James W. HorneFilmography

Captain Midnight [Serial]

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Captain Midnight is a 15-episode serial based on the radio adventure series of the same name. Captain Albright (Dave O'Brien), an ace aviator better known as Captain Midnight, is assigned to neutralize the evil enemy scientist Ivan Shark (James Craven), who is merrily bombing major American Read More

Holt of the Secret Service

Crew: Director

Actors: Jack Holt, Evelyn Brent, Tristram Coffin, John Ward

Synopsis: Granite-jawed Jack Holt plays himself-or at least the screen version of "himself"-in the 15-chapter Columbia serial Holt of the Secret Service. To get the goods on a counterfeiting ring, federal agent Holt poses as master criminal Nick Farrel. The villains swallow this ruse hook, line and sinker Read More

The Spider Returns

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The sequel to Columbia's 1938 hit The Spider's Web, this typical war-time serial again starred the stalwart Warren Hull as the crime-fighting Richard Wentworth alias The Spider and Blinky McQuade, and Kenne Duncan as Ram Singh, the hero's turban clad gentleman's gentleman. This time, the masked Read More

The Iron Claw

Crew: Director

Synopsis: One of silent serial queen Pearl White's best efforts, The Iron Claw was remade by Columbia Pictures starring brunette Joyce Bryant as the imperiled heroine. Bryant, alas, was no Pearl White, and needed a strong male lead in order to defeat that master criminal, the Iron Claw. She found him in Read More

White Eagle

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Serials usually spawned feature film versions, but with this film, it was the other way around. A 1932 Buck Jones Western, White Eagle was made into a serial nine years later, again starring Jones in the title role, a (supposedly) Native American Pony Express Rider defending his people against a Read More

The Shadow [Serial]

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Based upon the classic radio series and pulp magazine character, The Shadow is a 15-episode serial in which scientist Lamont Cranston (Victor Jory) dons the garb of The Shadow to track down the elusive -- and indeed, invisible -- villain known only as The Black Tiger. As the serial begins, The Read More

Terry and the Pirates [Serial]

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Best remembered today as the upwardly mobile errand boy in Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner (1940), busy juvenile actor William Tracy starred in the title-role of this popular action serial that very same year. Released in fifteen chapters by Columbia Pictures, Terry of the Pirates told Read More

Deadwood Dick

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Don Douglas, a rather bland supporting actor from Scotland, was elevated to the starring role in this low-budget Western serial produced by Columbia Pictures. Yet another reworking on the old Zorro theme, Deadwood Dick took 15 instalments to tell the simple story of Dick Stanley, a newspaperman Read More

The Green Archer [Serial]

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this 15-episode serial, Detective Spike Holland must solve the mystery of Garr Castle. He does so after he is hired to look into the disappearance of Valerie Howett's sister Elaine. Within the haunted walls of the castle he finds a maze of secret passages, tunnels, trapdoors, and the enigmatic Read More

Flying G-Men [Serial]

Crew: Director

Actors: Robert Paige, Richard Fiske, James Craig, Lorna Gray, Sammy McKim

Synopsis: The then-popular government agents, the so-called G-Men, took to the air in this standard 15-chapter serial thriller courtesy of Columbia Pictures. Hal Andrews, known under the colorful alias "The Black Falcon," and his two fellow operatives, Bart Davis (Robert Fiske) and John Cummings (James Read More

Spider's Web

Crew: Director

Actors: Warren Hull, Iris Meredith, Richard Fiske, Kenne Duncan, Forbes Murray

Synopsis: Based on a series of popular pulp-magazine stories, the 15-chapter Columbia serial The Spider's Web stars Warren Hull as one of the busiest heroes in movie history. Whenever crime threatens the city, criminologist Richard Wentworth dispatches underworld stoolie Blinky McQuade to ferret out Read More

Way Out West

Crew: Director

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Sharon Lynne, James Finlayson, Rosina Lawrence, Stanley Fields

