Guy OliverFilmography

I Take This Woman

Actors: Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Helen Ware, Lester Vail, Charles Trowbridge

Synopsis: Based on a Mary Roberts Rinehart novel, I Take This Woman stars Carole Lombard as the spoiled daughter of a wealthy rancher. Lombard impulsively marries cowhand Gary Cooper, a poverty-stricken employee of her father. Cooper insists that they live on his income in a tiny shack; Lombard gives this Read More

Sooky

Actors: Jackie Searl, Willard Robertson, Enid Bennett, Helen Jerome Eddy, Leigh Allen

Synopsis: Sooky was the sequel to Paramount's smash-hit sentimental comedy Skippy; both films were based on characters created by comic strip artist Percy Crosby. Jackie Cooper is back as Skippy, with Robert Coogan (younger brother of Jackie Coogan) in the title role. Once again, Skippy is the mischievous Read More

The Beloved Bachelor

Actors: Paul Lukas, Dorothy Jordan, Betty van Allen, Charlie Ruggles, Vivienne Osborne

Synopsis: The continental-flavored comedy drama Beloved Bachelor was based on a play by Edward H. Peple. Unmarried sculptor Paul Lukas and his two bachelor pals kindheartedly adopt little orphan girl Betty Van Allen. Time passes, and awkward little Van Allen grows up to be lovely and graceful Dorothy Read More

Caught

Actors: Tom Kennedy, Martin Burton, Richard Arlen, Louise Dresser

Synopsis: In the wake of such cinematic Calamity Janes as Jean Arthur and Doris Day, it comes as a shock to find a film in which the famed frontierswoman is played by someone who actually looks the part. Matronly, granite-visaged Louise Dresser stars as Calamity in Caught, an early-talkie psychological Read More

Huckleberry Finn

Actors: Jackie Coogan, Mitzi Green, Junior Durkin, Jackie Searl, Clarence Muse, Clara Blandick

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn stars Junior Durkin in the title role, Jackie Coogan as Tom Sawyer, Mitzi Green as Becky Thatcher and Clarence Muse as Jim the slave. The film hopscotches around the book, ignoring such highlights as the Grangeford-Shepherdson feud and devoting Read More

Murder by the Clock

Actors: William "Stage" Boyd, Lilyan Tashman, Irving Pichel, Regis Toomey, Sally O'Neil

Synopsis: An eerie early-talkie mystery, Murder by the Clock spends most of its time in a cemetery. The matriarch (Blanche Frederici) of a wealthy family is haunted by the notion that she'll be buried alive. To avoid this contingency, she has a horn installed in the family mausoleum, to be activated in case Read More

Gun Smoke

Actors: Richard Arlen, Mary Brian, William "Stage" Boyd, Eugene Pallette, Charles Winninger

Synopsis: William Boyd is one of the stars of the Paramount western Gun Smoke -- only it's not the same William Boyd who later essayed the role of Hopalong Cassidy, but another actor who billed himself as William "Stage" Boyd. The plot was a familiar one to western devotees of the early 1930s: a bunch of Read More

Up Pops the Devil

Actors: Stuart Erwin, Carole Lombard, Lilyan Tashman, Norman Foster

Synopsis: In this romance, an aspiring writer encounters a wealthy publisher who gives him an advance on the first two chapters of his book. Meanwhile, his wife helps out by becoming a chorus girl in a nightclub revue. Instead of enjoying the peace and quiet of home life, the poor writer finds himself Read More

Dude Ranch

Actors: Jack Oakie, Stuart Erwin, Eugene Pallette, Mitzi Green, June Collyer

Synopsis: Two of Paramount's best contract comedians made a rare joint appearance in Dude Ranch. Jack Oakie heads the cast as Jennifer (sic!), the head of a travelling troupe of repertory actors. Finding themselves on the premises of a dude ranch, Jennifer and his actors strike up a deal with ranch Read More

Skippy

Actors: Jackie Cooper, Robert Coogan, Mitzi Green, Jackie Searl, Willard Robertson

