synopsis: Failing miserably in the business world, a college hero becomes a lifeguard and falls for a pretty concessionaire in this breezy comedy which greatly benefitted by incorporating a beauty pageant filmed in Technicolor. Two of Fox studios' newest contract players, Charles Morton and Sally Phipps Read More

Tillie the Toiler

Actors: Marion Davies, Matt Moore, Harry Crocker, George Fawcett, George K. Arthur

Synopsis: Marion Davies has the lead role of Tillie in this adaptation of Russ Westover's popular 1920s comic strip. Tillie is bored by both her job as a stenographer and her office romance with Mr. Whipple (George K. Arthur). She's far more interested in another man in the office, Mac (Matt Moore). Mac Read More

Show

Actors: John Gilbert, Renée Adorée, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Connelly, Gertrude Short

Synopsis: Long believed to be a "lost" film, The Show resurfaced in the mid-1970s, proving to be a real treasure trove for aficionados of director Tod Browning. Ostensibly based on Tenney Jackson's novel The Day of Souls, the film also owes a great deal to Ferenc Molnar's Liliom. John Gilbert stars as Cock Read More

Adam and Evil

Actors: Lew Cody, Aileen Pringle, Gwen Lee, Gertrude Short, Hedda Hopper

Synopsis: 'That's either your wife or your sister-in-law!" declares Gwen Lee to Aileen Pringle in the middle of Adam and Evil. This should be indication enough that this silent feature was a comedy, despite its title. Lew Cody, married to Aileen Pringle, pretends to be his own twin brother so that he can Read More

Women's Wares

Actors: Evelyn Brent, Bert Lytell, Gertrude Short, Larry Kent, Richard Tucker

Synopsis: This drama starring Evelyn Brent is a barometer of the moral tone of the late '20s. Sales clerk Dolly Morton (Brent) gets a big resentment against all men when she is betrayed by her boyfriend, Jimmy Haynes (Larry Kent). She gets even with the male gender by becoming a callous gold digger, milking Read More

Sweet Adeline

Actors: Charles Ray, Jack Clifford, Gertrude Olmstead, Gertrude Short

Synopsis: The screen popularity of "All American Boy" Charles Ray was fading in the mid-1920s, forcing the 34-year-old actor to return to his old bumpkin-makes-good formula in the inexpensively produced Sweet Adeline. Ray plays small-towner Ben Wilson, who's so incredibly bashful that he can only sulk in Read More

Lily

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

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

Ladies of Leisure

Actors: Elaine Hammerstein, T. Roy Barnes, Gertrude Short

Synopsis: This early Columbia production stars Elaine Hammerstein as the best friend of Gertrude Short, a predatory society girl who intends to trap wealthy T. Roy Barnes into marriage. Instead, Hammerstein and Barnes fall in love with each other. The nonplused Short persists in trying to force Barnes to Read More

Tessie

Actors: May McAvoy, Lee Moran, Myrtle Stedman, Gertrude Short

Synopsis: Director Dallas M. Fitzgerald made this film independently, and he convinced star May McAvoy to invest in it. According to her account in Speaking of Silents, she lost the whole sum. Nevertheless, this light comedy, based on a novel by Sewell Ford, is entertaining, if a bit slight. Tessie (McAvoy) Read More

Other Woman's Story

Actors: Alice Calhoun, Robert W. Frazer, Helen Lee Worthing, Mahlon Hamilton, Gertrude Short

Synopsis: The Other Woman's Story begins as Bennett Colby (Robert Frazer) is convicted of the murder of Robert Marshall (Mahlon Hamilton). As Colby sits on death row, he recalls the events leading to his present sorry condition in a series of flashbacks. Meanwhile, the hero's sweetheart Miss Prentiss (Helen Lee Worthing Read More

Beggar on Horseback

Actors: Edward Everett Horton, Esther Ralston, Erwin Connelly, Ethel Wales, Gertrude Short