Synopsis: Prospectors Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy head to the western town of Brushwood Gulch, two men on a top-secret mission. The boys have been entrusted by their recently deceased partner Cy Roberts with a deed to a valuable gold mine, to be delivered in person to Roberts' daughter Mary (Rosina Lawrence Read More

All Over Town

Crew: Director

Actors: Ole Olsen, Chic Johnson, Mary Howard, Harry Stockwell, Franklin Pangborn

Synopsis: Olsen and Johnson's second starring vehicle for Republic was better than their first (Country Gentlemen), but a Hellzapoppin' it wasn't. Ole and Chic play a couple of itinerant vaudevillians, teamed with Sally the Singing Seal ("the eighth wonder of the world"). Heroine Joan Eldredge (Mary Howard) Read More

The Bohemian Girl

Crew: Director

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Thelma Todd, Antonio Moreno, Jacqueline Wells, Darla Hood

Synopsis: The excellent box-office returns for the previous Laurel & Hardy comic operas The Devil's Brother and Babes in Toyland encouraged Hal Roach to cast the team in still another operatic adaptation, a self-styled "comedy version" of William Balfe's The Bohemian Girl. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy play Read More

Bonnie Scotland

Crew: Director

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, June Lang, William Janney, Anne Grey

Synopsis: Stanley MacLaurel (Stan Laurel), the American "black sheep" of the MacLaurel clan, stows away on a cattle boat to Scotland in the company of his pal Ollie (Oliver Hardy) so that he can claim his share of his late uncle Angus Ian MacLaurel's fortune. Alas, Stan's inheritance consists of a snuffbox Read More

Rock-a-Bye Cowboy

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: James Gleason, Vince Barnett, Raymond Hatton, Marie Prevost

Synopsis: To look at his later dramatic work, one would never guess that award-winning director George Stevens got his start working on two-reel comedies. But that's exactly where he cut his teeth, first as cinematographer, then director for Hal Roach and then as director of two-reelers for Universal and Read More

Any Old Port!

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have just returned from a whaling trek. They check into a run-down hotel, the Mariner's Rest, whose owner, Mugsy Long (the intimidating Walter Long), is forcing a girl (Jacqueline Wells) into marriage. The girl manages to reveal her dilemma to Stan and Ollie before Read More

The Tabasco Kid

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Comedian Charley Chase has a dual role in this Hal Roach picture -he's the wimpy assistant to a rancher (Billy Gilbert) and a notorious bandit. The rancher's daughter, Mary (France Lee), is coming home from boarding school, and even though she's soft on Charley, she finds the macho stance (and Read More

Polítiquerias

Crew: Director

Actors: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy

One Good Turn

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are victims of the depression in this tworeeler. They do have an old car, a tent and some clothes, though, so things could be worse. With Stan's help, things do get worse -- their tent goes up in flames and their laundry shrinks down to minuscule size. They are forced Read More

Our Wife

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Oliver Hardy finds that getting married is more difficult than he had planned in this two-reeler. It starts off with partner and best man Stan Laurel's adventures with a container of fly spray. While Laurel is ruining the wedding breakfast and cake, Hardy's fiancée, Dulcy (Babe London), is having Read More

Come Clean

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This Laurel and Hardy two-reeler contains a similar premise to Chickens Come Home, and starts off the same way as Should Married Men Go Home? does -- Ollie and his wife (here, it's Gertrude Astor) are spending a quiet evening at home, away from "those Laurels." Just then, Stan and his wife (Linda Read More

Be Big!