Synopsis: Percy Crosby's popular newspaper comic strip Skippy comes to life in this 1931 film. Designed as a vehicle for Our Gang's Jackie Cooper -- then all of nine years old -- Skippy jettisons most of the trenchant cynicism of Crosby's creation (the strip was something of a 1930s Calvin and Hobbes) in Read More

Only the Brave

Actors: Gary Cooper, Mary Brian, Phillips Holmes, James Neill, Morgan Farley

Synopsis: Amidst the furor of the Civil War a courageous Union captain, nursing a broken heart, volunteers for spy duty. Masquerading as a Confederate sympathizer who has obtained important Union plans, he eventually lands at the plantation of home of a southern belle with whom he falls in love. Her love Read More

The Devil's Holiday

Actors: Nancy Carroll, Phillips Holmes, James Kirkwood, Hobart Bosworth, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: Nancy Carroll brings a touch of freshness to the well-worn plot convolutions of Devil's Holiday. Ms. Carroll plays a manicurist who woos and weds wealthy Phillips Holmes. She tells herself that she harbors no mercenary notions, but when Holmes' family offers to buy her off if she'll leave, Carroll Read More

Playboy of Paris

Actors: Maurice Chevalier, Frances Dee, O.P. Heggie, Stuart Erwin, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: In this sparkling musical comedy, a bungling waiter (Maurice Chevalier) loses his job at a tony restaurant. His employment prospects look grim until the opportunistic restaurateur learns that his ex-employee is slated to receive a vast inheritance. Hastily, he hires the youth back and then tries Read More

The Light of Western Stars

Actors: Richard Arlen, Mary Brian, Fred Kohler, Harry Green, Regis Toomey

Synopsis: The Light of Western Stars goes a long way towards using Paramount's fledgling sound system creatively; some scenes are filmed in complete darkness, allowing voices and sound effects to carry the day. Otherwise, this is a pleasantly familiar western concerning the relationship between Read More

Woman Trap

Actors: Hal Skelly, Chester Morris, Evelyn Brent, William B. Davidson, Effie Ellsler

Synopsis: Although Broadway star Hal Skelly never quite made it in films, it wasn't for lack of trying. In Woman Trap, Skelly is cast against type as hard-bitten police sergeant Dan Malone, whose mission in life is to rid his community of gangsters. The revelation that Dan's own brother Ray (Chester Morris) Read More

Half Way to Heaven

Actors: Jean Arthur, Paul Lukas, Helen Ware, Oscar Apfel

Synopsis: In this murder mystery, set in a carnival, a performer loses her boyfriend, a trapeze artist, when his partner "accidently" misses him during an aerial act. The young woman knows full well that the jealous partner deliberately missed him, but she is afraid so she jumps aboard a train and flees Read More

The Kibitzer

Actors: Harry Green, Mary Brian, Neil Hamilton, David Newell, Lee Kohlmar

Synopsis: In this comedy, a Yiddish fellow cannot keep from kibitzing into other people's lives. Trouble ensues when he is mistakenly given a huge fortune in stocks that he can spend any way he pleases. At the same time, his daughter has fallen in love with an impoverished, but good hearted boy. When the Read More

The Studio Murder Mystery

Actors: Neil Hamilton, Chester Conklin, Warner Oland, Florence Eldridge, Guy Oliver

Synopsis: The newly constructed Paramount sound stages were used as a backdrop for the Pirandellian thriller The Studio Murder Mystery. Fredric March stars as Richard Hardell, a silent-screen idol whose transition to talkies is threatened by his inability to remember his lines. Driven to distraction Read More

Stairs of Sand

Actors: Wallace Beery, Jean Arthur, Chester Conklin, Phillips Holmes, Fred Kohler

Synopsis: The gruff but lovable Wallace Beery starred in this Zane Grey adaptation from Paramount. He plays the prototype outlaw with a Heart of Gold, sacrificing his own life for the happiness of two young people in love. The young lovers were played by relative newcomers Jean Arthur and Phillips Holmes. Read More

Sunset Pass

Actors: Jack Holt, Nora Lane, John Loder, Chester Conklin

Synopsis: Filmed at glorious locations on the Navajo reservation at Tuba City and in Flagstaff, AZ, this Zane Grey adaptation stars square-jawed Jack Holt as a lawman going undercover to ferret out a notorious cattle rustler. In his second American film, aristocratic British actor John Loder plays the Read More