Synopsis: This satirical film was based on the play by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. Neil McRae (Edward Everett Horton) is a composer who, instead of finishing his symphony, is forced to write jazz music to live. He also has a pupil, Gladys Cady (Gertrude Short), who comes from an eccentric nouveau Read More

Code of the West

Actors: Owen Moore, Constance Bennett, Mabel Ballin, Charles Ogle, David Butler

Synopsis: Shy cowboy Cal Thurman (Owen Moore) falls for sophisticated city girl Georgie May (Constance Bennett) in this, the first of two versions of Zane Grey's story. When Georgie May haughtily rejects the poor cowpuncher, he sets out to stake his claim, gets in trouble with a gang of crooks, and later Read More

Talker

Actors: Anna Q. Nilsson, Lewis Stone, Shirley Mason, Ian Keith, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: This drama, based on the play by Marion Fairfax, concerns a woman who talks big, but does not practice what she preaches. Kate Lennox (Anna Q. Nilsson) is bored with suburban life and her husband, Harry (Lewis S. Stone). Their next-door neighbors, the hen-pecked Henry Fells (Tully Marshall) and Read More

My Lady's Lips

Actors: Frank Keenan, Clara Bow, William Powell, Matthew Betz

Synopsis: Few leading ladies appeared in as many films in 1926 as the vivacious Clara Bow. In My Lady's Lips, Bow plays the feisty daughter of newspaper magnate Frank Keenan. And that's about all she does, since the bulk of the film concerns the trials and tribulations of female crook Alyce Mills. For the Read More

Barbara Frietchie

Actors: Florence Vidor, Edmund Lowe, Emmett C. King, Charles Delaney

Synopsis: Although John Greenleaf Whittier wrote the poem Barbara Frietchie, it was actually the Clyde Fitch play that served as inspiration for both this and the 1915 film by the same name. In the days before the Civil War, southerner Barbara Frietchie (Florence Vidor) falls in love with Captain Trumbull (Edmund Lowe Read More

The Narrow Street

Actors: Matt Moore, David Butler, Russell Simpson, Gertrude Short

Synopsis: While this light comedy (based on the novel by Edwin Bateman Morris) was nothing really special, it still was an amusing program picture. Simon Haldane (Matt Moore), a clerk for the Faulkner Iron Works, is a meek, absent-minded type, who is the butt of most of the jokes at the office. He's Read More

The Man Life Passed By

Actors: Jane Novak, Eva Novak, Percy Marmont, Cullen Landis, Hobart Bosworth

Synopsis: Victor Schertzinger both wrote and directed this melodrama. John Corbin (Percy Marmont) works for years on an invention, only to have it stolen by Jonathan "Iron Man" Moore, an iron magnate (Hobart Bosworth). When Corbin's mother (Lydie Knott) dies of starvation, he sinks to the gutter. He Read More

The Gold Diggers

Actors: Hope Hampton, Wyndham Standing, Louise Fazenda, Gertrude Short, Alec B. Francis

Synopsis: This clever comedy-drama was based on the famed stage play by Avery Hopwood. All the actors gave enjoyable performances, even the star Hope Hampton, who was never known for her histrionic talents. Wally Saunders (Johnny Harron -- brother of Robert Harron) wants to marry chorus girl Violet Dayne Read More

The Prisoner

Actors: Herbert Rawlinson, Eileen Percy, George Cowl, June Elvidge, Lincoln Stedman

Synopsis: It seems like nearly everything written by George Barr McCutcheon found its way to the silent screen. Castle Craneycrow was one of his lesser novels, and this Universal picture starring the studio's matinee idol Herbert Rawlinson as the dashing hero, was one of the lesser adaptations. While on a Read More

Breaking into Society

Actors: Bull Montana, Carrie Clark Ward, Kalla Pasha

Synopsis: When the down-market O'Tooles inherit a fortune, the entire clan -- including the dog, Rags -- moved to upscale Pasadena, Beverly Hillbillies-style, in this comedy from independent producer Hunt Stromberg. Hoping to crash society, Ma (Carrie Clark Ward) and Pa O'Toole (Kalla Pasha) prove not only Read More

