John Farrell MacDonaldFilmography

The Adventures of Superman: The Unknown People, Part 2

Synopsis: This concluding episode of a two-part story was excerpted from the theatrical feature Superman and the Oil Man. The digging of an oil well in the town of Silsby has caused a race of subterranean "Mole Men" to escape to the earth's surface. All the Mole Men want is to be left in peace, but their Read More

The Raiders

Actors: Richard Conte, Viveca Lindfors, Barbara Britton, Hugh O'Brian, Richard Martin

Synopsis: It's always a pleasure to see ace western director Leslie Selander in action, and Riders of Vengeance is no exception. Originally released as The Raiders, this Universal programmer stars Richard Conte as a miner who leads an expedition of his compatriots to the California Gold Rush. Crooked Morris Ankrum Read More

Elopement

Actors: Clifton Webb, Anne Francis, Charles Bickford, William Lundigan, Reginald Gardiner

Synopsis: In this romance, an industrial designer is bitterly disappointed when he discovers that upon graduation his daughter decides to elope with her psychology professor rather than pursue a career. The professor's family is also not pleased by the union. Both families, who despise each other, try to Read More

Superman and the Mole Men

Actors: George Reeves, Phyllis Coates, Jeff Corey, Walter Reed

Synopsis: Superman, the comic-book "Man of Steel" created in 1938 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, made his feature-film debut in Lippert's Superman and the Mole Men. The story takes place in the small town of Silsby, where the local oil company is drilling what will become the world's deepest well. When Read More

Here Comes the Groom

Actors: Bing Crosby, Jane Wyman, Alexis Smith, Franchot Tone, James Barton

Synopsis: Here Comes the Groom was the second collaboration between director Frank Capra and star Bing Crosby. Though not as "socially relevant" as previous Capra productions, the film is a thoroughly likeable yarn about a happy-go-lucky newspaperman named Pete (Bing Crosby). In order to legally adopt a Read More

Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell

Actors: Clifton Webb, Joanne Dru, Hugh Marlowe, Zero Mostel, Billy Lynn

Synopsis: Robert E. McEnroe's whimsical Broadway play The Silver Whistle was adapted to suit the talents of Clifton Webb in Mr. Belvedere Rings the Bell. It all begins when "super genius" Lynn Belvedere (Webb) briefly halts a lecture tour to bring some happiness into the lives of a gloomy senior citizens' Read More

The Dalton's Women

Synopsis: The plot for this Western involves the wives and girlfriends of the Dalton gang, who decide to carry on the gang's criminal activities after the menfolk were either gunned down or locked up. Old-time B-Western star Lash LaRue shows up to take care of them. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide Read More

Dakota Lil

Actors: George Montgomery, Rod Cameron, Marie Windsor, John Emery, Wallace Ford

Synopsis: Although Marie Windsor plays the title role in Dakota Lil, she is shunted away to third billing, right after male leads George Montgomery and Rod Cameron. Montgomery is cast as a secret service agent Tom Horn, sent West to round up a gang of counterfeiters. He starts by gaining the confidence of Read More

When Willie Comes Marching Home

Actors: Dan Dailey, Corinne Calvet, Colleen Townsend, William Demarest, Jimmy Lydon, Mae Marsh

Synopsis: A rare comedy from director John Ford, this story about a WWII soldier trying to gain some respect is based on the published war memoirs of Sy Gomberg. Bill Kluggs (Dan Dailey) is the first man in his small West Virginia town to enlist, and his father Herman (William Demarest) and the locals give Read More

Hostile Country

Actors: James Ellison, Russell Hayden, Raymond Hatton, Fuzzy Knight, Betty Adams

Synopsis: Though released second, Hostile Country was the first of six "Four Star" westerns, filmed back to back within the space of four weeks by Lippert Productions. Starring in all six of these quickie oaters are Jimmie Ellison and Russell Hayden as a couple of wandering cavaliers named Shamrock and Read More

Woman on the Run

Actors: Ann Sheridan, Dennis O'Keefe, Robert Keith, Ross Elliott, Frank Jenks

Synopsis: Frank Johnson (Ross Elliott), a window-dresser and struggling artist, accidentally witnesses a mob-related rub-out of a witness (Thomas P. Dillon), while out walking his dog one night -- after being shot at for his trouble, he's approached by the police, who want to put him into protective Read More

You're My Everything

Actors: Dan Dailey, Anne Baxter, Anne Revere, Shari Robinson, Stanley Ridges

Synopsis: Set in the 1920s and 1930s, 20th Century-Fox's You're My Everything borrows elements from several true-life showbiz stories, include the rise to fame of Fox's own Shirley Temple. Vaudeville hoofer Timothy O'Connor (Dan Dailey) sweeps proper New England gal Hannah Adams (Anne Baxter) off her feet. Read More

The Dalton Gang

Actors: Robert Lowery, James Millican, Betty Adams, Byron Foulger

Synopsis: Western star Donald Barry was both producer and leading man of The Dalton Gang. Barry is cast as straight-arrow marshal Larry West, who braces himself against an invasion by the notorious Daltons. He is backed up by sheriff Jeb Marvin (James Millican), while Polly (Betty Adams) waits tensely on Read More

Tough Assignment

Actors: Marjorie Steele, Steve Brodie, Marc Lawrence, Ben Welden

Synopsis: William "One Take" Beaudine warms the director's chair for Lippert Pictures' Tough Assignment. The film is essentially a combination western and contemporary crime yarn, with Don Barry cast as Dan Reilly, a frontier journalist. With the help of his wife Margie (Marjorie Steele), Dan tries to get Read More

Outlaw Gang

Synopsis: In this western, a lawman looks into a series of murders involving ranchers. A war between Indians and the local land and water companies ensues. Fortunately, justice prevails, and the peace is restored. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Fighting Man of the Plains

Actors: Randolph Scott, Bill Williams, Victor Jory, Jane Nigh, Douglas Kennedy

Synopsis: Randolph Scott plays one of the members of Quantrill's Raiders, staging attacks on Kansas on behalf of the fallen Confederacy in the years following the Civil War. During one raid, Scott kills the man he holds responsible for the death of his brother. The dead man was innocent, and Scott becomes a Read More

Streets of San Francisco

Actors: Robert Armstrong, Mae Clarke, Gary Gray, Wally Cassell, Richard Benedict

Synopsis: No relation to the 1970s TV series of the same name, Republic's Streets of San Francisco stars Hollywood veterans Robert Armstrong and Mae Clarke. Armstrong plays Willard Logan, a tough Frisco detective who is forced to killer a gangster leader. Logan takes pity on the gangster's orphaned son Read More

The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend

Actors: Betty Grable, Cesar Romero, Rudy Vallee, Olga San Juan, Sterling Holloway

Synopsis: Preston Sturges' final American film was generally conceded to be a disaster in 1949; even star Betty Grable publicly bad-mouthed the finished product. When seen today, Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend, while no classic, seems a lot better than it did five decades ago. Grable plays a western Read More

Shep Comes Home

Actors: Robert Lowery, Billy Kimbley, Flame the Dog, Margia Dean, Martin Garralaga

Synopsis: Shep Comes Home was the belated sequel to Screen Guild's My Dog Shep (1946). The title pooch is played by "Flame" (who also starred in Columbia's "Rusty" series), while his orphaned master Larry is portrayed by Billy Kimberly. Escaping from an orphanage, Larry and Shep hit the road, with a Read More

Law of the Barbary Coast

Actors: Gloria Henry, Stephen Dunne, Adele Jergens, Robert Shayne, Stefan Schnabel

Synopsis: Gloria Henry, best known to modern viewers as Alice Mitchell in TV's Dennis the Menace, was the winsome leading lady of Law of the Barbary Coast. As Julie Adams, Henry assists D.A. Michael Lodge (played by Robert Shayne, the future Inspector Henderson of Superman) in his efforts to clean up the Read More

Unfaithfully Yours

Actors: Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Barbara Lawrence, Kurt Kreuger, Rudy Vallee, Lionel Stander

Synopsis: Preston Sturges' Unfaithfully Yours is a typically witty and wild screwball comedy starring Rex Harrison as a symphony conductor named Alfred de Carter who is convinced his wife (Linda Darnell) is having an affair. During one of his concerts, Alfred begins planning three different ways of solving Read More

Sitting Pretty

Actors: Robert Young, Charles Arnt, Maureen O'Hara, Clifton Webb, Ken Christy, Richard Haydn, Mary Field, Ed Begley, Sr., Louise Allbritton

Synopsis: Clifton Webb has the role of a lifetime as Lynn Belvedere, self-styled genius and expert on everything. Belvedere accepts the job of baby-sitting the troublesome children of Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara; he wins the job by calmly dumping a bowl of cold oatmeal on the head of the couple's most Read More

The Luck of the Irish

Actors: Tyrone Power, Anne Baxter, Cecil Kellaway, Lee J. Cobb, James Todd

Synopsis: A semi-fantasy with sociological overtones, The Luck of the Irish stars Tyrone Power as an American journalist named Stephen Fitzgerald visiting the home of his ancestors in Ireland. Power encounters a jolly old man (Cecil Kellaway) who claims to be a leprechaun -- and proves it to the Read More

The Walls of Jericho

Actors: Art Baker, Griff Barnett, Anne Baxter, Helen Brown, Linda Darnell

Synopsis: The year is 1908 and the setting Jericho, Kansas, a veritable cesspool of sin and vice. Dave Connors is a politically ambitious lawyer married to Belle, the town lush, and is in love with beautiful colleague Julia Norman. Matters are worsened when Algeria Wedge, his best friend's wife, makes a Read More

Fury at Furnace Creek

Actors: Robert Adler, Griff Barnett, Harlan Briggs, Harry Carter, Fred Clark

Synopsis: In this western the two sons of the commanding officer of an outpost attempt to clear their father's name after he is accused of conspiring with the Indians and is forced to resign. To prove his innocence, the men use terribly different methods. The older one, an adventurer, approaches suspects Read More

Whispering Smith

Actors: Alan Ladd, Brenda Marshall, Robert Preston, Donald Crisp, William Demarest

Synopsis: This fact -based western follows a soft-spoken railroad detective (Alan Ladd) as he brings a murderous ring of robbers to justice and rekindles an old flame. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

When My Baby Smiles at Me

Actors: Betty Grable, Dan Dailey, Jack Oakie, June Havoc, Richard Arlen

Synopsis: Betty Grable and Dan Dailey play a couple of small-time vaudevillians, at least until Dailey gets a big Broadway break. Success swells his head to cataclysmic dimensions; he becomes an alcoholic, loses his stardom and winds up in the drunk ward. Grable divorces Dailey to marry rancher Richard Arlen Read More