Easy Come, Easy Go

Actors: Richard Dix, Nancy Carroll, Charles Sellon, Frank Currier, Arnold Kent

Synopsis: Richard Dix's star power goes a long way towards assuring the success of Easy Come, Easy Go. Dix plays radio announcer Robert Parker, working at a station run by his girlfriend's father. Becoming a bit overexcited on the air, our hero lets slip a few (fortuitously unheard) profanities. Fired from Read More

Half a Bride

Synopsis: The fertile creative mind of director Gregory LaCava is well in evidence throughout Half a Bride. Esther Ralston stars as Patience Winslow, an impulsive heiress who marries a much-older man whom she really doesn't love. While honeymooning on her yacht without her new husband, Patience is marooned Read More

The Docks of New York

Actors: George Bancroft, Betty Compson, Olga Baclanova, Clyde Cook, Mitchell Lewis

Synopsis: The smokily erotic ambience of Josef Von Sternberg's silent Docks of New York is best appreciated on a big theatrical screen--but only if the available print is at the very least second-generation. George Bancroft plays a two-fisted ship's stoker on shore leave. He saves Betty Compson from Read More

Three Week-Ends

Actors: Clara Bow, Neil Hamilton, Harrison Ford, Julia Swayne Gordon, Jack Raymond

Synopsis: The Clara Bow vehicle Three Week Ends was based on a story by Elinor Glyn, the romance novelist who bestowed the "It Girl" title upon the saucer-eyed Bow. Seeing hero James Gordon (Neil Hamilton) driving around in an expensive, custom-built Hispano Suiza automobile, heroine Gladys O'Brien (Bow) Read More

Vanishing Pioneer

Actors: Jack Holt, Fred Kohler, William Powell

Synopsis: This silent Paramount Zane Grey Western marked the screen debut of the then 7-year-old Tim Holt. Young Tim's father, Jack Holt, starred as John Ballard, a courageous rancher who leads his neighbors in their righteous fight against corrupt politician John Murdock (William Powell) and his even Read More

Avalanche

Actors: Jack Holt, Doris Hill, John Darrow

Synopsis: An otherwise honest gambler, played by Jack Holt, begins to cheat at cards in order to put his son John Darrow through mining school in this lavish Zane Grey adaptation produced by Paramount. The callow foster-son pays back the noble gesture by running off with Holt's mistress, Olga Baclanova. Read More

Love and Learn

Actors: Esther Ralston

Synopsis: Like many of Esther Ralston's late-1920s vehicles, Love and Learn is primarily an excuse to show off its star in as few clothes as possible. In love with political candidate Anthony Cowles (Lane Chandler), heroine Nancy Blair (Ralston) gets wind of the opposition's scheme to ruin Cowles' Read More

The Mysterious Rider

Actors: Jack Holt, Charles Sellon, Tom Kennedy, David Torrence, Betty Jewel

Synopsis: Jack Holt stars as Ben Wade, a rancher framed on a robbery charge by crooked lawyer Harkness (Charles Sellon). The villain is in league with land-usurping millionaire Mark King (David Torrence), who intends to keep his neighboring ranchers at bay by hiring New York gangsters as his henchmen. Read More

Shootin' Irons

Actors: Jack Luden, Sally Blane, Fred Kohler

Synopsis: Screen newcomer Gary Cooper achieved some success as a western leading man in Arizona Bound (1927), and the studio, Paramount, attempted to repeat with Jack Luden, a graduate of the Paramount acting school. Luden was darkly handsome and should have made it as a cowboy star, but this story of a Read More

Nevada

Actors: Gary Cooper, William Powell, Thelma Todd

Synopsis: Young Paramount stars Gary Cooper and Thelma Todd, the latter a recent graduate of the studio's acting school, starred in this otherwise average Zane Grey Western directed by studio hack John Waters. It was Waters who, having spotted young Cooper in a screen test, recommended the lanky newcomer Read More