Crew: Director

Synopsis: While this isn't one of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's best shorts, its premise is very similar to one of their finest features, Sons of the Desert. In both films, the hapless duo is trying to sneak around their wives' backs to join a group of club mates. In Sons of the Desert, they're going to a Read More

Chickens Come Home

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Not only has Oliver Hardy established a successful business -- in fertilizer -- he has also decided to run for mayor. General manager Stan Laurel interrupts his duties (which involve a fly swatter) in the sample room to help Ollie with a speech. Ollie's old flame (Mae Busch) barges into the Read More

Laughing Gravy

Crew: Director

Actors: Charlie Hall

Synopsis: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy attempt to hide Laurel's dog, Laughing Gravy, from their landlord (Charlie Hall, the premiere angry landlord in many Laurel and Hardy films), who does not allow pets. Of course, the landlord discovers the dog and throws him out into the snowy night. While trying to get Read More

Beau Hunks

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This Laureland Hardy four-reeler is very loosely based on Beau Gest. It opens with Oliver Hardy singing a sweet love song. He's feeling sentimental because he's about to marry his girl, Jeanie-Weanie who, he tells his friend Stan Laurel, "has been all around the world and everyone loves her." Read More

High C's

Crew: Director

Actors: Charley Chase

Synopsis: This Charley Chase talkie was expanded to three reels to include five songs (Chase had a nice singing voice). It's a WWI comedy, and Charley has been stationed in France. He's not as interested in fighting, however, as he is in singing with his pals, the Ranch Boys. His irascible commanding Read More

King

Crew: Director

Fifty Million Husbands

Crew: Director

Fast Work

Crew: Director

Looser Than Loose

Crew: Director

When the Wind Blows

Crew: Director

Actors: Jackie Cooper, Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins, Farina Hoskins, Mary Ann Jackson, Norman "Chubby" Chaney

Synopsis: Officially an "Our Gang" comedy, "When the Wind Blows" is really a vehicle for adult comic Edgar Kennedy, here playing his usual role of a boastful, clumsy and cowardly cop. On a dark and windy night, Officer Kennedy tries to keep the peace in a small neighborhood, only to be frightened at every Read More

Dollar Dizzy

Crew: Director

Big Business

Crew: Director

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, James Finlayson

Synopsis: Stan (Stan Laurel) and Ollie (Oliver Hardy) are selling Christmas trees door-to-door. Stan unintentionally insults their first customer (a single woman) when he asks, "If you had a husband, would he buy a tree?" The second house has a sign up that says "No Peddlers." Ollie rings the bell anyway Read More

Big Hop

Crew: Director

Actors: Jobyna Ralston, Ernest Hilliard, Edward Hearn

Synopsis: In an attempt to broaden his image, former Fox cowboy Buck Jones both produced and starred in this silent aviation melodrama. Jones plays Buck Bronson, a ranch hand taking to the air as a barnstorming pilot. Lovely June Halloway, in love with Buck, persuades her wealthy father (Charles Clary) to Read More

Black Butterflies

Crew: Director

Actors: Jobyna Ralston, Mae Busch, Robert W. Frazer, Lila Lee, Cosmo Kyrle Bellew

Synopsis: Director James W. Horne, best known today for his Laurel and Hardy comedies, called the shots on the inexpensive "emotional" drama Black Butterflies. Heroine Dorinda Maxwell (Jobyna Ralston) enters into a marriage of convenience, even though she cannot abide her new husband. In so doing, she is Read More

College

Crew: Director

Actors: Buster Keaton, Anne Cornwall, Flora Bramley, Harold Goodwin, Buddy Mason, Grant Withers

Synopsis: The silent comedy feature College stars Buster Keaton as a scholarly young man who doesn't know beans about sports. When he arrives in college, Buster finds that all the Big Men on Campus are jocks. To impress pretty coed Anne Cornwall, Buster tries and fails to join all the school teams. Even Read More

Kosher Kitty Kelly

Crew: Director

Actors: Viola Dana, Tom B. Forman, Vera Gordon, Kathleen Myers, Nat Carr

Synopsis: Based on the musical comedy of the same name, Kosher Kitty Kelly stars Viola Dana in the title role. The story is a variation on the Abie's Irish Rose theme, detailing the marriage between an Irish Catholic and a Jew. Much of the humor is of the roughhouse variety, though there are a few touches Read More

Cruise of the Jasper B

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Produced by none other than Cecil B. DeMille, this riotous silent comedy stars Rod La Rocque as Jerry Cleggert, a descendant of a notorious family of pirates forced to marry on the deck of the rotting "Jasper B." or forfeit a large inheritance. Jerry finds the perfect would-be spouse in pretty Read More