Panhandle

Actors: Rod Cameron, Cathy Downs, Reed Hadley, Anne Gwynne, Blake Edwards

Synopsis: Regarded by some film buffs as the best of director Leslie Selander's many westerns, Panhandle stars Rod Cameron as an ex-lawman turned gunslinger. He hopes to bury his past and homestead in Texas, but his plans change when his newspaper-reporter brother (John Champion) is killed. Reluctantly, Cameron Read More

If You Knew Susie

Actors: Eddie Cantor, Joan Davis, Allyn Joslyn, Charles Dingle, Phil Brown

Synopsis: Hoping for a success commensurate with his previous Show Business (1945), comedian Eddie Cantor poured a lot of his own money into the RKO Radio musical If You Knew Susie. Cantor and his Show Business co-star Joan Davis are reteamed herein as ex-vaudevillians Sam and Susie Parker, who retire to a Read More

The Sin of Harold Diddlebock

Actors: Al Bridge, Harold Lloyd, Frances Ramsden, Raymond Walburn, Georgia Caine, Jimmy Conlin, Franklin Pangborn, Margaret Hamilton, Edgar Kennedy

Synopsis: Absent from films since 1938 (except as producer of a brace of RKO Radio features), silent-screen comedy favorite Harold Lloyd returned before the cameras in The Sin of Harold Diddlebock. The project began as a labor of love between Lloyd and the brilliant, innovative producer/writer/director Preston Sturges Read More

Keeper of the Bees

Synopsis: Based on an old Gene Stratton Porter story, Keeper of the Bees was a shade too bucolic for postwar audiences. Michael Duane stars as an artist who has lost confidence in humanity. He regains it with the help of a faith healer and her two daughters. One of the girls is played by Gloria Henry, later Read More

The Web of Danger

Actors: William Hall, Russell Hicks

Synopsis: An unimportant but likeable Republic drama, Web of Danger revolves around the rivalry between two hardhat bridge-builders. Ernie (Bill Kennedy) and Bill (Damian O'Flynn) spend most of the footage duking it out, usually over a "dame". But when the chips are down, our heroes work side by side to Read More

It's a Wonderful Life

Actors: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers

Synopsis: This is director Frank Capra's classic bittersweet comedy/drama about George Bailey (James Stewart), the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank in the typical American small town of Bedford Falls. As the film opens, it's Christmas Eve, 1946, and George, who has long considered himself a Read More

My Darling Clementine

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

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

Smoky

Actors: Fred MacMurray, Anne Baxter, Burl Ives, Bruce Cabot, Esther Dale

Synopsis: Smoky is a Technicolor adaptation of Will James' beloved horse story, first filmed in 1933. Fred MacMurray plays a cowboy who is intrigued by a wild black stallion which refuses to be tamed. MacMurray ropes the stallion and determines to train it. "Smoky" responds to MacMurray, and horse and man Read More

The Dolly Sisters

Actors: Betty Grable, John Payne, June Haver, S.Z. Sakall, Reginald Gardiner

Synopsis: The Dolly Sisters is the heavily Hollywoodized biopic of Jennie and Rosie Dolly, Hungarian-born entertainers who took Broadway by storm in the early 1900s. Betty Grable plays Jennie and June Haver plays Rosie; their uncle is the inevitable "funny foreigner" S.Z. Sakall, who manages their career Read More

Pillow of Death

Actors: Lon Chaney, Jr., Brenda Joyce, Clara Blandick, Rosalind Ivan, J. Edward Bromberg

Synopsis: This lesser "Inner Sanctum" entry stars Lon Chaney Jr. as unhappily married lawyer Wayne Fletcher. In love with his secretary Donna Kincaid (Brenda Joyce), Fletcher is the principal suspect when his wife is found smothered to death in her own bed. Lack of evidence allows Fletcher to walk Read More

The Woman Who Came Back

Actors: John Loder, Nancy Kelly, Otto Kruger, Ruth Ford, Harry Tyler

Synopsis: For at least 63 of its 68 minutes, Republic's The Woman Who Came Back is an exciting and compelling journey into the realm of the supernatural. Returning to her ancestral New England village, Lorna Webster (Nancy Kelly) slowly but surely becomes convinced that she's the reincarnation of a Read More

Nob Hill

Actors: George Raft, Joan Bennett, Vivian Blaine, Peggy Ann Garner

Synopsis: The bland performance of star George Raft is the only drawback of this splashy 20th Century-Fox musical. Set in turn-of-the-century San Francisco, the film casts Raft as Barbary Coast saloonkeeper Tony Angel, who endears himself to patrons and pedestrians alike by tossing out silver dollars at the Read More

Fallen Angel

Actors: Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Charles Bickford, Anne Revere

Synopsis: Otto Preminger directed this stylish film noir exercise, intended as a follow-up to his surprise hit Laura. Kicked off a bus traveling cross-country for not being able to come up with the fare, down-and-out press agent Eric Stanton (Dana Andrews) ends up in Walton, a small coastal town in Read More

Hangover Square

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

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

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Actors: Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan, Peggy Ann Garner

Synopsis: One-time movie song-and-dance man James Dunn won an Academy Award for his "comeback" performance in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Based on the best-selling novel by Betty Smith, the film relates the trials and tribulations of a turn-of-the-century Brooklyn tenement family. The father, Dunn, is a Read More

Johnny Angel

Actors: George Raft, Claire Trevor, Signe Hasso, Lowell Gilmore, Hoagy Carmichael

Synopsis: No relation to the later Shelley Fabares song hit of the same name, RKO Radio's Johnny Angel was adapted by Steve Fisher and Frank Gruber from a short story by Charles Gordon Booth. In one of his better performances, George Raft plays sea captain Johnny Angel, who doggedly pursues the no-good rats Read More

Texas Masquerade

Actors: Andy Clyde, Jimmy Rogers, Mady Correll, Don Costello

Synopsis: William Boyd once again dons the disguise of a fop in this average entry in the long-running "Hopalong Cassidy" western series. The masquerade helps Hoppy and sidekicks California Carlson (Andy Clyde) and Jimmy Rogers get to the bottom of some dirty dealings in the Texas town of Glenby. A vicious Read More

Irish Eyes Are Smiling

Actors: Monty Woolley, June Haver, Dick Haymes, Anthony Quinn

Synopsis: This Technicolor musical biopic stars Argentina-born Dick Haymes as Irish-American composer Ernest R. Ball. Climbing to fame with such sentimental songs as "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" (hence the title), Ball romances a lovely showgirl (June Haver), who in turn catches the eye of a charming Read More

Ladies of Washington

Actors: Trudy Marshall, Ronald Graham, Anthony Quinn, Sheila Ryan, Robert Bailey

Synopsis: Also known as Ladies in Washington, this 61-minute quickie utilizes the services of several 20th Century-Fox contractees. Set in the nation's capital, the film delves into the living and working conditions of the girls employed in wartime government jobs. Jerry (Sheila Ryan), a Washington Read More

Shadow of Suspicion

Actors: Marjorie Weaver, Peter Cookson, Tim Ryan, Pierre Watkin, Anthony Warde

Synopsis: Judging by such films as Shadows of Suspicion, it's too bad that leading man Peter Cookson eventually elected to leave the movies in favor of the Broadway stage. Cookson is cast as Jimmy, an enterprising private detective who hits upon a most unusual method of solving a jewel robbery. With the Read More

The Great Moment

Actors: Joel McCrea, Betty Field, Harry Carey, William Demarest, Louis Jean Heydt, Franklin Pangborn

Synopsis: After producing, writing and directing one hit film after another, Preston Sturges finally misfired with the biopic The Great Moment. Sturges was always fascinated with the saga of W.T.G. Morton, the 19th century Boston dentist who, after inventing the first truly effective anesthesia, was forced Read More

Follow the Leader

Actors: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, Billy Benedict, Joan Marsh

Synopsis: The East Side Kids are back in Follow the Leader, one of their most consistently funny outings. While on leave from the Army, Muggs (Leo Gorcey) and Glimpy (Huntz Hall) learn that their pal Danny (Bobby Jordan) has been thrown in jail on a robbery charge. Refusing to believe that Danny is guilty Read More

Greenwich Village

Actors: Carmen Miranda, Don Ameche, William Bendix, Vivian Blaine, Felix Bressart

Synopsis: Those willing to accept Carmen Miranda as a "typical" 1920s type will be able to swallow the rest of the lavish but rather silly 20th Century-Fox musical Greenwich Village. Most of the action takes place in a New York speakeasy managed by tough guy Danny O'Mara (William Bendix). Providing Read More

Pin-Up Girl

Actors: Betty Grable, John Harvey, Martha Raye, Joe E. Brown, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: Despite the film's title, Pin-Up Girl offers surprisingly few glimpses of the famed Betty Grable "gams." This lively Technicolor musical casts Gable as Lorrie Jones, secretary at a USO canteen frequented by handsome servicemen. Falling in love with war hero Tommy Dooley (John Harvey), Lorrie Read More

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

Actors: Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn, William Demarest, Brian Donlevy, Porter Hall

Synopsis: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon 'em." Firmly in the latter category is Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken), a feckless wartime 4-F who must stand by helplessly as his sweetheart Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) entertains every visiting GI in town. One Read More

The Ape Man

Actors: Bela Lugosi, Wallace Ford, Louise Currie, Minerva Urecal, Henry Hall

Synopsis: Whatever poor Bela Lugosi may have done in a past life, the man did not deserve The Ape Man, arguably the worst of his Monogram horror clunkers. Viewed today, it seems that screenwriter Barney Sarecky and infamous director William Beaudine (whose nickname "One Shot" was earned helming movies like Read More

Clancy Street Boys

Actors: Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Bennie Bartlett

Synopsis: Even non-fans of the East Side Kids will get a goodly share of laughs out of the 1943 series entry Clancy Street Boys. The story commences when Muggs McGinnis (Leo Gorcey) learns that his wealthy Uncle Pete (Noah Beery Sr.) is coming to town for a visit. The problem: Muggs' mom (Martha Wentworth) Read More

Tiger Fangs

Actors: Frank Buck, June Duprez, Duncan Renaldo, Howard Banks, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: Legendary big-game hunter Frank Buck brings 'em back alive once more in PRC's Tiger Fangs. Though it is clear that he never journeys any farther than a studio backlot, Buck is in fine form as he takes on a gang of evil Nazi predators. It seems that the villains having been plying Malayan tigers Read More

True to Life

Actors: Mary Martin, Franchot Tone, Dick Powell, Victor Moore, Mabel Paige, William Demarest

Synopsis: True to Life stars Dick Powell as a radio writer in search of saleable material. He comes up with a weekly sitcom about a typical American family. To soak up inspiration, he hangs around the household of waitress Mary Martin and her parents (Ernest Truex, Mabel Paige), transcribing their Read More

Bowery at Midnight

Actors: Bela Lugosi, John Archer, Wanda McKay, Tom Neal, Vince Barnett

Synopsis: Bowery at Midnight casts Bela Lugosi as Professor Brenner, a psychology instructor at New York University (which looks a lot like Berkeley in the exterior shots!). When not enlightening his students -- most of them buxom Monogram starlets -- Brenner is engaged in charitable work, running a mission Read More