Arizona Bound

Actors: Gary Cooper, Betty Jewel, El Brendel, Charles Crockett

Synopsis: After a lengthy apprenticeship in bits and secondary roles, Gary Cooper was promoted to stardom in the Zane Grey western Arizona Bound. Cooper plays a character known only as The Cowboy, who rides into a small frontier town on the same day that a big gold shipment is departing. It so happens that Read More

Eagle of the Sea

Actors: Florence Vidor, Ricardo Cortez, Sam de Grasse, André Beranger, Mitchell Lewis

Synopsis: Eagle of the Sea is based on Charles Tenney Jackson's swashbuckling novel Captain Sazarac. Ricardo Cortez stars as Sazarac, a bold American pirate captain who proves to be putty in the hands of New Orleans belle Louise Lestron (Florence Vidor). While dancing with Louise at a masked ball, Sazarac Read More

Old Ironsides

Actors: Esther Ralston, Charles Farrell, Wallace Beery, George Bancroft, George Godfrey

Synopsis: Long derided by film historians as a talented but visually unimaginative director, James Cruze made up for any and all past artistic sins with his rousing Old Ironsides. Per its title, this 11-reel silent film is set at the time of Stephen Decatur's defeat of the Barbary pirates in Tripoli. Read More

The Vanishing American

Actors: Richard Dix, Lois Wilson, Noah Beery, Sr., Malcolm McGregor, Charles Stevens

Synopsis: The Paramount team of Richard Dix and Lois Wilson starred in this top-notch silent western in which a Native American is the protagonist. The early silent era devoted many films to the depiction of American Indians, but that trend had not carried over into the screen's third decade, where Indians Read More

The Air Mail

Actors: Warner Baxter, Billie Dove, Mary Brian, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., George Irving

Synopsis: By using a borrowed medal, Russ Kane, a crook (Warner Baxter), is able to get a job as an air mail pilot. His plan is to steal some valuable cargo, but soon enough the job begins to have a positive effect on him. When his plane has to make a force landing, he meets Alice Rendon (Billie Dove, who Read More

Woman of the World

Actors: Pola Negri, Charles Emmett Mack, Holmes Herbert, Blanche Mehaffey, Chester Conklin

Synopsis: This sophisticated and well-made comedy-drama was one of Pola Negri's best vehicles for Paramount. More often than not, the studio seemed at a loss with what to do with the exotic European star. By placing her in the completely incongruous setting of a small American town (and having Malcolm St. Read More

The Bedroom Window

Actors: May McAvoy, Ricardo Cortez, Robert Edeson, George Fawcett

Synopsis: William C. DeMille, Cecil B. DeMille's talented director brother, teamed with his favorite collaborator, scenarist Clara Beranger, for the 7-reel silent The Bedroom Window. Essentially a by-the-book mystery tale, the film is lifted from the ordinary by the expertise of DeMille and the charm of Read More

North of 36

Actors: Jack Holt, Lois Wilson, Noah Beery, Sr., David Dunbar

Synopsis: North of 36 was conceived in the wake of the immensely popular Covered Wagon, right down to the casting of that earlier film's leading lady, Lois Wilson (Covered Wagon director James Cruze was also to have been involved in the project, but dropped out when the budget was reduced from $1 million to Read More

Dawn of a Tomorrow

Actors: Jacqueline Logan, Raymond Griffith, David Torrence, Roland Bottomley, Harris Gordon

Synopsis: Mary Pickford starred in the 1915 version of this film, based on the Frances Hodgson Burnett story, and it's easy to imagine her in the Pollyanna-like role of Glad. Jacqueline Logan is good enough as the sunny girl of the slums, but she's no Pickford. When Sir Oliver Holt (David Torrence) has a Read More

To the Last Man

Actors: Richard Dix, Lois Wilson, Noah Beery, Sr., Robert Edeson, Frank Campeau

Synopsis: Leading lady Lois Wilson considered this fine western her favorite of six films she starred in opposite virile leading man Richard Dix. (The others were The Call of the Canyon, 1923, Icebound, 1924, The Vanishing American, 1925, Let's Get Married, 1926, and the talkie Lovin' the Ladies, 1930.) Read More

Woman with Four Faces

Actors: Richard Dix, George Fawcett, Theodore Von Eltz, Joseph Kilgour, James Farley

