James MarcusFilmography

On Such a Night

Actors: Grant Richards, Karen Morley, Roscoe Karns, Eduardo Ciannelli, Milli Monti

Synopsis: A Mississippi flood saves the life of a petty crook who is about to be lynched for a murder he did not commit. After he escapes, he flees to a nearby plantation where he and a woman (claiming to be his wife) are taken in and treated with great kindness. They are happy until the killer that framed Read More

Maid of Salem

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Fred MacMurray, Harvey Stephens, Gale Sondergaard, Louise Dresser

Synopsis: Claudette Colbert is a young freethinking woman living in Salem, Massachusetts during the notorious 17th century "witch trials". Colbert falls in love with adventurer Fred MacMurray, causing no end of scandal with the Puritan townsfolk. A hateful little girl (Bonita Granville) pretends to be 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

The Cattle Thief

Actors: Ken Maynard, Geneva Mitchell, Ward Bond, Roger Williams, James Marcus

Synopsis: Ken Maynard goes the Zorro route in this lethargic Western produced by Larry Darmour for Columbia. Ailing rancher Cal Pierson (Sheldon Lewis) is being double-crossed by his own foreman, the greedy Ranse (Ward Bond), who has hired a quack doctor (Edward Cecil) to make certain he won't recover. Read More

The Lonely Trail

Actors: John Wayne, Ann Rutherford, Cy Kendall, Bob Kortman

Synopsis: The Lonely Trail, directed by Joseph Kane, stars John Wayne as veteran Union officer John Ashley. Ashley (Wayne), upon his return to his hometown in Texas, finds his presence unwanted by his former neighbors, who have all sided with the Confederacy. Law and order is being maintained by the Read More

Red Morning

Synopsis: Poverty-row director Wallace Fox came up in the world a bit when he signed on to helm RKO Radio's Red Morning. Steffi Duna, playing the tomboyish daughter of sea captain Mitchell Lewis, is abandoned on the shores of New Guinea when her dad's crew mutinies and scuttles the ship. Wasting little Read More

Western Frontier

Actors: Ken Maynard, Lucille Browne, Nora Lane, Frank Yaconelli

Synopsis: In this western, a wagon train is destroyed and all but two children, a brother and sister, are slaughtered. The sister is abducted by the Indians while the boy is raised by an Anglo family. He grows up with no memory of his sister. Now a young cowboy, he is called upon to attack an outlaw gang. 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

Life Begins at 40

Actors: Will Rogers, Rochelle Hudson, Richard Cromwell, George Barbier, Jane Darwell

Synopsis: A best-selling nonfictional book of the 1920s provided the title for this Will Rogers vehicle. Rogers plays a small town newspaper editor who prints all the news that fits his own homespun view of the world. Against the wishes of the town higher-ups, Rogers tries to clear the name of Richard Cromwell Read More

Operator 13

Actors: Gary Cooper, Marion Davies, Jean Parker, Katherine Alexander, Ted Healy

Synopsis: If you can accept blonde, blue-eyed Marion Davies disguising herself in blackface, chances are you'll swallow the rest of Operator 13. Davies plays a Belle Boyd-like actress who agrees to become a Northern spy during the Civil War. She assumes the identity of an octoroon servant and heads into Read More

The Trail Beyond

Synopsis: Loosely based on a story by pulp writer James Oliver Curwood, this Lone Star Western released by Monogram starred a young John Wayne helping an old family friend (James Marcus) find his long-lost brother and niece. Traveling by train to the Canadian Northwest, Rod Drew (Wayne) is reacquainted with Read More

Wagon Wheels

Actors: Randolph Scott, Gail Patrick, Billy Lee, Leila Bennett, Jan Duggan

Synopsis: Adapted from a Zane Grey story, Wagon Wheels is a remake of the 1931 Gary Cooper starrer Fighting Caravans. Randolph Scott assumes Cooper's role, playing a trail guide named Clint Belmet. The plot follows the progress of a typical wagon train journey from Missouri to Oregon, with the usual quote Read More