The Living Ghost

Actors: James Dunn

Synopsis: A true "guilty pleasure" crime melodrama with horror movie touches, the low-budget The Living Ghost stars future Academy award-winner James Dunn as Nick Trayne, a retired detective hired to look into the mysterious disappearance of banker Walter Craig. Working with Craig's pert secretary Billie Read More

Captains of the Clouds

Actors: James Cagney, Dennis Morgan, Brenda Marshall, Alan Hale, George Tobias

Synopsis: James Cagney made his first Technicolor appearance in the morale-boosting aviation flick Captains of the Clouds. Cagney plays Brian MacLean, a hotshot Canadian bush pilot who delights in stealing jobs-and women-away from his competitors. Brian is forced to shape up in a hurry when he's assigned to Read More

Snuffy Smith, Yard Bird

Synopsis: In this zany comedy, based on an enduringly popular comic strip, the irascible mountain man and moonshiner finds himself drafted into the military. Unfortunately, his sergeant is the "revenooer" who pursued him back home. Mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Little Tokyo, USA

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Brenda Joyce, Harold Huber, Donald Douglas, June Duprez

Synopsis: Filmed in the months immediately following Pearl Harbor, 20th Century-Fox's Little Tokyo USA is 63 minutes' worth of speculation about prewar Japanese espionage activities. Los Angeles cop Preston Foster suspects that there's dirty work afoot in the city's Japanese community, but no one will Read More

One Thrilling Night

Actors: John Beal, Wanda McKay, Warren Hymer, Barbara Pepper

Synopsis: Among the few wartime comedies that are still genuinely funny today, Monogram's One Thrilling Night (aka Horace Takes Over). stars John Beal and Wanda McKay as a somewhat dimwitted newlywed couple honeymooning in New York. Beal hopes to spend some "quality time" with Wanda before he's to report Read More

Reap the Wild Wind

Actors: Ray Milland, John Wayne, Paulette Goddard, Raymond Massey, Robert Preston

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's Technicolor historical spectacle Reap the Wild Wind was to have starred Gary Cooper, but Cooper's prior commitment to Goldwyn's Pride of the Yankees compelled DeMille to recast the leading role with John Wayne. The film, set in the mid-19th century, centers around Key West Read More

Phantom Killer

Actors: Dick Purcell, Joan Woodbury, John Hamilton, Warren Hymer, Kenneth Harlan

Synopsis: In this murder mystery, a re-working of The Sphinx, a distract attorney is determined to prove that the community's most respected member, a deaf-mute philanthropist, is a cold-blooded killer. When the prominent fellow is acquitted, the disgusted DA quits his job and begins investigating the Read More

The Palm Beach Story

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Rudy Vallee, William Demarest

Synopsis: As for the opening reels, the principal motivating factor is money. After a deliberately confusing pre-credit sequence (not explained until the film's punch line), Tom Jeffers (Joel McCrea) and Gerry Jeffers (Claudette Colbert) are married. "And so they lived happily ever after," exults a title Read More

The Great Lie

Actors: Bette Davis, George Brent, Mary Astor, Hattie McDaniel, Lucile Watson, Grant Mitchell

Synopsis: The Great Lie is Soap Opera Deluxe from Bette Davis' peak period at Warner Bros. Davis plays a socialite who is madly in love with playboy aviator George Brent. Brilliant but bitchy concert pianist Mary Astor (who won a well-deserved Academy Award for her chain-smoking histrionics) is also in love Read More

In Old Cheyenne

Actors: Roy Rogers, George "Gabby" Hayes, Joan Woodbury, John Farrell MacDonald, Sally Payne

Synopsis: In Old Cheyenne is where the viewer can find Roy Rogers and Gabby Hayes this time out. Rogers is cast as frontier journalist Steve Blane, determined to print the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in his weekly rag. But when Steve inaugurates a series of articles about alleged Read More

Meet John Doe

Actors: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan, Spring Byington

Synopsis: The first of director Frank Capra's independent productions (in partnership with Robert Riskin), Meet John Doe begins with the end of reporter Ann Mitchell's (Barbara Stanwyck) job. Fired as part of a downsizing move, she ends her last column with an imaginary letter written by "John Doe." Angered Read More

Riders of the Timberline

Actors: William "Hopalong" Boyd, Brad King, Andy Clyde, Eleanor Stewart

Synopsis: Riders of the Timberline was the 38th entry in the "Hopalong Cassidy" western series. To keep things from getting stale, star William Boyd and producer Harry Sherman began plunking Hoppy into non-western environs in the early 1940s (including, at one point, the Arabian desert!) Timberline takes Read More

Law of the Timber

Synopsis: PRC Pictures' final 1941 release, Law of the Timber was based on a story by North Woods specialist James Oliver Curwood. Given that leading man Hal Brazeal has about as much charisma as a spoonful of potato salad, leading lady Marjorie Reynolds offers the most interesting characterization in this Read More

Sullivan's Travels

Actors: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Robert Warwick, Porter Hall

Synopsis: In Preston Sturges' classic comedy of Depression-era America, filmmaker John L. Sullivan (Joel McCrea), fed up with directing profitable comedies like "Ants in Your Plants of 1939," is consumed with the desire to make a serious social statement in his upcoming film, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" Read More

Wild Bill Hickok Rides

Actors: Constance Bennett, Bruce Cabot, Warren William, Betty Brewer, Walter Catlett

Synopsis: It's hard to believe that Wild Bill Hickok Rides is a Warner Bros. picture-and harder still to believe that Constance Bennett deigned to star in the film. Wavering uncomfortably between comedy and drama, this patchwork western features Bruce Cabot as Wild Bill Hickok, who on this occasion goes on Read More

I Take This Oath

Actors: Gordon Jones, Joyce Compton, Craig Reynolds, John Farrell MacDonald, Robert E. Homans

Synopsis: I Take This Oath was the first official release from Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), formerly known as Producers Pictures Corporation and Producers Distributing Corporation. Gordon Jones stars as rookie cop Steve Hannigan, who takes it upon himself to avenge the murder of his police Read More

The Light of Western Stars

Actors: Victor Jory, Jo Ann Sayers, Russell Hayden, Morris Ankrum, Noah Beery, Jr.

Synopsis: Previous filmed three times (most recently in 1930), the 1940 Paramount production Light of Western Stars was the latest in the studio's "Zane Grey" series. Victor Jory earns a rare top-billing slot as Gene Stewart, a hard-drinking Westerner who is reformed through the love of Boston debutante Read More

The Last Alarm

Actors: John Farrell MacDonald, Polly Ann Young, Warren Hull, Mary Gordon, George Pembroke

Synopsis: A retired fireman teams up with an insurance investigator when an old buddy is killed in an arson fire in this surprisingly potent comedy-drama from low budget company Monogram. Jim Hadley (J. Farrell MacDonald finds retirement difficult and is only too happy to oblige when daughter Joan (Polly Read More

Stagecoach War

Actors: William "Hopalong" Boyd, Russell Hayden, Julie Carter, Harvey Stephens, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: A lesser entry in the long-running Hopalong Cassidy Western series, Stagecoach War features veteran character actor J. Farrell McDonald as Jeff Chapman, a stage-line owner about to lose a lucrative Wells Fargo contract after his driver is shot in a holdup. The crime opens a door for Neal Holt (Harvey Stephens Read More

Friendly Neighbors

Actors: Leon Weaver, Frank Weaver, June Weaver, Lois Ranson, Spencer Charters

Synopsis: The Weaver Brothers hit the road and taste the hobo's life in this, the sixth, entry in the eleven-film "Weaver Brothers and Elviry" comedy-drama series. The singing hayseed family's journey begins when a drought destroys their farm. The young travelers soon hook up with a band of tramps and end Read More

The Gentleman from Arizona

Actors: John Farrell MacDonald, Joan Barclay, Craig Reynolds

Synopsis: Monogram hoped that The Gentleman From Arizona would be their "prestige" release for 1940, and to that end the film was lensed in Cinecolor. The "gentleman" is played by John King, but the star of the show is J. Farrell McDonald, cast as a chronic gambler named Coburn. When the old man loses every Read More

Pony Express Days

Prairie Law

Actors: George O'Brien, Virginia Vale, Dick Hogan, John Farrell MacDonald, Charles "Slim" Whitaker

Synopsis: Cowboy hero George O'Brien has his hands full with crooked land promoter Paul Everton in Prairie Law. Selling acres and acres of worthless land while promising to provide an unlimited water supply to his customers, Everton sparks off a range war between cattlemen and homesteaders. Working on Read More

Untamed

Actors: Ray Milland, Patricia Morison, Akim Tamiroff, William Frawley, Jane Darwell

Synopsis: A courageous doctor braves a fierce blizzard in the Canadian wilderness to save a remote community from a deadly epidemic. He has come North to visit and ends up stealing a wife from her husband. When the epidemic hits, he and the wife begin their arduous journey. At one point, they are stranded. Read More

The Dark Command

Actors: Claire Trevor, John Wayne, Walter Pidgeon, Roy Rogers, George "Gabby" Hayes

Synopsis: Set in the years leading up to the Civil War and its outbreak, Dark Command tells a fictionalized version of the story of William Clarke Quantrill, the schoolteacher-turned-renegade, whose raids -- ostensibly on behalf of the Confederacy -- turned Kansas into a charnel house. John Wayne plays Bob Read More

Knights of the Range

Actors: Russell Hayden, Victor Jory, Jean Parker, Morris Ankrum, Britt Wood

Synopsis: Paramount's "Zane Grey" series continued rolling into the 1940s with Knights of the Range. Taking a break from the studio's Hopalong Cassidy pictures, Russell Hayden stars as Renn Frayne, a college-educated youth who finds more than he bargained for when he heads westward. After a terrifying Read More

Lone Ranger Rides Again

Actors: Robert Livingston, Chief Thundercloud, Duncan Renaldo

Synopsis: This second Republic-serial adaptation of the popular radio series The Lone Ranger abandons the "mystery" angle of the first (1938's The Lone Ranger) in favor of a straightforward action tale. Robert Livingston stars as Bill Andrews, alias the "Masked Rider of the Plains," while Chief Thundercloud Read More

Zenobia

Actors: Oliver Hardy, Harry Langdon, Billie Burke, Alice Brady, James Ellison

Synopsis: With comedian Stan Laurel temporarily off his payroll due to a contract dispute, Hal Roach hastily put together a solo starring vehicle for Laurel's longtime partner Oliver Hardy. Digging into his files, Roach pulled out Zenobia's Infidelity, an H.C. Bunner story originally purchased as a vehicle Read More