Synopsis: This implausible crime drama had the benefit of Betty Compson's presence: she was best known for playing lady criminals. District attorney Richard Templer (Richard Dix) is trying to solve a drug smuggling case, but to do so he needs to break into the safe belonging to Ralph Dobson (Charles A. Read More

Mr. Billings Spends His Dime

Actors: Walter Hiers, George Fawcett, Robert McKim, Patricia Palmer, Josef Swickard

Synopsis: Although rotund Walter Hiers was frequently seen in motion pictures all throughout the silent era, he was generally playing a supporting role. In this light comedy feature, however, he gets top billing. John Percival Billings (Hiers) is a haberdashery clerk who falls in love with Suzanna, a Read More

The Covered Wagon

Actors: J. Warren Kerrigan, Lois Wilson, Ernest Torrence, Charles Ogle, Alan Hale, Ethel Wales

Synopsis: James Cruze revived the western genre and presented audiences with the first western epic in the spectacular 1923 film The Covered Wagon, chronicling the largest wagon train to ever cross the valley of the Platte River. The film takes place in 1848, when two wagon trains -- one led by Jesse Read More

Ruggles of Red Gap

Actors: Edward Everett Horton, Ernest Torrence, Lois Wilson, Fritzi Ridgeway, Charles Ogle

Synopsis: Edward Everett Horton, who was still new to film, was perfectly cast as the meek and mild English valet Ruggles in this adaptation of the Harry Leon Wilson novel. Ruggles comes into the life of Cousin Egbert (Ernest Torrence) when he and his wife, Mrs. Effie (Louise Dresser), travel to Paris. The Read More

Sixty Cents an Hour

Actors: Walter Hiers, Jacqueline Logan, Ricardo Cortez, Charles Ogle, Lucille Ward

Synopsis: Hefty comedian Walter Hiers stars in this tepid comedy. Jimmy Kirk (Hiers) is a soda jerk in love with Mamie Smith (Jacqueline Logan), the daughter of a banker (Charles Ogle). In spite of his lowly position, Jimmy has aspirations and leases a four-foot plot in hopes of building a store. Although Read More

A Homespun Vamp

Synopsis: May McAvoy was on her way to becoming one of Hollywood's most popular stars when she appeared in this pleasant comedy-drama. She's Meg Mackenzie, the orphaned niece of two stingy Scotsmen, Donald and Duncan Craig (Charles Ogle and Guy Oliver). She's kept busy taking care of their home in the Read More

Our Leading Citizen

Actors: Thomas Meighan, Lois Wilson, William P. Carleton, Theodore Roberts, Guy Oliver

Synopsis: This lighthearted political satire marked the first time humorist George Ade wrote a story directly for the screen. The casting of Thomas Meighan and Lois Wilson as the two leads was impeccable. "Lazy Dan" Bentley (Meighan) may be a lawyer by profession, but all things considered, he'd rather be Read More

Across the Continent

Actors: Wallace Reid, Mary MacLaren, Theodore Roberts, Betty Francisco, Walter Long

Synopsis: Wallace Reid starred in a legion of comedy-dramas involving speeding cars and most of them (generally written by Byron Morgan) were interchangeable -- this one is no exception. John Dent (Paramount's most dependable character actor, Theodore Roberts) manufactures solid, dependable -- and rather Read More

The World's Champion

Actors: Wallace Reid, Lois Wilson, Lionel Belmore, Henry Miller, Jr., Helen Dunbar

Synopsis: The quality of Wallace Reid's films were starting to slip, quite possibly because of his drug problems, and this comedy-drama -- based on the stage play The Champion -- was merely an average picture for him. William Burroughs (Reid) is the son of a socially ambitious Englishman (Lionel Belmore). Read More

Manslaughter

Actors: Thomas Meighan, Leatrice Joy, Lois Wilson, John Miltern, George Fawcett

Synopsis: This Cecil B. DeMille morality play came at just the right time -- the Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle scandal and William Desmond Taylor murder were both still fresh in the public's mind. Leatrice Joy plays Lydia Thorne, a rich society girl who is addicted to thrills. Because of her reckless driving, she Read More