Crinoline and Romance

Actors: Viola Dana, Lillian Lawrence, Betty Francisco, John Bowers

Synopsis: In this comedy romance, Claude Gillingwater plays a Southern Colonel who has the impossible task of keeping Viola Dana away from the lure of the Jazz Age. Because he disapproved of his daughter's marriage, Colonel Charles Cavanaugh (Gillingwater) takes it out on his granddaughter, Miss Emmy Lou Read More

Headin' West

Actors: Hoot Gibson, Gertrude Short, Charles Le Moyne, Jim Corey, Leo White

Synopsis: In spite of an original beginning, this Hoot Gibson picture quickly gets down to the usual Western business, with the hero at odds with a crooked ranch foreman. Gibson's co-star here is Louise Lorraine, whose stunt skills rivaled that of any cowboy's. After returning from World War I, Bill Perkins Read More

Youth to Youth

Synopsis: From the beginning of her film career, Billie Dove showed a knack for playing chorus girls (it only made sense since she was a former Follies beauty), so in her first starring part for Metro, guess what her role was? Eve Allison (Dove) is that eternal movie cliché, the country girl who comes to Read More

Rent Free

Actors: Wallace Reid, Lila Lee, Gertrude Short, Lillian Leighton

Synopsis: Silent matinee idol Wallace Reid played a speed demon in quite a few popular light comedies for Paramount. Here he takes a break from the fast cars, and frankly, this mediocre picture suffers for it. In spite of the protests of his father (Henry Barrows), Buell Arnister, Jr. (Reid) pursues a Read More

She Couldn't Help It

Actors: Bebe Daniels, Emory Johnson, Wade Boteler, Vera Lewis, Herbert Standing

Synopsis: Bebe Daniels stars in this adaptation of the Miriam Michelson novel (and play), In the Bishop's Carriage. Thief Tom Dorgan (Wade Boteler) has trained an orphan, Nance Olden (Daniels) to be his accomplice. At a station she pretends to faint so that Dorgan can steal a diamond necklace from a man's Read More

Riddle Gawne

Synopsis: Cowboy star William S. Hart plays Jefferson "Riddle" Gawne, a man who really carries a grudge. When he finds his brother dying and hears that the killer has run off with his brother's wife, he swears revenge. Years pass and Riddle earns the enmity of cattle rustler Hame Bozzam (Lon Chaney). When Read More

Amarilly of Clothesline Alley

Actors: Mary Pickford, William Scott, Norman Kerry

Synopsis: Coming as it did on the heels of what many consider to be Mary Pickford's greatest triumph, Stella Maris (1918), this film seemed almost too lightweight in comparison. The situation -- a poor girl's introduction to High Society -- was already old hat in 1918, but luckily, the star and her Read More

Hostage

Synopsis: Many film critics felt that Wallace Reid graduated from mere leading man to full-fledged star in his 1917 vehicle The Hostage. The story is set in an unidentified European country, where civil war rages between the Lowlanders and Highlanders. Circumstances dictate that Brigadier Kemper of the Read More

Little Princess

Synopsis: This first version of Frances Hodgson Burnett's frequently filmed children's classic A Little Princess starred 23-year-old Mary Pickford as the 10-year-old title character. When her wealthy father marches off to war, little Sarah (Pickford) is left in a girl's boarding school. News arrives that Read More

Test

The Fruit of Evil

The Little Angel of Canyon Creek

Synopsis: Juvenile actress Gertrude Short, later the pleasingly plump star of a series of "telephone girl" 2-reelers of the 1930s, plays the title character in Little Angel of Canyon Creek. The story revolves around an orphan girl (Short) who is stranded in a rough-and-tumble mining town. Exuding cuteness Read More