The Charmer

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Pola Negri, Wallace MacDonald, Robert W. Frazer, Trixie Friganza, Cesare Gravina

Synopsis: Mariposa (Pola Negri) is a dancer in a Spanish café who is discovered by theatrical manager Señor Sprotti (Cesare Gravina) around the same time that Ralph Bayne, a wealthy American (Wallace MacDonald), sees her. Bayne falls in love with her immediately, as does his chauffeur, Dan Murray (Robert W. Fraser Read More

Youth and Adventure

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Talmadge, Pete Gordon, Joseph W. Girard, Margaret Landis, Fred Kelsey

Synopsis: By 1925, the formula for Richard Talmadge features was down pat: give the actor a lot of impressive physical stunts, keep the action moving along briskly, and get it over in five reels. This well-made little programmer followed the pattern. Reggie Dillingham (Talmadge) spends his time squandering Read More

The Alaskan

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Estelle Taylor, John St. Polis, Frank Campeau, Anna May Wong

Synopsis: Thomas Meighan single-handedly saves Alaska in this James Oliver Curwood tale of the Northwest, which was shot on-location in British Columbia and Alberta. The Holt family wants to stop big business from destroying Alaska's pristine beauty. The elder Holt is killed, and his son, Alan (Meighan), is Read More

Alimony

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Warner Baxter lifts himself up from poverty to unlimited riches. The audience knows that Baxter couldn't have done it without the help and support of his wife Grace Darmond. When Baxter starts cheating on her, she divorces him, receiving an enornous settlement. Reduced to penury by various Read More

The Breaking Point

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Nita Naldi, Patsy Ruth Miller, George Fawcett, Matt Moore

Synopsis: Matt Moore stars as Judson Clark, a wealthy but idle young man who is in love with actress Beverly Carlysle (Nita Naldi). Her husband becomes jealous and he winds up in a fight with Clark. A shot rings out and the husband falls dead. Clark believes he is the murderer and dashes out into a Read More

Yankee Consul

Crew: Director

Actors: Douglas MacLean, Patsy Ruth Miller, Arthur Stuart Hull, Stanhope Wheatcroft, Eulalie Jensen

Synopsis: This farce starring Douglas MacLean was based on an old musical comedy by Henry Blossom, Jr. and Alfred G. Robyn. The wealthy Dudley Ainsworth (MacLean) is bored with life, and when he has an attack of "nerves," his doctor suggests that he needs some excitement in his life. Ainsworth doesn't think Read More

In Fast Company

Crew: Director

Actors: Mildred Harris, Sheldon Lewis, Charles Clary, Snitz Edwards

Synopsis: This action picture has everything anyone could possibly want out of a Richard Talmadge picture -- a lot of stunts and death-defying feats, and just enough convoluted plot to keep it all together. Because his love for prize fighting interferes with his studies, Perry Whitman, Jr. (Talmadge) is Read More

The Sideshow of Life

Crew: Cinematographer

Actors: Ernest Torrence, Anna Q. Nilsson, Louise Lagrange, Maurice Cannon, Neil Hamilton

Synopsis: English orphan Andrew Lackaday (Ernest Torrence) grows up and becomes a clown for a French circus. After the circus becomes bankrupt, his trained dog is run over by a car belonging to Lady Auriol Dayne (Anna Q. Nilsson). For Lackaday's next gig, he teams up with Elodie, a dancer (Louise Lagrange) Read More

Stepping Lively

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Talmadge, Mildred Harris, Brinsley Shaw, Fred Kelsey

Synopsis: This routine Richard Talmadge vehicle was livened up with some notable cast members, particularly Mildred Harris, the ex-wife of Charles Chaplin. As bank clerk Dave Allen, who is wrongly accused of stealing bonds from his boss, James Pendry (Norval MacGregor), Talmadge gets to perform his usual Read More

Laughing at Danger

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Talmadge, Eva Novak, Bull Montana

Synopsis: This Richard Talmadge action picture based its premise on a current event -- in Great Britain, a "death ray" machine had recently been invented. After the breakup of a love affair, Alan Remington (Talmadge) is despondent. In an attempt to snap him out of his doldrums, his father, Cyrus (Joseph W. Girard Read More

Can a Woman Love Twice?