Pink Gods

Actors: Bebe Daniels, James Kirkwood, Anna Q. Nilsson, Raymond Hatton, Adolphe Menjou

Synopsis: This melodrama, based on the novel Pink Gods and Blue Demons by Cynthia Stockley, wasted the talents of James Kirkwood, Anna Q. Nilsson, Raymond Hatton, and especially Bebe Daniels, whose forte was comedy, not drama. Lorraine Temple (Daniels) lusts after diamonds, so while her husband, Colonel Pat Read More

What Every Woman Knows

Actors: Lois Wilson, Conrad Nagel, Charles Ogle, Fred Huntley, Guy Oliver

Synopsis: Director William DeMille was stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place with this light comedy, based on the play by James M. Barrie. If he remained faithful to Barrie, he risked having a wordy, rather static picture. If he took cinematic liberties, Barrie disciples would be furious -- as Read More

The Affairs of Anatol

Actors: Wallace Reid, Gloria Swanson, Elliott Dexter

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's much-maligned cinemadaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's The Affairs of Anatol holds up better than its reputation suggests. Wallace Reid stars as New York socialite Anatol DeWitt Spencer, who after only a few day's marriage has become bored with his new bride Vivian (Gloria Read More

City of Silent Men

Actors: Thomas Meighan, Lois Wilson, Kate Bruce, Paul Everton, George MacQuarrie

Synopsis: Jim Montgomery (Thomas Meighan) is the country mechanic who comes to New York to seek his fortune. The naive rube is talked into accompanying some prospective employers to a bank. The men are crooks, and Jim is framed for the murder of a guard. Sent to Sing Sing prison, he is befriended by Old Read More

Fool's Paradise

Actors: Dorothy Dalton, Mildred Harris, Conrad Nagel, Theodore Kosloff, John Davidson

Synopsis: Although this expensive drama was "suggested by" a short story, The Laurels and the Lady, by Leodard Merrick, one can't help but think filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille would not be satisfied until he made it completely his own. After returning from World War I, Arthur Phelps (Conrad Nagel) meets Poll Read More

Big Game

Actors: Mary Miles Minter, Monte Blue, Grace Goodall, Guy Oliver

Synopsis: It's hard to say what Metro's intention was when they bought the film rights to Big Game, an unsuccessful melodrama by playwrights Willard Robertson and Kilbourn Gordon. What wound up being released was not a melodrama, but a comedy. However, the jumpy editing suggested that perhaps it was shot Read More

Too Much Speed

Actors: Wallace Reid, Agnes Ayres, Theodore Roberts, Jack Richardson, Lucien Littlefield

Synopsis: The ill-fated Wallace Reid -- who would die of morphine addiction in 1923 -- was in top form in this Paramount action picture. Reid's team of director Frank Urson and screenwriter Byron Morgan gave him a clever vehicle, and his supporting cast, which included lovely Agnes Ayers and Paramount's Read More

Double Speed

Synopsis: When "Speed" Carr (Wallace Reid) has to travel from New York to Los Angeles to meet his uncle and claim an inheritance, he decides to make the trip by automobile. The trek goes well until he reaches the Western desert. While he is sleeping, his car and all his belongings are stolen, even his Read More

Sins of Roseanne

Synopsis: Roseanne (Ethel Clayton) has grown up near some diamond mines in South Africa. As a child, she became ill and a Malay nurse, Rachel Bangat (Fontaine La Rue) promised to cure her. That she did, but she also worked some voodoo on the child, who, as a grown up now displays a powerful desire for Read More

Excuse My Dust

Synopsis: During the early '20s, Wallace Reid starred in a number of snappy car racing films. This one was adapted from the Saturday Evening Post story "The Bear Trap," by Bryon Morgan, the same author responsible for the story to Reid's prior film, The Roaring Road. "Toodles" Walden (Reid) is manager of Read More

Always Audacious

Synopsis: Wallace Reid once more brings home the box-office bacon for Paramount in Always Audacious. The ever-popular Reid plays a dual role, as a honest man and his less-than-honest lookalike. The crooked Reid gets the nice Reid into trouble, but the nice Reid manages to come out on top. A versatile Read More