The Scarlet Empress

Actors: Marlene Dietrich, John Lodge, Sam Jaffe, Louise Dresser, Maria Sieber

Synopsis: Of the two 1934 film versions of the life of Russia's Catherine the Great, Josef von Sternberg's The Scarlet Empress was the most opulent and exotic. Marlene Dietrich plays the German-born Catherine, who is required to marry Russia's mad Grand Duke Peter (Sam Jaffe, decked out in a Harpo Marx Read More

Honor of the Range

Actors: Ken Maynard, Cecilia Parker, Frank S. Hagney

Synopsis: Typical of Ken Maynard's offbeat approach to westerns, Honor of the Range stars Maynard as twin brothers -- one strong and heroic, the other weak and dishonest. The "good" brother takes his sibling's place to get the goods on all-around villain Rawhide (Fred Kohler Sr.), who manages to live off Read More

We Live Again

Actors: Anna Sten, Fredric March, Jane Baxter, C. Aubrey Smith, Ethel Griffies, Sam Jaffe

Synopsis: We Live Again was based on Tolstoy's Resurrection; the title was changed upon producer Sam Goldwyn's theory that it meant the same thing as Resurrection and was easier to understand. The film was meant as an introductory showcase for Goldwyn's latest discovery, Russian actress Anna Sten. The Read More

King of the Arena

Actors: Ken Maynard, Lucille Browne, Bob Kortman

Synopsis: In this western, the locals are being plagued by "Black Death" an evil outlaw who shoots victims with chemical bullets that turn them black. He is pursued by a brave Texas Ranger. When the ranger learns that the killer is following a wild West show --the one the ranger used to work in--the hero Read More

The Lone Avenger

Actors: Ken Maynard, Muriel Gordon, James Marcus, Al Bridge, Niles Welch

Synopsis: Ken Maynard goes undercover to prove that his father (Horace B. Carpenter), a bank president, did not commit suicide but was murdered in this routine Western from low-budget KBS Productions. Returning to his hometown of Mesa to find his father's death pronounced a suicide, Cal Weston (Maynard) is Read More

Song of Songs

Actors: Marlene Dietrich, Brian Aherne, Lionel Atwill, Alison Skipworth, Hardie Albright

Synopsis: Song of Songs was the first Marlene Dietrich vehicle not directed by Dietrich's "Svengali," Josef von Sternberg. The star plays a zaftig German peasant girl who becomes a nude model (anything to get her out of those ill-fitting 1890s costumes!) She falls in love with a struggling sculptor (Brian Aherne Read More

Strawberry Roan

Actors: Frank Yaconelli, James Marcus, Jack Rockwell

Synopsis: Curley Fletcher's famous lament "The Strawberry Roan became Ken Maynard's favorite Western and went a long way to popularize the Singing Cowboy trend. Ranch owner Big Jim Edwards (James Marcus) promises a job to anyone who can round up the Strawberry Roan, a wild stallion that has been rustling Read More

Me and My Gal

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, Marion Burns, George Walsh, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: In this wisecracking comedy, Dan Dolan (Spencer Tracy) is a cop whose beat is the New York waterfront. Dan has a soft spot for Helen Riley (Joan Bennett), a sharp-tongued waitress at a cheap diner, while her scatter-brained sister Kate (Marion Burns) is in love with Duke Castage (George Walsh), a Read More

Land of Wanted Men

Actors: Gibson Gowland, Jack Richardson, Frank Lackteen, James Marcus

Synopsis: White-Stetsoned cowboy hero Bill Cody is appointed sheriff by default of a rough-and-tumble cattle-ranch community. The locals suspect that Cody is a fugitive from justice, but he does his job so well that no questions are asked. Eventually he proves his true worth during a cattlemen vs. sheepmen Read More