Mickey, the Kid

Actors: Bruce Cabot, Ralph Byrd, ZaSu Pitts, Tommy Ryan, Jessie Ralph

Synopsis: In this heartwarming drama, a crook endeavors to raise his son in the slums until he kills a teller during a bank robbery. At first he sends the lad to his grandma, but when government agents threaten to catch him, he grabs the kid and hightails it. They high-jack a school bus filled with children Read More

East Side of Heaven

Actors: Bing Crosby, Joan Blondell, Mischa Auer, Irene Hervey, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: Bing Crosby plays a tune-happy cab driver who finds himself the reluctant recipient of an abandoned baby. Together with his roommate, dour doorman Mischa Auer, Crosby offers care and shelter to the infant until he can locate the parents. The baby brings in some unwanted publicity for Crosby, which Read More

Susannah of the Mounties

Actors: Shirley Temple, Randolph Scott, Margaret Lockwood, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: The sole survivor of an Indian attack, orphan girl Susannah Sheldon (Shirley Temple) becomes the mascot of the Canadian Mountie outpost headed by Superintendent Standing (Moroni Olsen). Mountie Angus "Monty" Montague (Randolph Scott) and his sweetheart (and Standing's daughter), Vicky (Margaret Lockwood Read More

They Shall Have Music

Actors: Jascha Heifetz, Andrea Leeds, Joel McCrea, Gene Reynolds, Walter Brennan

Synopsis: This musical drama follows a young ghetto kid who dreams of being a classical musician like his idol Jascha Heifetz. He first hears the renowned violinist after finding a ticket to Carnegie Hall on the sidewalk one day. The young man is so inspired by what he hears that he enrolls in Professor Read More

The Housekeeper's Daughter

Actors: Joan Bennett, Adolphe Menjou, John Hubbard, William Gargan, George E. Stone

Synopsis: In this comedy, a gangster's moll gets tired of the mob scene and returns to her mother's house. Her mom is a wealthy family's housekeeper. One of the rich children dreams of being a reporter; he is eager to get his first big scoop. He gets his chance when he stumbles upon a series of clues to a Read More

Conspiracy

Actors: Allan Lane, Linda Hayes, Robert H. Barrat, Charley Foy, Lionel Royce

Synopsis: RKO's Conspiracy attempts to be an up-to-date (for 1939) espionage drama without using such problematic words as "Nazi" or "Fascist". The film solves this problem by taking place in a mythical Central American country, though the key figure of a despotic dictator is clearly meant to be an Hispanic Read More

There Goes My Heart

Actors: Fredric March, Virginia Bruce, Patsy Kelly, Alan Mowbray, Nancy Carroll

Synopsis: Heiress Virginia Bruce tries to prove her worth by taking a job as a shopgirl in the store owned by her family. The pampered young lady is given a crash course in pragmatism by her worldly roommates Patsy Kelly and Nancy Carroll. Reporter Fredric March learns of Bruce's ruse and plans to tell all Read More

My Old Kentucky Home

Actors: Evelyn Venable, The Hall Johnson Choir, John Farrell MacDonald, Grant Richards, Bernadene Hayes

Synopsis: A concert singer goes blind after a rival throws acid in his face and leaves his New York girlfriend to return to his grandmother's plantation in Kentucky. The town centennial celebration his grandmother has planned is actually the method she has devised to help him get his self-confidence back. Read More

Come on Rangers

Actors: Roy Rogers, Mary Hart, Raymond Hatton, John Farrell MacDonald, Purnell Pratt

Synopsis: This Roy Rogers musical western (his second starring vehicle for Republic) concerns itself with a group of Texas Rangers, forced to disband when Texas is admitted the Union. The state brings in members of the U.S. Cavalry to provide law enforcement in the Rangers' stead, yet the Cavalry officers Read More

Numbered Woman

Little Orphan Annie

Actors: Ann Gillis, Robert Kent, June Travis, John Farrell MacDonald, J.M. Kerrigan

Synopsis: Harold Gray's long-running comic strip Little Orphan Annie was first brought to the screen in 1932, with Mitzi Green as Annie. This 1938 version was produced by Paramount, with Ann Gillis (best known for her performance as Becky Thatcher in Selznick's Adventures of Tom Sawyer) as Gray's Read More

State Police

Actors: William Lundigan, Constance Moore, Larry Blake, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: Several second-echelon Universal contractees earn their paychecks in the two-week wonder State Police. John King stars as Sergeant Dan Prescott, a state trooper assigned to a coal-mining community. A group of gangsters have insinuated themselves into the town's labor-management confrontations Read More

Gang Bullets

Actors: Anne Nagel, Robert Kent, Charles Trowbridge, Morgan Wallace, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: Gang Bullets was one of a myriad of late-1930s Monogram crime pictures, bearing such interchangable titles as I Am a Criminal, Convict's Code and Federal Bullets. Morgan Wallace plays a Capone-like racketeer named Anderson, who after being chased out of one town by the authorities immediately sets Read More

The Flying Fists

Actors: Jeanne Martel, Fuzzy Knight, John Farrell MacDonald, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams

Synopsis: In this boxing drama, a prizefighter fights for the love of the woman who disdains him and his chosen profession. She begins to take a different view after the fighter uses his winnings to bail her father out of financial trouble. He also beats the gamblers who have fixed the match. ~ Sandra Read More

Submarine Patrol

Actors: Richard Greene, Nancy Kelly, Preston S. Foster, George Bancroft, George "Slim" Summerville

Synopsis: Set during World War I, Submarine Patrol stars Preston S. Foster as a naval officer demoted for dereliction of duty. He is forced to commandeer a battered old submarine chaser and its ragtag crew. Anxious to redeem himself, Foster transforms his loser underlings into a crack combat team, chalking Read More

Extortion

Actors: Scott Colton, Mary Russell, Thurston Hall, Arthur Loft, Gene Morgan

Synopsis: Extortion was designed as a sort of trial balloon for Columbia's new contractees Scott Colton and Mary Russell. The story takes place on a college campus, where a distinctively unpopular professor is murdered. When her physics-teacher father (Thurston Hall) falls under suspicion, co-ed Betty Read More

The Crowd Roars

Actors: Robert Taylor, Edward Arnold, Frank Morgan, Maureen O'Sullivan, William Gargan

Synopsis: Not a remake of the 1932 James Cagney vehicle of the same name, The Crowd Roars is set in the sweat-stained world of professional boxing. Handy with his fists, young Tommy McCoy (Robert Taylor) is virtually pushed into the ring by his alcoholic father Brian (Frank Morgan). During his climb to the Read More

White Banners

Actors: Claude Rains, Fay Bainter, Jackie Cooper, Bonita Granville, Henry O'Neill

Synopsis: Based on another of Lloyd C. Douglas' "better living through faith" short stories, White Banners stars Claude Rains as a chemistry professor who invents an icebox that requires no ice. The invention is stolen, throwing Rains and his faithful young assistant Jackie Cooper into a deep depression. Rains Read More

Slave Ship

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

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

Slim

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Henry Fonda, Margaret Lindsay, Stuart Erwin, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: Making his debut with Warner Brothers, Henry Fonda plays an apprentice high-voltage lineman working with the no-nonsense, but very experienced Pat O'Brien. Stringing up the high-tension electrical wires on tall metal towers is dangerous work, but from the moment he sees the linemen at work, farm Read More

The Hit Parade

Actors: Frances Langford, Phil Regan, Louise Henry, Pert Kelton, Edward S. Brophy

Synopsis: In this musical an agent hawks a new singing star to irritate a wealthy socialite whom he managed to get on the radio. There the socialite found some success, but then she dumped her agent. As the radio network continues to search for new talent, music and mayhem ensue. Songs include: "Sweet Read More

County Fair

Actors: John Arledge, John Farrell MacDonald, Fuzzy Knight, Jimmy Butler

Synopsis: A jockey is thrown off the track after it is discovered that gangsters drugged his horse. This drama follows his attempts to redeem himself. First he and his buddy get jobs working on a horse-breeding farm. There he finds himself attracted to the farmer's pretty daughter. The farmer is unhappy Read More

The Game That Kills

Actors: Charles Quigley, Rita Hayworth, John Gallaudet, John Farrell MacDonald, Arthur Loft

Synopsis: The Game That Kills is professional hockey, at least according to this Columbia "B"-picture. Charles Quigley stars as Ferguson, a rough-and-tumble hockey player who discovers that his chosen profession is nothing more than a racket, a plaything for game-fixing racketeers. When his brother is Read More

Shadows of the Orient

Actors: Esther Ralston, Regis Toomey, John Farrell MacDonald, Oscar Apfel, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: Released by Monogram in 1937, Shadows of the Orient was actually produced independently several years earlier by Larry Darmour. Arrested in a raid on a Chinese gambling joint, judge's daughter Viola Avery (Esther Ralston) is rescued from disgrace by King Moss (Sidney Blackmer), owner of the Read More

Mysterious Crossing

Actors: James Dunn, Jean Rogers, Andy Devine, John Eldredge, Hobart Cavanaugh

Synopsis: James Dunn is once more cast as a reporter, this one named Murphy. On the outs with practically every newsroom in America, Murphy finds a chance for redemption when he stumbles into a mysterious murder case. Most of the story takes place during a train-ferry ride down the Mississippi. By the time Read More

My Dear Miss Aldrich

Actors: Edna May Oliver, Maureen O'Sullivan, Walter Pidgeon, Rita Johnson, Janet Beecher

Synopsis: When Walter Pidgeon wasn't playing Greer Garson's perfect husband at MGM, he could usually be found portraying a newspaper editor. This is how we find him in My Dear Miss Aldrich, the first MGM flick in which Pidgeon was awarded top billing. Maureen O'Sullivan plays the title character, a Read More

Courage of the West

Actors: Bob Baker, Lois January, John Farrell MacDonald, Fuzzy Knight, Carl Stockdale

Synopsis: Nothing of cult director Joseph H. Lewis' much-vaunted flair is on display in this average musical Western, the screen debut of Bob Baker, Universal's dark-haired answer to Gene Autry. Baker -- who had beaten a young Roy Rogers for the berth at Universal -- had sung on the National Barn Dance Read More

Parnell

Actors: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Edna May Oliver, Edmund Gwenn, Alan Marshal

Synopsis: The true story of one of Ireland's leading political figures of the late 19th Century inspired this biographical drama. Charles Stewart Parnell (Clark Gable) is a politician and activist whose tireless work towards the cause of Irish independence has earned him the nickname "the Uncrowned King of Read More

Roaring Timber

Actors: Jack Holt, Grace Bradley, Ruth Donnelly, Raymond Hatton, Willard Robertson

Synopsis: In this outdoor drama, a plucky young woman inherits her father's logging business and decides to try running it, even though she knows nothing about it. In her innocence, she fires all her trustworthy workers and instead hires a band of slick talking hoods who immediately try to cheat her. Read More

Silent Barriers

Actors: Richard Arlen, Lilli Palmer, Antoinette Cellier, Barry Mackay, Roy Emerton