The Round Up

Actors: Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle

Synopsis: For some mysterious reason, producer Adolph Zukor decided to set the slapstick aside for Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's first full-length feature. Instead, he cast him in this Western comedy-drama, with an emphasis on the drama. In addition, Arbuckle's role of sheriff "Slim" Hoover was a secondary one Read More

A Cumberland Romance

Synopsis: The trade magazine Motion Picture News called Mary Miles Minter "a clever little star when she has the right backing." Read between the lines, it hints at the limitations of her talent. Here she had solid backing with co-stars like Monte Blue and John Bowers and an accomplished director in Charles Read More

Putting It Over

Hawthorne of the USA

Synopsis: Douglas Fairbanks starred in the original Broadway production of James B. Fagan's Hawthorne of the USA, but Doug was too busy setting up United Artists in 1919 to appear in the film version. The popular Wallace Reid takes over as Anthony Hamilton Hawthorne, a young man who wins a tidy sum at Read More

Male and Female

Actors: Thomas Meighan, Gloria Swanson, Lila Lee, Bebe Daniels, Theodore Roberts

Synopsis: Don't let that title fool you: Male and Female is really James M. Barrie's The Admirable Crichton, as interpreted by Cecil B. DeMille. Thomas Meighan plays Crichton, the very proper butler in the British household of Lord Loam (Theodore Roberts). When masters and servants go on a yachting Read More

Venus in the East

Synopsis: This picture began life as a Saturday Evening Post serial by Wallace Irwin. It involves the newly rich Buddy McNair (Bryant Washburn). He has inherited his wealth from his father and becomes fascinated by Pat Dyvenot (Anna Q, Nilsson), whose picture he sees in the society section of a newspaper. Read More

Valley of the Giants

Synopsis: When his mother (Alice Taaffe) dies, Bryce Cardigan (Wallace Reid) and his lumberman father James (Charles Ogle) bury her in a glade they own and have named the Valley of the Giants. The two men swear to protect this land, but when Bryce returns from college he discovers that his father is in dire Read More

The Roaring Road

Synopsis: The silent Roaring Road delivered just what the fans of star Wallace Reid craved: youth, romance and speed. Reid plays an ambitious automobile salesman, in love with boss' daughter Ann Little. He also loves auto racing, and wants more than anything to enter an upcoming car-vs.-train race from San Read More

Alias Mike Moran

Synopsis: Wallace Reid could have appeared in a filmed version of the classified ads and made a fortune for his home studio of Paramount. In the inconsequential Alias Mike Moran, Reid plays a craven coward who pays a former convict to take his place in uniform during World War 1. When the imposter is Read More

The Dub

Synopsis: Paramount's silent matinee idol Wallace Reid plays John Craig, a struggling young contractor who falls into a crooked business scheme. A trio of unsavory partners on the verge of dissolving their company have hired him for a job, assuming that he will fail -- but of course they don't realize that Read More

Rimrock Jones

Synopsis: Rimrock Jones (Wallace Reid) is the toughest and most likeable prospector in a thriving Arizona copper camp. Having already been cheated out of several valuable copper strikes, Rimrock nonetheless forges ahead optimistically, hoping to strike it rich just once more. Unfortunately, he can't find Read More

Less Than Kin

Synopsis: The plot of Less Than Kin hinges upon the astonishing resemblance between its two protagonists (both of whom, for the sake of convenience and "box-office insurance, are played by the popular Wallace Reid.) The story opens in Central America, where Lewis Vickers (Reid) has fled to escape Read More

Jules of the Strong Heart

Synopsis: Abstaining from his usual "Italian" characterization, George Beban played a roistering French Canadian in Paramount's Jules of the Strong Heart. Outwardly a brutish bully, lumberjack Jules Lemaire (Jules Lemaire) is actually a big bowl of porrage and proves it by adopting the orphaned child Read More

The Bravest Way

Synopsis: Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa was one of the most popular leading men in American silent films-this despite the fact that orientals were traditionally (and stereotypically) cast as villains at the time. In The Bravest Way, Hayakawa carries self-sacrifice to the nth degree. He is so devoted-in a Read More