Hell's House

Actors: Charles Grapewin, Junior Coughlan, Junior Durkin, Pat O'Brien

Synopsis: Bette Davis was on loan from Universal when she appeared in this little juvenile delinquent melodrama from independent producer B.F. Zeidman. Although Davis earned above-title billing (along with Pat O'Brien), Junior Durkin is the real star, a teenager who is sent to juvenile prison after being Read More

Mason of the Mounted

Actors: Nancy Drexel, Jack Carlyle, LeRoy Mason, Joe Dominguez, James Marcus

Synopsis: Cowboy star Bill Cody trades his Stetson and chaps for the red uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Mason of the Mounted. Our hero heads below the border to the U.S. to bring in an elusive murderer. His quarry turns out to be the mastermind behind a busy gang of horse rustlers, all of Read More

Fighting Caravans

Actors: Gary Cooper, Lili Damita, Ernest Torrence, Fred Kohler, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: Directly after his successful screen teaming with Marlene Dietrich in Morocco, Gary Cooper returned to Paramount's "Zane Grey" western series with Fighting Caravans. Cooper is cast as Clint Belmet, a hell-raisin' frontiersman facing a misdemeanor jail term. To avoid arrest, Clint talks French-born Read More

Arrowsmith

Actors: Ronald Colman, Helen Hayes, Richard Bennett, A.E. Anson, Clarence Brooks, DeWitt Jennings

Synopsis: One of the more prestigious films of its time, John Ford's film adaptation of Sinclair Lewis' Pulitzer Prize-winning novel has a sleek Art Deco look strangely out of tune with its tale of moral struggle. Ronald Colman stars as Martin Arrowsmith, an idealistic young doctor, who, after graduating Read More

The Texan

Actors: Gary Cooper, Fay Wray, Emma Dunn, Oscar Apfel, James Marcus

Synopsis: With a title like The Texan and a star like Gary Cooper, one might assume that this 1930 actioner is a western -- and one would be wrong! Set in 1885, the film stars Gary Cooper as Enrique, alias Quico, alias the Llano Kid. Whatever the name, he's a bold and daring bandit, and after shooting a Read More

Captain of the Guard

Actors: John Boles, Sam de Grasse, James Marcus, Harry Cording

Synopsis: This French epic chronicles the French Revolution as seen by Rouget de Lisle, the man who composed the French national anthem. In addition to many scenes of angry peasants, the film also feature's many songs by Lisle. The film makes no claim for historical accuracy. Songs include: "Song of the Read More

Billy the Kid

Actors: Johnny Mack Brown, Wallace Beery, Kay Johnson, Karl Dane, Wyndham Standing

Synopsis: The tall and virile Johnny Mack Brown portrays the short and dyspeptic outlaw William Bonney, a.k.a. Billy the Kid. Wallace Beery is more effectively cast as Pat Garrett, the sheriff who's sworn to bring in Billy dead or alive despite his grudging friendship for the young killer. Hardly the Read More

Back Pay

Actors: Corinne Griffith, Grant Withers, Montagu Love, Hallam Cooley, Vivien Oakland

Synopsis: In this melodramatic early sound-film an innocent country gal tires of her dull pastoral life and equally boring beau so she heads for the big city in search of adventure. Instead she finds herself the kept woman of a rich war profiteer. Deep down, she still loves the country boy who has been Read More

Liliom

Actors: Charles Farrell, Rose Hobart, H.B. Warner, Estelle Taylor, Lee Tracy

Synopsis: This first film version of Ferenc Molnar's poignant fantasy Liliom was supposed to have reunited the director Frank Borzage and stars Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor of Fox's 1927 box-office smash Seventh Heaven. But Gaynor was enmeshed in one of her periodic contract disputes with the studio, so Read More

In Old Arizona

Actors: Warner Baxter, Edmund Lowe, Dorothy Burgess, John Farrell MacDonald, Fred Warren, Henry Armetta