Synopsis: The building of the great Canadian-Pacific Railroad that stretched from Montreal to Vancouver is chronicled in this realistic drama. Amidst the country's wild grandeur, two gambling vagabonds find themselves in a railroad boomtown where they hope to win a lot of the workers' money. While there 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

Topper

Actors: Cary Grant, Constance Bennett, Billie Burke, Roland Young, Alan Mowbray

Synopsis: By 1937, producer Hal Roach was hoping to wean himself away from the Laurel & Hardy-Our Gang slapstick on which he had built his studio's reputation by delving into the "screwball comedy" genre. Roach selected the racy Thorne Smith fantasy novel Topper for adaptation, and the result was one of the Read More

Exclusive Story

Actors: Franchot Tone, Madge Evans, Stuart Erwin, Joseph Calleia, Robert H. Barrat

Synopsis: Former newspaperman Martin Mooney based his script for Exclusive Story on the racket-busting activities of New York district attorney Thomas E. Dewey. Franchot Tone plays the lawyer for a major newspaper which is conducting a campaign against gang boss Joseph Calleia. The paper can't get any Read More

Hitch Hike Lady

Actors: Arthur Treacher, James Ellison, Warren Hymer

Synopsis: In this emotional drama, a lonely British housekeeper, uses her hard-earned savings account to finance a trip to America so she can see the successful son she has been proud of all her life. At least she has been lead to believe that her son is a big shot. Once in the US, she and her young female Read More

Show Boat

Actors: Irene Dunne, Allan Jones, Charles Winninger, Paul Robeson, Helen Morgan

Synopsis: This second film version of the Edna Ferber/Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein II musical Show Boat is considered by many film buffs to be the best of the three. Covering nearly four decades (was there ever an Edna Ferber novel that didn't?), the film stars Irene Dunne as Magnolia Hawks, a role she'd Read More

The Healer

Synopsis: A pre-stardom Mickey Rooney earned top billing when this minor medical drama was re-released in 1939 as Little Pal (Rooney by then having become the nation's top box-office draw). Ralph Bellamy stars as Dr. Holden, aka "The Healer," a medical doctor operating a charity camp at a mineral spring in Read More

Florida Special

Actors: Jack Oakie, Sally Eilers, Kent Taylor, Frances Drake, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: A Florida-bound train is filled with romance and intrigue in this comedy. Among the passengers is a millionaire bon vivant carrying $1 million in diamonds. He is fully aware that a gang of would-be jewel thieves have followed him and so pretends to be an invalid with an ice bag perpetually stuck Read More

The Arizonian

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

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

Front Page Woman

Actors: Bette Davis, George Brent, Roscoe Karns, June Martel, Dorothy Dare, Walter Walker, Joseph Crehan, Winifred Shaw

Synopsis: Front Page Woman was one of those bread-and-butter vehicles that forced Bette Davis to go on strike against Warner Bros., demanding more worthwhile scripts. On its own terms, the film is a briskly entertaining newspaper yarn about two warring reporters (Davis and George Brent). In their efforts to Read More

Riff Raff

Actors: Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy, Una Merkel, Joseph Calleia, Victor Kilian, Mickey Rooney

Synopsis: Riff-Raff begins riff-raffing when boastful fisherman Dutch (Spencer Tracy) marries down-to-earth cannery worker Hattie (Jean Harlow). Their happiness is marred by Dutch's egomania, which results in the loss of his job and the alienation of his friends. Eventually he deserts Hattie, but she Read More

Fighting Youth

Actors: Charles Farrell, June Martel, Andy Devine, John Farrell MacDonald, Ann Sheridan

Synopsis: In this now-campy drama, a patriotic state college football team takes on a subversive radical group determined to undermine American Values with Communist Propaganda. The prime target of the radicals is Larry Davis, the conservative star quarterback. To get him, they utilize a sly and sensual Read More

Captain Hurricane

Actors: James Barton, Helen Westley, Helen Mack, Gene Lockhart, Douglas Walton

Synopsis: James Barton plays a salty old sea captain on the verge of retirement, forced to return to the sea when his funds run out. Planning to stay with his ship only long enough to pay his mortgage, Barton finds himself on the bounding main a lot longer than expected due to bad weather and unexpected Read More

The Whole Town's Talking

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

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

Let 'em Have It

Actors: Richard Arlen, Virginia Bruce, Alice Brady, Bruce Cabot, Harvey Stephens

Synopsis: Produced independently by Edward Small, this surprisingly realistic gangster yarn stars stalwart Richard Arlen as Mal Stevens, an attorney recruited by the newly organized Federal Bureau of Investigation. After Mal and a couple of fellow recruits, Van Rensseler (Harvey Stephens) and Tex Logan Read More

Maybe It's Love

Actors: Gloria Stuart, Ross Alexander, Frank McHugh, Helen Lowell, Phillip Reed

Star of Midnight

Actors: William Powell, Ginger Rogers, Paul Kelly, Gene Lockhart, Ralph Morgan

Synopsis: This barely-disguised but effective riff on The Thin Man (1934) stars that film's lead, William Powell, opposite Ginger Rogers instead of Myrna Loy. Clay Dalzell (Powell) is a suave attorney fonder of solving crimes than trying cases. His elegant girlfriend, Donna (Rogers) hopes that Clay will Read More

The Last Comeback

Synopsis: Stardom comes to an older entertainer in this drama. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Northern Frontier

Actors: Kermit Maynard, Eleanor Hunt, Russell Hopton, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: The second of Kermit Maynard's "Mountie" actioners for Ambassador Pictures, Northern Frontier was a major improvement on the first (The Fighting Trooper), which in itself wasn't such a bad picture either. On behalf of the Feds, Royal Mountie McKenzie (Maynard) joins a gang of counterfeiters. The Read More

Our Little Girl

Actors: Shirley Temple, Rosemary Ames, Joel McCrea, Lyle Talbot, Erin O'Brien-Moore

Synopsis: With Shirley Temple heading the cast of Our Little Girl, it's a moot point as to who plays the title role. Temple is cast as Molly Middleton, daughter of Dr. Donald Middleton (Joel McCrea) and his wife Elsa (Rosemary Ames). Long unhappy in their marriage, Donald and Elsa have stayed together this Read More

Swell-Head

Actors: Wallace Ford, Dickie Moore, Barbara Kent, John Farrell MacDonald, Marion Byron

Synopsis: Wallace Ford plays Terry McCall, a small-town baseball star with a monumental ego. Terry's gift for self-aggrandizement alienates him from everyone in town, including his waitress sweetheart May Malone (Barbara Kent). After suffering a concussion during a baseball game, Terry goes blind, whereupon Read More

The Irish in Us

Actors: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Olivia de Havilland, Frank McHugh, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: This fast-paced Warner Bros. comedy stars James Cagney and Pat O'Brien as brothers who fight over the same girl. Mrs. O'Hara (Mary Gordon) is the loving mother of three sons: fireman Mike (Frank McHugh), policeman Pat (O'Brien), and the boxing promoter Danny (Cagney). Mike wants to marry Lucille Read More

Stormy

Actors: Jean Rogers, John Farrell MacDonald, Fred Kohler

Synopsis: In this drama, a young boy earns the trust of an especially skittish colt and they form a special bond. Trouble ensues when the lad finds himself between two arguing brothers. One wants to save the little horse and the herd he runs with, while the other brother wants to exploit the mustangs. The Read More

Square Shooter

Synopsis: In this his penultimate Western for Columbia Pictures, Tim McCoy played Tim Baxter, a cowboy returning to the old homestead to prove he did not kill his uncle. Ranch foreman Jed Miller (Charles Middleton) has inherited the ranch but Tim knows the will was forged. He gathers a group of vigilantes Read More

Danger Ahead

Synopsis: Silent screen leading man Lawrence Gray stars in this low-budget thriller produced by legendary penny-pincher Sam Katzman. After selling his cargo of silk to merchant Nick Conrad (Bryant Washburn), Captain Matthews (John Elliott) is brutally robbed by a gang of thieves under Conrad's control. Read More

The Farmer Takes a Wife

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Henry Fonda, Charles Bickford, George "Slim" Summerville, Andy Devine

Synopsis: Henry Fonda made his screen debut in this filmization of his Broadway success The Farmer Takes a Wife. The story is set along the Erie Canal in the 1850s. Fonda plays a farmer who takes a river job to make ends meet. He falls in love with Janet Gaynor, daughter of a canal-boat cook, who thinks Read More

Waterfront Lady

Actors: Ann Rutherford, Frank Albertson, John Farrell MacDonald, Barbara Pepper, Grant Withers

Synopsis: In her first starring role, 18-year-old Ann Rutherford plays Joan, a singer in a cheap waterfront café. Gambling-ship proprietor Ronny (Frank Albertson), on the lam from the police after accidentally shooting a treacherous underling (Grant Withers), falls in love with Joan, and he with her. Under Read More

The Cat's Paw

Actors: Harold Lloyd, Una Merkel, George Barbier, Nat Pendleton, Grace Bradley

Synopsis: Harold Lloyd plays Ezekial Cobb, a missionary's son who has spent his entire life in China. Cobb is sent to his father's home church in California, where it is hoped he will find a wife. A true babe in the woods, Cobb is befriended by politician Jake Mayo (George Barbier). Mayo is a cog in a Read More

Murder on the Campus

Actors: Shirley Grey, Charles Starrett, John Farrell MacDonald, Ruth Hall, Dewey Robinson

Synopsis: Two popular film genres were combined by low-budget Chestefield Films in 1934, and the result was Murder on the Campus. Hotshot reporter Bill Bartlett (Charles Starrett) wants to get to the bottom of things when three murders are committed at a co-educational college. In the nastiest of the Read More

The Crosby Case

Actors: Wynne Gibson, Onslow Stevens, Alan Dinehart, William Collier, Sr., Warren Hymer

Synopsis: Although it is included in TV's "Shock Theater" passage, there's nothing overtly frightening about the heavily plotted Universal melodrama The Crosby Case. Even while the opening credits are rolling, the audience is introduced to the five main suspects in the murder of a certain Mr. Crosby. Police Read More

Man of Two Worlds

Actors: Francis Lederer, Elissa Landi, Henry Stephenson, John Farrell MacDonald, Walter Byron

Synopsis: Czech leading man Francis Lederer made his Hollywood film debut in the appropriately titled Man of Two Worlds. Based on the novel by Ainsworth Morgan, the film casts Lederar as Algo, a naïve Eskimo hunter introduced to civilization by avuncular English sportsman Sir Basil (Henry Stephenson). Read More

The Crime Doctor

Actors: Otto Kruger, Karen Morley, Nils Asther, Judith Wood, William Frawley

Synopsis: This thriller centers around a super detective's attempt to mastermind the perfect crime after he suspects his wife of infidelity. A woman has been blackmailing the man he suspects of messing with his wife. The detective kills this woman and blames the lover. The hapless man is convicted of the Read More