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Director James W. Horne's work in comedy and action pictures is well known, so it's surprising to see his name in the credits of this human interest drama. Mary Grant (Ethel Clayton) is a war widow with a young child (Muriel Dana). Her dead husband's society parents disapprove of her, sight Read More

To the Last Man

Crew: Cinematographer

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

A Man of Action

Crew: Director

Actors: Douglas MacLean, Marguerite de la Motte, Raymond Hatton, Arthur Millett

Synopsis: Light-comedy actor Douglas MacLean stars in this hilarious mystery capably directed by James W. Horne. Bruce MacAllister, a wealthy San Franciscan (MacLean), leads a pampered and uneventful life. That changes when his sweetheart Helen Summer (Marguerite de la Motte) says she likes "a man of Read More

Blow Your Own Horn

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This was one of Warner Baxter's early starring vehicles. He's World War I veteran Jack Dunbar who, like a lot of veterans then and now, is finding it hard to land a job. When he fixes the broken down auto of the newly rich Nicholas Small (Ralph Lewis), he finally runs into some luck. The blustery Read More

Hottentot

Crew: Director

Actors: Douglas MacLean, Madge Bellamy, Lila Leslie, Truly Shattuck

Synopsis: Producer Thomas Ince brought the William Collier/Victor Mapes-penned stage farce to the screen for his light comedy star Douglas MacLean. A few changes were made -- in the play Sam Harrington was an adept horseman who shied away from the beasts after an accident. In the film, MacLean as Harrington Read More

The Bronze Bell

Crew: Director

Synopsis: A major -- and rare -- failure from legendary producer Thomas H. Ince, The Bronze Bell starred British-born stage idol Courtenay Foote as a Long Island socialite doubling as an Far Eastern revolutionary. As the title indicated, the story hinged upon a huge bell, the possession of which could shake Read More

The Third Eye

Crew: Director

Synopsis: A pretty movie star is stalked by a strange gang whose leader is infatuated with her in this superior Pathé serial written by genre specialist H.H. van Loan. Released in 15 chapters between May and August of 1920, the serial offered a glimpse into the still mysterious world of movie-making, The Read More

Occasionally Yours

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Lew Cody plays yet another "male vamp" here -- Bruce Sands (Cody) is an artist who spends more time fooling around with his models than painting them. The determined Bunny Winston (Betty Blythe) pursues Sands all the way to the home of John Woodward (J. Barney Sherry). Woodward is having Sands up Read More

Hands Up

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Ruth Roland starred in this 15-chapter adventure serial as Echo Delane, a magazine writer thought to be the reincarnation of an Indian princess. She is also the apparent heir to the valuable Strange Ranch, much to the chagrin of ruthless cousin Judith (Easter Walters). The beleaguered Echo is Read More

The Social Pirates

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Starring one of the early silent era's best female riders, Marin Sais, this Kalem series told the episodic story of two girls, Mona (Sais) and Mary (Ollie Kirby), working together to bring a sense of justice to the disenfranchised poor. The series, which was released in 15 installments between Read More

The Girl Detective

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Not a continuing serial, The Girl Detective was instead a series of vaguely connected two-reel melodramas (the exact number is unknown) centered around a society girl (Ruth Roland) who obtains a special position within the police due to her unique talents for detective work. A future serial queen Read More

Stingaree

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Produced near Los Angeles by the pioneering Kalem Company, this series of 12 self-contained episodes depicting the career of Australia's own "Robin Hood" made a star of its leading man, California native True Boardman. Falsely accused of murder by his wastrel brother Robert (William Brunton) Read More