Synopsis: Warner Baxter, sporting a black mustache and a musical-comedy Mexican accent, stars as the Cisco Kid, the "Robin Hood of the Old West" created by O. Henry. Edmund Lowe co-stars as Cisco's "friendly enemy" Sgt. Mickey Dunne, the role that was originally to have gone to Raoul Walsh. Both men are Read More

Whispering Winds

Actors: Patsy Ruth Miller, Malcolm McGregor, Eve Southern, Eugénie Besserer, James Marcus

Synopsis: Approximately 40 minutes of the 59-minute Whispering Winds were filmed with sound; the rest, to quote Shakespeare, is silence. Malcolm McGregor plays a handsome Maine fisherman who falls in love with local songstress Eve Southern. McGregor in turn is loved by the girl next door, Patsy Ruth Miller. Read More

Evangeline

Actors: Dolores Del Rio, Roland Drew, Alec B. Francis, Donald Reed, Paul McAllister

Synopsis: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's narrative poem Evangeline briefly abandoned the curriculum of English Literature 101 for the purposes of this part-talkie screen adaptation. Dolores Del Rio stars as the title character, an Acadian lass whose marriage to kinsman Gabriel (Roland Drew) is forestalled by Read More

Buck Privates

Actors: Lya de Putti, Malcolm McGregor, ZaSu Pitts, James Marcus, Eddie Gribbon

Synopsis: The only relation that the 1928 Buck Privates has to the much-later Abbott and Costello vehicle of the same name is the fact that both films were produced by Universal. Set during WWI, the film focuses on the adventures of American doughboy John Smith (Malcolm McGregor) during a brief stopover in Read More

Broken Mask

Actors: Cullen Landis, Barbara Bedford, William V. Mong, Wheeler Oakman

Synopsis: For a humble "B" picture, The Broken Mask was able to assemble an impressive cast. Cullen Landis stars as an Argentine dancer who is unable to find work because of his horribly scarred face. While seeking out employment in New Orleans, Landis is reaquainted with another Argentine, popular dancing Read More

Isle of Lost Men

Actors: Tom Santschi, Sailor Sharkey, Allen Connor

Synopsis: The Isle of Lost Men is one of those lawless tropical island colonies so beloved of adventure-story writers. It is here that kidnapped Australia damsel Alma Fairfax (Patsy O'Leary) is brought by no-good Captain Jan Jadohl (Tom Santschi). Meanwhile, on another part of the island, virtuous young Read More

Revenge

Actors: Dolores Del Rio, James Marcus, LeRoy Mason, Rita Carewe

Synopsis: Mexican-born Dolores Del Rio is convincingly cast as a fiery Hungarian lass in Revenge. Yet another variation on The Taming of the Shrew, the film concentrates on the tempestuous relationship between whip-wielding Rascha (Del Rio), the daughter of a bear tamer, and virile Hussar officer Jorga (Leroy Mason Read More

Sadie Thompson

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Blanche Frederici, Gloria Swanson, James Marcus, Raoul Walsh, Charles Lane

Synopsis: Rain, the famous John Colton-Clemence Randolph theatrical adaptation of Somerset Maugham's short story about religious hypocrisy, was such a "hot potato" in 1928 that the Hays Office, Hollywood's self-appointed censorship bureau, would not allow the play to be filmed under its original title. Read More

Captain Salvation

Actors: Lars Hanson, Marceline Day, Ernest Torrence, George Fawcett

Synopsis: Lars Hanson had recently appeared as Reverend Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter when he was called on once again to play a man of the cloth. Anson Campbell (Hanson), however, has his doubts as he studies for the ministry -- he loves the sea at least as much as he loves God. Bess Morgan (Pauline Read More

Life of an Actress

Actors: Lydia Knott, Barbara Bedford, John Patrick, Sheldon Lewis

Synopsis: Life of an Actress was based on a play by Langdon McCormick. Farm girl Nora Dowen (Barbara Bedford) gets in trouble with her family when she's caught smooching with a travelling actor. Forced to marry local miser Hiram Judd (Sheldon Lewis), Nora runs away from her one-day union and joins a Read More