Once to Every Woman

Actors: Ralph Bellamy, Fay Wray, Walter Connolly, Mary Carlisle, Walter Byron

Synopsis: Columbia's Once to Every Woman was the first of A. J. Cronin's medical novels to be adapted for the screen. The drama of the piece hinges on the conflict between brilliant young surgeon Barclay (Ralph Bellamy) and crusty hospital head Dr. Selby (Walter Connolly). On another, less-crucial front Read More

Romance in Manhattan

Actors: Francis Lederer, Ginger Rogers, Jimmy Butler, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: Ginger Rogers and Francis Lederer share equal billing -- and near-equal screen time -- in this amiable RKO programmer. Lederer plays Karel Novak, an incredibly naïve Czech immigrant who is taken under the wing of streetwise New York chorus girl Sylvia Dennis (Rogers). With the help of lovable Read More

Beggar's Holiday

Synopsis: Beggar's Holiday was, appropriately enough, filmed on Hollywood's "Poverty Row"--that ramshackle collection of tiny studios on Gower Street rented out by independent producers in the early 1930s. This typical bit of Depression-era whimsy is apparently all about a callow rich man who taps his Read More

Myrt and Marge

Actors: Myrtle Vail, Trixie Friganza, Eddie Foy, Jr., John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: Were it not for the diligence of old-time radio buffs and Three Stooges fans, the 1933 Universal epic Myrt and Marge might have remained in (deserved) obscurity. The film was inspired by The Story of Myrt and Marge, a popular radio serial which ran from 1931 to 1946. Repeating their radio roles, Myrtle Vail Read More

Under Secret Orders

Actors: Donald Dillaway, John Farrell MacDonald, Nina Quartero, Phyllis Barrington, Don Alvarado

Synopsis: A minor entry from small-scale Progressive Pictures, Under Secret Orders starred the rather pallid Donald Dillaway as Henry Ames, a bank employee assigned to bring valuable bonds from San Francisco to a client, Franklyn Lawrence (Lafe McKee), in South America. En route, Henry hits the bottle once Read More

Peg O' My Heart

Actors: Marion Davies, Alan Mowbray, Onslow Stevens, John Farrell MacDonald, Julie Compton, Irene Browne

Synopsis: The evergreen Laurette Taylor stage vehicle Peg O' My Heart was the basis for this Marion Davies picture. 36-year-old Davies plays a twentysomething Irish colleen who inherits a large sum of money from her grandfather. To collect the legacy, she must leave her beloved Pa (J. Farrell McDonald) and Read More

The Iron Master

Actors: Reginald Denny, Lila Lee, John Farrell MacDonald, Esther Howard, Virginia Sale

Synopsis: In this drama, a bright young mill worker is left in charge of his late employer's estate. This causes many hard feelings from the surviving family. He forces the boss's son and daughter to work in the factory. They do not want to. For revenge they begin divulging trade secrets to a competitor. Read More

The Working Man

Actors: George Arliss, Bette Davis, Hardie Albright, John Farrell MacDonald, Theodore Newton

Synopsis: In this comedy drama, a wealthy shoe magnate is bored with his life. The trouble really begins when his chief rival dies. His company was on the brink of financial ruin and now the bored shoemaker finds himself without even the joy of competition to motivate him. The fellow decides to take a Read More

The Big Payoff

Actors: Lucien Littlefield, Ralph Ince, Barbara Kent, John Farrell MacDonald, Glenn Tryon

Synopsis: Mascot Films, the feisty precursor to Republic Pictures, was responsible for 1933's The Big Payoff. In a rare top-billed role, chameleon-like character-actor Lucien Littlefield plays an innocent man who has been railroaded to the electric chair. Coming to the rescue is Victor Jory, a disgraced Read More

The Racing Strain

Actors: Dickie Moore, Paul Fix

Synopsis: The son of a famed race car driver is so traumatized by witnessing his father's fatal racetrack crash that he refuses to drive. Instead, the young man becomes an ace stunt pilot. His aerial prowess gives him the confidence he needs to get behind the wheel and honor his father's memory. ~ Sandra Read More

Laughing at Life

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Conchita Montenegro, Lois Wilson, Henry B. Walthall

Synopsis: At first concentrating exclusively on westerns and serials, up-and-coming Mascot Pictures began branching out in the early 1930s with such lavish star vehicles as Laughing at Life. Victor McLaglen is in his element as a devil-may-care globetrotting adventurer named McHale. After risking his neck Read More

Men Are Such Fools

Actors: Vivienne Osborne, Una Merkel, Joseph Cawthorn, Tom Moore

Synopsis: An immigrant and his wife arrive in America hoping to make it big in the world of music. Shortly thereafter, though, the husband finds out his wife is having an affair with a local lowlife; when he turns up dead, the husband is jailed for his murder, even though he protests his innocence. ~ Brian Read More

I Loved a Woman

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Kay Francis, Genevieve Tobin, John Farrell MacDonald, Henry Kolker

Synopsis: In this drama, the owner of a Chicago meat-packing company falls in love with a beautiful opera singer. Unfortunately, his selfish, social climbing wife refuses to divorce him. He continues the affair on the sly. As his lover's career begins to ascend, so does his business when he becomes the Read More

The Power and the Glory

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Colleen Moore, Ralph Morgan, Helen Vinson, Clifford Jones

Synopsis: Frequently cited as the precursor to Citizen Kane, Power and the Glory is the first major Hollywood film to extensively utilize narrated flashbacks to tell its story. At the funeral of a powerful railroad executive (Spencer Tracy), the exec's best friend (Ralph Morgan) recalls the dead man's Read More

Steady Company

Synopsis: In this romantic boxing drama, an up-and-comer gets creamed in a fight and decides it is time to take a promoter's advice and fight with more equal partners. His girl friend is very happy about the decision. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Under Eighteen

Actors: Marian Marsh, Regis Toomey, Warren William, Anita Page, Emma Dunn

Synopsis: A wealthy theatrical producer entices a desperately poor young woman to visit his penthouse. The innocent girl doesn't realize that the lecherous fellow is planning to do much more than have a drink with her. Fortunately, her friend the grocery boy isn't so naive and manages to arrive in the nick Read More

Scandal for Sale

Actors: Charles Bickford, Rose Hobart, Pat O'Brien, Claudia Dell, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: In this newspaper drama, a dedicated small-town reporter works hard and becomes the editor of a major New York paper. Unfortunately the man's ambition has blinded him to the needs of his wife and son. When the son dies, the bereaved, and lonely woman decides to leave him. Later the editor Read More

70,000 Witnesses

Actors: Phillips Holmes, Dorothy Jordan, Charlie Ruggles, Johnny Mack Brown, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: This "gimmick" murder mystery begins during a crucial college football game. Wally Clark (Johnny Mack Brown), the team's star player, is killed just before making the winning touchdown, as the titular 70,000 witnesses look on. Wally's teammate Buck Buchanan (Phillips Holmes), the younger brother Read More

Week-End Marriage

Actors: Loretta Young, Norman Foster, George Brent, Aline MacMahon, Vivienne Osborne

Synopsis: In this comedy, a hard-working husband loses his job and his wife becomes the bread winner. The husband feels demeaned by his new role and takes a mistress to regain his lost manhood. The chastened wife eventually returns to the daily drudgery of home so her hubby can feel important and manly Read More

The Vanishing Frontier

Actors: Johnny Mack Brown, Evelyn Knapp, ZaSu Pitts, Raymond Hatton, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: In one of his first westerns, Johnny Mack Brown plays Kirby Tornell, who does the "Robin Hood" bit on the wide open spaces. When not flummoxing the Cavalry, Kirby relaxes by playing the piano and rendering a song or two. Despite Kirby's notorious reputation, Carol Winfield (Evalyn Knapp), the Read More

This Sporting Age

Actors: Jack Holt, Evelyn Knapp, Hardie Albright, Walter Byron, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: The fast-paced world of polo provides the backdrop for this sports drama that centers upon John Steele, a US Army captain obsessed with polo. The trouble begins when he tries to get revenge upon the polo player who took liberties with his daughter Mickey. The vengeful captain causes Charles, the 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

The Pride of the Legion

Synopsis: In this police drama, a cop, known for being a rock under pressure, endeavors to cope with the aftermath of a psychologically traumatic experience at work. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Thirteenth Guest

Actors: Ginger Rogers, Lyle Talbot, John Farrell MacDonald, James C. Eagles, Eddie Phillips

Synopsis: Thirteen years after a dinner party where the wealthy host dropped, the thirteen guests are invited to reassemble at the dinner table. First to arrive is Ginger Rogers--who is promptly killed. It turns out that the dead woman was an impostor, hired to impersonate a real guest (Ginger Rogers Read More

The Hurricane Express [Serial]

Synopsis: The second of two projected John Wayne serials produced by genre expert Mascot Pictures, this film used the budget-saving device of having its master criminal wearing variously fiendish rubber masks, offering him the opportunity to resemble every red herring in the large cast. Known only as "The Read More

Heritage of the Desert

Actors: Randolph Scott, Sally Blane, John Farrell MacDonald, David Landau, Vince Barnett

Synopsis: This second filming of Zane Grey's novel (first brought to the screen by Paramount in 1924 with Bebe Daniels as the female lead) gave Randolph Scott his first starring role. Rancher Adam Naab (J. Farrell MacDonald) owns a spread that includes the only way out of the valley where gang-leader Judson Read More

No Man of Her Own

Actors: Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Dorothy Mackaill, Grant Mitchell, George Barbier

Synopsis: No Man of Her Own represented the only time that Clark Gable and Carole Lombard co-starred in the same picture (at the time the film was made, both were married to other people; their romance and subsequent marriage was several years in the offing). Gable plays a crooked cardsharp who takes it on Read More

The Phantom Express

Synopsis: It is all but impossible to dislike a film as gloriously corny as The Phantom Express. The title is derived from an early scene in which veteran engineer Smokey North (J. Farrell McDonald) wrecks his own train while trying to avoid a head-on collision with another. Suddenly, the other train Read More

Madame Racketeer

Actors: Alison Skipworth, Richard Bennett, Evelyn Knapp, George Raft, Robert McWade

Synopsis: Confidence woman Martha Hicks (Alison Skipworth), better known to those who know her at all as "the Countess," is a career criminal who has just been paroled. She would like to slip away from the authorities and leave the country, but first she wants to look in on the only decent, respectable part Read More

Hotel Continental

Actors: Peggy Shannon, Theodore Von Eltz, Alan Mowbray, John Farrell MacDonald, Rockliffe Fellowes

Synopsis: In this drama, an jewel thief is let out of prison and heads for a New York hotel to find the jewels he hid in the fireplace before he was caught. He must hurry as the building is about to be razed. Unfortunately, the room in which he hid them is occupied and he must stay in the adjoining suite. Read More

Hearts of Humanity

Actors: Jean Hersholt, Jackie Searl, John Farrell MacDonald, Claudia Dell, Charles Delaney

Synopsis: The descriptive phrase "melting pot" is elucidated in the sentimental drama Hearts of Humanity. Jean Hersholt stars as a golden-hearted Jewish pawnbroker whose daughter Caludia Dell falls in love with Irish-Catholic policeman Charles Delaney. When another Irish cop is killed by a burglar, Hersholt Read More

Probation

Actors: Sally Blane, John Darrow, Clara Kimball Young

Synopsis: Sally Blane (Loretta Young's look-alike sister) plays Janet, a Manhattan socialite who is fed up with the superficiality of her friends. Sensing that Janet is bored with life in general, her Uncle George (J. Farrell McDonald), who happens to be a judge, decides to show the girl how well off she Read More

Discarded Lovers

Actors: John Farrell MacDonald, Russell Hopton, Jason Robards, Sr.