M'Liss

Actors: Mary Pickford

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1915, the Bret Harte story M'liss served as one of Mary Pickford's most memorable vehicles. The "terror" of Red Gulch, the hoydenish M'liss (Pickford) spends most of her time dragging her scraggly father Bummer Smith (Ernest Torrence) home from the local bordello. As such Read More

The Squaw Man

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille made The Squaw Man three times; this silent version was the second one. While the 1914 Squaw Man bears more historical significance (as it went a long way in establishing Hollywood as the heart of the film industry), this 1918 version is, by far, the better film, with higher Read More

The Whispering Chorus

Synopsis: The Whispering Chorus was arguably the closest Cecil B. DeMille ever came to making an "art" picture. Stalwart DeMille supporting player Raymond Hatton gave the performance of his career as embezzling bank clerk John Trimble. Hoping to escape punishment for his crimes, Trimble arranges for an Read More

Golden Fetter

Synopsis: When New England schoolmarm Faith Miller (Anita King) comes West to inspect a mine she has bought, she discovers it is a fake. But she finds a savior in the rough cow town in which she has landed -- Jim Ralston (Wallace Reid). With the help of the deputy sheriff, he "salts" the mine to trick the Read More

Those without Sin

Synopsis: Richard Landry (C.H. Geldert) is a Southern aristocrat who works for the U.S. government in the days before the Civil War. Henry Mellon (Guy Oliver), a northern official is set on disgracing Landry and insults the man's daughter, Melanie (Blanche Sweet) when she gets in his way. As a result Read More

Nan of Music Mountain

Synopsis: Handsome silent screen idol Wallace Reid takes a job as manager of a stage-line in this early silent western directed by the prolific George Melford. Reid's Henry DeSpain not only defeats the notorious Morgan gang but falls for the gang leader's (Theodore Roberts) lovely daughter, Nan (Ann Read More

The Little American

Actors: DeWitt Jennings

Synopsis: It would be easy to assume that combining Mary Pickford's charm with director Cecil B. DeMille's penchant for the spectacular would create an exceptional piece of work. But judging from this picture, and the one made before it -- Romance of the Redwoods -- that just wasn't the case. The bottom 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

Each to His Kind

Synopsis: Japanese film star Sessue Hayakawa carries the dramatic weight of this "Never the Twain Shall Meet" melodrama. Rhandah (Hayakawa), a British-educated Hindu, finds that his education means nothing when he falls in love with bigoted white girl Amy Dawe (Viola Vale). Seething with hatred, Rhandah Read More

The Carpet from Bagdad

Synopsis: Kathlyn Williams, who starred in the 1913 serial The Adventures of Kathlyn (the very first serial made in the U.S.), also stars in this Selig adventure. Horace Wadsworth, the reprobate brother of a banker (Guy Oliver), has gotten mixed up with a gang of international crooks. They shadow antique Read More

Circular Staircase

Synopsis: In this mystery, Aunt Ray Innes (Eugenie Besserer), an affable old maid, is spending time with her nephew Halsey (Guy Oliver) and niece Gertrude (Stella Razeto) at the home of a banker, Paul Armstrong. On their first night there, Aunt Ray and Gertrude find Paul's relative Arthur dead at the foot Read More

Memories

Synopsis: The daughter of a professor falls in love with what her father considers an unworthy young man (Harold Lockwood) in this typical silent one-reel melodrama from the Selig Polyscope Company. Dejected, Marjorie (Stella Razetto) enters a convent, but a kind mother superior (Eugenie Besserer) brings Read More

The Dangling Noose

Synopsis: A typical early silent melodrama, The Dangling Noose starred Harold Lockwood as a cavalry officer whose rival (Guy Oliver) is an unscrupulous Indian. The two come to blows over a question of water rights and the Indian is eventually defeated. Leading lady Stella Razetto, whom the two main Read More

Saved from the Titanic

Synopsis: The very first fictional version of the legendary disaster, Saved from the Titanic was rushed into production mere days following the tragedy. The star, Dorothy Gibson, leading lady of the French-American Eclair Company had been one of the passengers surviving the ordeal at sea. Gibson was Read More