Beauty Shoppers

Actors: Mae Busch, James Marcus, Doris Hill, Ward Crane

Synopsis: Louis J. Gasnier, whose directorial technique hadn't progressed much since his 1914 effort The Perils of Pauline, did rather better than expected in 1927's Beauty Shoppers. Young Peggy Raymond (Doris Hill) aspires to become a model, while art-gallery proprietor Maddox (Ward Crane) aspires to get Read More

The Bachelor's Baby

Actors: Helene Chadwick, Midget Gustav, Edith Yorke, Pat Harmon

Synopsis: In this lively comedy (a predecessor of the screwball comedies of the '30s and '40s) a young woman lies to the policeman who stopped her for speeding by saying that she had to rush to the side of her ailing baby. Accompanying the woman is the young man who was following her. Before the two speed Read More

The King of Kings

Actors: H.B. Warner, Dorothy Cumming, Ernest Torrence, Joseph Schildkraut, James Neill

Synopsis: Having scored big-time box office with his first Biblical epic, The Ten Commandments (1923), Cecil B. DeMille hoped to top this success with his 1927 The King of Kings. Inasmuch as he was now dealing with the life of Christ, DeMille had to be careful to serve up equal amounts of showmanship and Read More

Bachelor Baby

Hell-Bent for Heaven

Actors: Patsy Ruth Miller, John Harron, Gardner James, James Marcus

Synopsis: Hell Bent Fer Heaven was based on the 1924 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Hatcher Hughes. Most of the story takes place high in the Kentucky hills, in the home of Matt Hunt (Wilfred North) and his family. Worried that he'll lose his job when Matt's son Sid (John Harron) returns from WWI, demented Read More

Siberia

Actors: Alma Rubens, Edmund Lowe, Lou Tellegen, Tom Santschi, Paul Panzer

Synopsis: One of a cycle of late-1920s films dealing with the Russian Revolution, Siberia stars Alma Rubens as idealistic Russian schoolteacher Sonia Vronsky. Enraptured by the communist cause, Sonia runs afoul of the Czarist authorities and is shipped off to Siberia. Here she is protected from harm by her Read More

The Scarlet Letter

Actors: Lillian Gish, Lars Hanson, Henry B. Walthall, Karl Dane, William H. Tooker

Synopsis: Based on the classic American novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, this silent period drama was put together by star Lillian Gish, who was forced by Louis B. Mayer to assure religious groups that the still-controversial material would not offend their sensibilities. Gish plays heroine Hester Prynne, who 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

Lady of the Harem

Actors: Greta Nissen, William Collier, Jr., Louise Fazenda

Synopsis: Lady of the Harem was based on Hassan, a play by James McElroy Flecker. It all begins when the Caliph of Kornassah (Sojin) sends his minions out to find him more gold and more women. His henchmen return with gorgeous blonde captive Pervannah (Greta Nissen), whose sweetheart Rafi (William Collier Jr 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

Goose Hangs High

Actors: Constance Bennett, Myrtle Stedman, George Irving, Esther Ralston

Synopsis: While his reputation has faded next to stronger talents such as Cecil B. DeMille, Erich Von Stroheim, and King Vidor, James Cruze was one of the most popular directors of the 1920s. He is the biggest name associated with this drama. The picture was based on a successful Broadway play by Lewis Read More

All Around Frying Pan

Synopsis: Silent screen cowboy star Fred Thomson plays a drifter arrested for vagrancy in this above-average oater from FBO. On his way to jail, Thomson gets a chance to show his prowess in a local rodeo and proves to be such a success that he's hired on the spot by a local rancher. Unfortunately, Thomson's Read More

Lightnin'

Actors: Jay Hunt, Madge Bellamy, Wallace MacDonald, John Farrell MacDonald, Ethel Clayton