Synopsis: In this mystery a sensual starlet suddenly dies. Though she was popular with the public, behind the scenes she had many enemies. The story opens on a movie set. Few mourned her passing, but because the circumstances were suspicious, several suspects are placed under surveillance. One of them is a Read More

The Easiest Way

Actors: Constance Bennett, Adolphe Menjou, Robert Montgomery, Anita Page, Marjorie Rambeau

Synopsis: In this melodrama that was considered utterly scandalous in its day, an impoverished, beautiful young ghetto girl quickly learns that she can get to Easy Street on her back. Her indecent journey begins when a scout discovers her working in a department store. He gets her signed up to a modeling Read More

Touchdown

Actors: Richard Arlen, Peggy Shannon, Jack Oakie, Regis Toomey, George Barbier

Synopsis: In this gridiron drama, a college football coach and ex-All American will stop at nothing to have a winning team. The trouble begins as Dastardly Dan Curtis sends an injured player into a big game. The ploy works and the team wins; unfortunately, the player ends up hospitalized. Later he changes Read More

River's End

Actors: Charles Bickford, Evelyn Knapp, David Torrence, ZaSu Pitts

Synopsis: The second of three versions of James Oliver Curwood's pulp fiction drama of a mountie and his separated-at-birth prey stars Charles Bickford as both Sgt. Conniston and accused murderer John Keith. The latter is persuaded to prove his innocence by impersonating his captor, who has conveniently Read More

The Spirit of Notre Dame

Actors: Lew Ayres, William Bakewell, Andy Devine, Harry Barris, Sally Blane

Synopsis: This drama is set at Notre Dame and follows the exploits of a great football coach (patterned after Knute Rockne) who is conflicting with a promising but arrogant freshman running back. The story centers on the coach's struggle to help Bucky O'Brien understand that his glory hog ways will not help Read More

Sporting Blood

Actors: Clark Gable, Ernest Torrence, Madge Evans, Lew Cody, Marie Prevost

Synopsis: Clark Gable went from supporting actor to star in the space of one year with Sporting Blood, adapted from a novel by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan. Gable is top-billed as a gambling house proprietor named Rid Riddell. When the owner of a prize thoroughbred loses heavily in Riddell's establishment, he Read More

The Squaw Man

Actors: Paul Cavanagh, Lupe Velez, Eleanor Boardman, Roland Young

Synopsis: Cecil B. DeMille's third remake of his debut film, this was the first sound version of Edwin Milton Royle's stage western melodrama. The story centers on a British captain who heads into the American West after taking the blame for his embezzling, blue-blooded cousin to protect the reputation of Read More

Too Young to Marry

Actors: Loretta Young, Grant Withers, O.P. Heggie, Emma Dunn

Synopsis: In this comedy drama set in a small town, a milque-toast gets a backbone and stands up to his overbearing wife. Only one of his daughters is on his side. The family is amazed and shocked by his sudden change. At first they rebel, but when he defies his wife and allows his good daughter to marry Read More

Woman Hungry

Actors: Lila Lee, Raymond Hatton, Fred Kohler, Ken Thomson

Synopsis: In this western, three rambunctious young cowboys head for the hills after spending a night painting a town red and terrorizing its residents. During their flight, they find a woman from the East alone at her brother's home. They are preparing to rape her, but they do not count on her ingenuity. Read More

The Millionaire

Actors: George Arliss, Evelyn Knapp, David Manners, Florence Arliss, Noah Beery, Sr., James Cagney

Synopsis: George Arliss is the millionaire of the title, a retired auto tycoon who's been ordered by his doctor to rest and avoid exercise. Arliss is shaken out of his sedentary existence by an insurance salesman who advises him to pick himself up and enjoy life. The old man heads to California, where he Read More

The Maltese Falcon

Actors: Ricardo Cortez, Bebe Daniels, Dudley Digges, Una Merkel, Robert Elliott

Synopsis: This first of three film adaptations of Dashiel Hammett's The Maltese Falcon plays at times like the road-company version of the more famous 1941 John Huston/Humphrey Bogart adaptation. Ricardo Cortez stars as a slick, rogueish edition of Sam Spade, using his office as a trysting place for his Read More

The Painted Desert

Actors: William "Hopalong" Boyd, Clark Gable, William Farnum, John Farrell MacDonald, Helen Twelvetrees

Synopsis: In this western, an orphan who is discovered alone in the desert is raised by a kindly family. The only dark spot in their lives comes from a long-standing feud with another family, something that eventually comes to an end when the orphan grows up and falls in love with the enemy family's Read More

Other Men's Women

Actors: Grant Withers, Mary Astor, Regis Toomey, James Cagney, Fred Kohler, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: William A. Wellman's triangle melodrama "The Steel Highway" -- a title referring to the film's railroad setting -- was changed to the more suggestive Other Men's Women shortly before it's April 19, 1931 New York premiere. Grant Withers and Regis Toomey played lifelong friends and co-workers in Read More

The Brat

Actors: Sally O'Neil, Alan Dinehart, Virginia Cherrill, June Collyer

Synopsis: Arguably John Ford's weakest film, The Brat was based on a popular 1917 stage play written by and starring Maude Fulton, which in turn was made into a popular comedy for Alla Nazimova in 1919. Although vivacious and pretty, Sally O'Neil was hardly in Nazimova's league but here she is in the title Read More

Broken Dishes

Born Reckless

Actors: Edmund Lowe, Catherine Dale Owen, Lee Tracy, Marguerite Churchill, Warren Hymer

Synopsis: This drama is set during the mid Twenties when gangsters were a bit more genteel than their 1930s counterparts. Based on a true story, it profiles the experiences of a young gangster who, after getting caught during a robbery is given a choice: he can either go to prison or join the military and Read More

Men Without Women

Actors: Kenneth MacKenna, Frank Albertson, Paul Page, Warren Hymer, Walter McGrail

Synopsis: John Ford directed this undersea adventure from the early days of the sound era; it features talking sequences along silent passages with intertitles. After a brief shore leave in Singapore, where sailors have the opportunity to slake their thirsts for both liquor and women, the crew of a U.S. Read More

Happy Days

Synopsis: Filmed in "Fox Grandeur," an early widescreen process, Happy Days was the immediate follow-up to Fox Studios' Movietone Follies of 1929. Most of the film takes place on the showboat of Mississippi entrepreneur Colonel Billy Batcher (Charles E. Evans). When the Colonel faces foreclosure after Read More

Girl of the Golden West

Actors: Ann Harding, James Rennie, Harry Bannister, Ben Hendricks, Jr.

Synopsis: In this, its third cinema incarnation, David Belasco's hoary old Girl of the Golden West received the full swagger treatment from the otherwise lady-like Ann Harding as the gun-toting saloon belle who falls for a handsome outlaw (James Rennie). Again, the story's climax is the dramatic poker game Read More

The Truth About Youth

Actors: Loretta Young, David Manners, Conway Tearle, John Farrell MacDonald, Harry Stubbs

Synopsis: The Truth About Youth is the third film version of Henry V. Esmond's play, When We Were Twenty-One. Richard Dane (David Manners) is turning twenty-one, and his guardian, Dick Carewe (Conway Tearle) has arranged a nice surprise party for him. Unfortunately, Richard (nicknamed "Imp") never shows up Read More

South Sea Rose

Actors: Lenore Ulric, Charles Bickford, Kenneth MacKenna, John Farrell MacDonald, Elizabeth Patterson

Synopsis: In this comedy drama, a very early talkie, set in the splendiferous South Seas, a French lassie charms a sea captain who takes her for his wife and sets sail for his conservative New England home. There the staid locals are shocked by the captain's free-spirited bride. More trouble ensues when the 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

Four Devils

Actors: John Farrell MacDonald, Anders Randolf, Claire McDowell, Jack Parker, Philippe DeLacy

Synopsis: The circus provides the backdrop for this melodrama that chronicles the lives of four children raised within the big top. Two of them have grown to be lovers. Though they appear inseparable, trouble ensues when a usurper takes the girl away. The picture is considered a lost work -- no copies are Read More

The Painted Angel

Actors: Billie Dove, Edmund Lowe, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: A plucky New Orleans singer becomes a star on the New York city night club circuit in this musical drama. In the midst of it all, the woman finds herself between two men. The trouble is, she only desires one of them. Songs include: "Help Yourself to My Love", "Bride without a Groom", "Only the Read More

Song O' My Heart

Actors: John McCormack, Maureen O'Sullivan, John Garrick, J.M. Kerrigan, Tom Clifford, Alice Joyce

Synopsis: Forty-five-year-old Irish tenor John McCormack made his screen debut in Song o' My Heart. Fans of McCormack would have been satisfied if their idol had simply sung his way through the film's 85 minutes, but Fox Studios insisted on a plotline. The star plays Sean O'Callaghan, a world-renowned Read More

Masquerade

Actors: Leila Hyams, Alan Birmingham, Clyde Cook

Synopsis: The second version of Louis Joseph Vance's 1907 mystery melodrama The Brass Bowl, this early talkie featured stage actor Alan Birmingham as wealthy world traveler Dan Maitland and his evil lookalike, the master criminal Anisty. Leila Hyams played Sylvia Graeme, whose father Andrew (George Pierce) Read More

Strong Boy

Actors: Victor McLaglen, Leatrice Joy, John Farrell MacDonald, Clyde Cook, Kent Sanderson

Synopsis: In this comedy drama, an enormous baggage handler earns the reputation of being an all-'round good joe and soon gets promoted. He is in love with Joy, a pretty newsstand girl. Despite his good work, which includes stopping a train robbery, she realizes that her lovable lug will never rise to Read More

Masked Emotions

Actors: George O'Brien, Nora Lane

Synopsis: Kenneth Hawks (Howard's brother) collaborated with Fox contractee David Butler on the direction of the late silent Masked Emotion. The story takes place along the seacoast of California, where sailboat skipper Brandlet Dickey (George O'Brien) stumbles upon a scheme to smuggle Chinese aliens into Read More