Synopsis: Director John Ford was out of his element with this comedy, based on the hit Broadway play by Winchell Smith and Frank Bacon (Bacon also played the role of Lightnin' Bill on-stage). On the border between California and Nevada there is a hotel run by Mother Jones (Edythe Chapman). Her husband Read More

Dick Turpin

Actors: Tom Mix, Kathleen Myers, Philo McCullough, James Marcus, Lucille Hutton

Synopsis: Cowboy ace Tom Mix allowed himself a change of pace with this costume adventure produced by Fox. Mix plays the legendary British highwayman, who after robbing nasty Lord Churlton (Philo McCullough) learns that the nobleman is to be married to innocent Lady Alice Brookfield (Kathleen Myers), a Read More

The Eagle

Actors: Rudolph Valentino, Vilma Banky, Louise Dresser, Albert Conti, James Marcus

Synopsis: Based on a Pushkin novel, The Eagle stars Rudolph Valentino as a Russian cossack who is the special favorite of the formidable Catherine the Great (Louise Dresser). He spurns her attentions, preferring not to be a kept consort. When his lands are stolen from him, Valentino transforms into a Read More

Love Gamble

Actors: Lillian Rich, Robert W. Frazer, Pauline Garon, Arthur Rankin, Kathleen Clifford

Synopsis: This romantic melodrama was based on the novel Peggy of Beacon Hill by Maysie Greig. Because she is so badly treated by her stepfather (James Marcus), Peggy Mason (Lillian Rich) considers marrying Joe Wheeler (Brooks Benedict), even though she does not love him. Then she inherits a thousand Read More

The Isle of Hope

Synopsis: Silent-screen stunt performer Richard Talmadge (born Metzetti) produced and starred in this low-budget action melodrama about a wealthy yachtsman en route to search for buried treasure on a South Seas island. After a mutiny, Bob (Talmadge) and the captain's daughter Dorothy (Helen Ferguson) find Read More

Beau Brummell

Actors: John Barrymore, Mary Astor, Willard Louis, Irene Rich, Alec B. Francis

Synopsis: John Barrymore is virtually the entire show as 18th-century British fashion plate Beau Brummel. Thanks to his sartorial splendor and quick wit, Brummel is a favorite of the Prince of Wales (Willard Louis)--and with several ladies, though his heart belongs to the beautiful, unobtainable Lady 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 Iron Horse

Actors: George O'Brien, Winston Miller, Peggy Cartwright, Madge Bellamy, Charles Edward Bull, Cyril Chadwick, James Gordon, Fred Kohler

Synopsis: John Ford directed this epic-scale silent western, which was one of his first major successes and was hugely influential on outdoor films that followed. David Brandon (James Gordon) is a surveyor in the Old West who dreams that one day the entire North American continent will be linked by Read More

Stranger's Banquet

Actors: Hobart Bosworth, Claire Windsor, Rockliffe Fellowes, Ford Sterling, Eleanor Boardman

Synopsis: As his first picture for the Goldwyn studios, director Marshall Neilan decided to adapt Donn Byrne's sprawling novel to the screen. He put together an amazing cast, which included such luminaries as Jean Hersholt, Philo McCullough, Stuart Holmes, Claude Gillingwater and Hobart Bosworth, but a Read More

Scaramouche

Actors: Ramon Novarro, Alice Terry, Lewis Stone, Lloyd Ingraham, Julia Swayne Gordon, William Humphrey

Synopsis: This silent era classic was based on the swashbuckling adventure novel by Rafael Sabatini, the author whose works later inspired such renowned genre favorites as Captain Blood (1935) and The Sea Hawk (1940). Andre Moreau (Roman Novarro) is a law student during the time of the brewing French Read More

Oliver Twist

Actors: Jackie Coogan, Lon Chaney, Gladys Brockwell, George Siegmann, Lionel Belmore

Synopsis: Ostensibly a vehicle for Jackie Coogan, the 1922 Oliver Twist refuses to realign the Charles Dickens novel to accommodate the personality of its star. This Frank Lloyd-directed silent film is one of the most faithful of all cinematic adaptations of the Dickens work. The orphaned Oliver, labelled a Read More

Broken Chains

Actors: Malcolm McGregor, Colleen Moore, Ernest Torrence, Claire Windsor, James Marcus

Synopsis: Eastern boy Malcolm McGregor takes a job in a Western lumber camp to improve his manliness. In his job as overseer, he meets and falls for lovely Colleen Moore, a young woman abused by her husband Ernest Torrence. In the ensuing fight over Moore, a bridge is demolished and the villain is finally Read More

Come on Over

Actors: Colleen Moore, Ralph Graves, John Farrell MacDonald, Kate Price, James Marcus

Synopsis: Come on Over is the saga of an Irish-American family. What's past is prologue in this case, as the trials and tribulations of earlier generations dictate the behavior of the contemporary family members. Colleen Moore heads the cast as the spirited Moyna Killea. The other character names sound like Read More

Serenade

Actors: Miriam Cooper, George Walsh, Rosita Marstini, James Marcus, Josef Swickard

Synopsis: This slow-moving, romantic adventure was certainly a family affair -- the director was Raoul Walsh, the star, Miriam Cooper, was his wife, and her co-star, George Walsh was Raoul's brother, who had recently left the Fox Studios. The story supposedly came from Maria del Carmen by Felin y Condina Read More

Little Lord Fauntleroy

Actors: Mary Pickford, Claude Gillingwater, Colin Kenny, Joseph J. Dowling, Kate Price, James Marcus

Synopsis: Mary Pickford was at the height of her fame as "America's Sweetheart" when she took on the challenge of playing two roles -- a mother and her young son -- in this silent drama with comic accents. Cedric Fauntleroy (Pickford) is growing up under difficult circumstances in New York City; his father Read More

Should a Husband Forgive?

Synopsis: Even though Ruth Fulton (Miriam Cooper) has been raised around horses and horse racing, she is a very naive young girl. It is only by luck that she manages to evade the grasp of more questionable men and wind up with John Carroll (Vincent Coleman), a nice Southern boy. But John is scarred by the Read More

Evangeline

The Conqueror

Synopsis: The oft-told story of Sam Houston's emergence as the "father" of Texas was given an expensive and expansive treatment in the Raoul Walsh production The Conqueror. William Farnum, Fox's Number One male screen attraction, was well cast as General Houston, as was Jewel Carmen as the hero's Read More

The Honor System

Synopsis: This socially conscious, well-wrought silent drama made an earnest plea for prison reform over two decades before it became a national cause. The film's message still remains powerful today. In order to truly understand the subject, director Raoul Walsh and his buddy Jack Pickford actually stayed Read More

Betrayed

Synopsis: One of the most overused titles in the history of films, Betrayed was affixed to this early effort from director Raoul Walsh. Miriam Cooper, who at the time was married to the director, stars as Mexican peasant girl Carmelita Carruti. Not the brightest of senoritas, Carmelita falls in love with Read More

The Serpent

Synopsis: Raoul Walsh both wrote and directed this typically bosom-heaving Theda Bara melodrama about a Russian peasant girl who is violated by a lecherous Grand Duke (Charles Craig). In classic Bara style, the girl turns into a blood thirsty femme fatale and destroys not only the nobleman, but his entire Read More

The Mediator

Synopsis: Perhaps the name of this picture is a misnomer, because the tools of mediation that Lish Henley (George Walsh) uses are his gun and his fists. Henley does his mediating during the California gold rush days. When he finds out that the latest recipient of his mediating skills has a wife and daughter Read More

Regeneration

Synopsis: One of the finest films of the pre-1920 era, The Regeneration was the first truly important directorial effort by Raoul Walsh. Spanning several years, this remarkable social document traces the life and times of Irish-American "child of the slums" Owen Conway (Rockliffe Fellowes), who grows up to Read More