The Cohens and Kellys in Paris

Actors: George Sidney, John Farrell MacDonald, Vera Gordon, Kate Price, Charles Delaney

Synopsis: A businessman and his partner rush off to Paris in hopes of stopping their children from getting married. Unfortunately, the two are married before their father's arrive. This romantic comedy follows what happens when the businessmen find themselves having to act as marriage counselors to the Read More

Riley the Cop

Actors: John Farrell MacDonald, Louise Fazenda, Nancy Drexel, David Rollins, Harry Schultz

Synopsis: All evidence suggests that Riley the Cop was a delightful vehicle for John Ford "regular" J. Farrell McDonald. New York policeman James Riley is asked to retrieve neighborhood boy Joe Smith (David Rollins), who skipped town after being falsely accused of theft and is now living a sinful life in 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

Aaron Slick

Actors: Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Jean Hersholt, Nancy Carroll, John Farrell MacDonald, Bernard Gorcey

Synopsis: Anne Nichols' Broadway comedy Abie's Irish Rose was almost universally panned when it opened in 1923. But despite the moans and wails of the critics (notably Robert Benchley, who turned his weekly drubbing of the play into an art form), the Nichols piece ended up as one of the longest-running Read More

Bringing up Father

Actors: John Farrell MacDonald, Jules Cowles, Polly Moran, Marie Dressler, Gertrude Olmstead

Synopsis: George McManus' long-running domestic comic strip Bringing Up Father was brought to the screen by William Randolph Hearst's Cosmopolitan Pictures. Reportedly, Hearst had approached vaudeville's Three Keatons (Joe, Myra and young Buster) to star in this project back in 1916, but Joe Keaton hated Read More

Colleen

Synopsis: A long lost silent comedy-drama, Colleen was a great success for Madge Bellamy, whose popularity reached its zenith in the mid-1920s. According to the Motion Picture News, Bellamy played a debutante who falls in love with the son (Charles Morton) of an impoverished nobleman. "Their love making Read More

East Side, West Side

Actors: George O'Brien, Virginia Valli, John Farrell MacDonald, Dore Davidson

Synopsis: Not a remake of the 1923 film of the same name, East Side, West Side stars George O'Brien as John Breen, who is orphaned early on when his mother and stepfather are killed in a barge accident. With nothing holding him back, John heads to the Big City he's always dreamed about. Here he becomes a Read More

Rich But Honest

Actors: Nancy Nash, Charles Morton, John Farrell MacDonald, Tyler Brooke

Synopsis: This flimsy but entertaining comedy-drama was based on a story by Arthur Somers Roche. It's a typical yarn of the era, about two girls who are first seen working behind the counter at a department store but who manage to become chorus girls with the help of Diamond Jim (J. Farrell MacDonald). Read More

Cradle Snatchers

Actors: Louise Fazenda, Ethel Wales, Franklin Pangborn, Dorothy Phillips

Synopsis: This first film version of the popular Russell Medcraft-Norma Mitchell stage farce The Cradle Snatchers is also one of the earliest directorial efforts of Howard Hawks. Tired of their husbands' philandering, three wealthy matrons decide to fight fire with fire by hiring three college boys to pose Read More

Sunrise

Actors: George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston, Bodil Rosing, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: Considered by many to be the finest silent film ever made by a Hollywood studio, F.W. Murnau's Sunrise represents the art of the wordless cinema at its zenith. Based on the Hermann Sudermann novel A Trip to Tilsit, this "Song of Two Humans" takes place in a colorful farming community, where people Read More

Love Makes 'em Wild

Synopsis: It's not for nothing that wimpish Willie Angle (Johnny Harron) is known as "Willie the Worm." Victimized and dumped on by everyone with whom he comes in contact, Willie is too shy and cowardly to retaliate. But when his doctor informs him that he has only six months to live, Willie's worm turns Read More

Bertha, the Sewing Machine Girl

Actors: Madge Bellamy, Anita Garvin, Sally Phipps, Ethel Wales

Synopsis: Earlier in the century, this melodrama about a young girl in the garment industry was a famous stage play. To bring it to the screen in 1926, the Fox studios changed modest Bertha in her gingham apron into a modern young lady who wears silk lingerie. Madge Bellamy was well-cast in the title role. Read More

Ankles Preferred

Actors: Madge Bellamy, Lawrence Gray, Barry Norton, Allan Forrest, Marjorie Beebe

Synopsis: Madge Bellamy plays a vivacious clothes model in Ankles Preferred. Tired of being appreciated only for her beauty, Bellamy sets out to prove that she's got brains as well. This leads to a number of comic mishaps, ranging from a tussle with an amorous financier to a zany car chase. In the end, she Read More

Paid to Love

Actors: George O'Brien, Virginia Valli, John Farrell MacDonald, Thomas Jefferson, William Powell

Synopsis: It has often been reported that Howard Hawks tried and failed to create an "art" film with Paid to Love, only to return to his traditional no-nonsense cinematic approach when the film failed at the box-office. While it is true that Hawks adopted a "Germanic" approach, replete with languid tracking Read More

Family Upstairs

Actors: Virginia Valli, Allan Simpson, John Farrell MacDonald, Lillian Elliott

Synopsis: The Family Upstairs is based on the same-named play by Harry Delf. The titular family is comprised of losers and layabouts, all except for the daughter, pretty Louise Hellor (Virginia Valli). When Louise falls in love with handsome Charles Grant (Allan Simpson), she invites the boy home for dinner Read More

The Dixie Merchant

Synopsis: Jean Paul Fippany (J. Farrell MacDonald) is so wrapped up in his horse, a filly named Marseillaise, that he neglects his wife, Josephine (Claire McDowell), and his daughter, Aida (Madge Bellamy). Finally, Josephine is fed up and walks out on him. Aida also leaves after her romance with Jimmy Read More

Country Beyond

Actors: Olive Borden, Ralph Graves, Gertrude Astor, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: The Country Beyond is another "Northwest Mountie" opus from the pen of James Oliver Curwood. Filmed on location in Canada's Jasper National Park, the story focuses on Valencia (Olive Borden), an orphan girl left in the care of the abusive Hawkins family. Fugitive from justice Roger McKay (Ralph Graves Read More

Trip to Chinatown

Synopsis: Vampy Margaret Livingston and stalwart Earl Foxe seem miscast in this farce comedy. Foxe plays a young hypochondriac who believes that he has only a week to live. His name, by the way, is Welland Strong (get it?). He decides to visit his uncle (J. Farrell MacDonald) in the short amount of time he Read More

The First Year

Actors: Matt Moore, Katherine Perry, John Patrick, Frank Currier, Virginia Madison

Synopsis: Frank Craven's hit Broadway comedy The First Year was gracefully adapted for the screen by Oscar-winning wordsmith Frances Marion. Matt Moore and Kathryn Perry star as young married couple Tom and Grace, who do their best to cope with the million-and-one crises facing them during their first year Read More

Last Frontier

Actors: Marguerite de la Motte, John Farrell MacDonald, Jack Hoxie

Synopsis: A stalwart government scout, Tom Kirby (William Boyd) and his best friend, the legendary frontiersman Buffalo Bill Cody (Jack Hoxie) lead a wagon train through Indian territory when they are attacked by Pawnee Killer (Frank Lackteen). A young woman named Beth is saved, but her parents are killed Read More

Three Bad Men

Actors: George O'Brien, Olive Borden, Lou Tellegen, John Farrell MacDonald, Tom Santschi

Synopsis: Long thought lost, the silent Three Bad Men is an vital ingredient in the cinematic canon of director John Ford. Often described as a film version of Peter B. Kyne's Three Godfathers (which Ford would direct in 1948), Three Bad Men is actually based on Over the Border, a novel by Herman Whitaker. Read More

Shamrock Handicap

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Leslie Fenton, John Farrell MacDonald, Louis Payne, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: Based on a story by Peter B. Kyne, the long-lost John Ford silent Shamrock Handicap begins in Ireland. Because he refuses to collect rent payments from his impoverished tenants, kindly Irish nobleman Sir Miles Gaffney is in danger of losing his estate. He is forced to sell off part of his racing Read More

Kentucky Pride

Synopsis: John Ford directed this sentimental horse opera set among the racing crowd in Kentucky. Henry B. Walthall, of Griffith's Birth of a Nation fame, starred as Beaumont, a horse breeder losing everything he owns on the horse Virginia's Future. His upwardly mobile wife (Gertrude Astor) having deserted Read More

Thank You

Actors: George O'Brien, Jacqueline Logan, Alec B. Francis, John Farrell MacDonald, Cyril Chadwick

Synopsis: The wild behavior of Kenneth Jamieson (George O'Brien) has finally gone too far and his millionaire father (George Fawcett) hands him a small allowance and sends him to live on a chicken farm in the tiny hamlet of Dedham. The pastor there, David Lee (Alec B. Francis), is an old friend of Read More

Scarlet Honeymoon

Synopsis: This comedy-drama was character actor Alan Hale Sr.'s first attempt at directing. Señor Fernando, a wealthy Argentinean (Eric Mayne), sends his son, Pedro (Pierre Gendron), to New York City to handle some business matters. There, Pedro meets Kay Thorpe, a pretty stenographer (Shirley Mason), and 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

The Lucky Horseshoe

Actors: Tom Mix, Billie Dove, Ann Pennington, Malcolm Waite, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: Either you loved Tom Mix or you disapproved of his turning westerns into three-ring circuses. The Lucky Horseshoe presented Mix at his very best/worst in a story that was more Douglas Fairbanks than William S. Hart. Spurned by his employer's daughter, Elvira (Billie Dove, foreman Rand Foster turns Read More

Let Women Alone

Actors: Pat O'Malley, Wanda Hawley, Wallace Beery, Ethel Wales, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: A woman is led to believe her scheming husband is dead in this melodrama taken from the story by Viola Brothers Shore. Beth Wylie (Wanda Hawley) is fooled into thinking her husband Jim (Harris Gordon) is dead. Jim is very much alive and smuggling Chinese into the country. After a quarrel with her Read More

Western Luck

Actors: Charles "Buck" Jones

Synopsis: A below-average Buck Jones oater, Western Luck trotted out the old plot about brothers separated at birth who meet on opposite sides of the fence, so to speak. One becomes a rancher, the other grows up on the East coast. The Easterner tries to foreclose on his brother's property, which Read More

The Signal Tower

Actors: Rockliffe Fellowes, Wallace Beery, Frankie Darro, James O. Barrows

Synopsis: Although Universal billed this tense drama as a "Super Jewel," there's nothing epic about it -- it's a straightforward, well-told story about a signal-man and his family. David Tolliver (Rockcliffe Fellowes), his wife Sally (Virginia Valli), and their little boy Sonny (Frankie Darro) live near the Read More

The Storm Daughter

Actors: Tom Santschi, William B. Davidson, Bert Roach, Alfred Fisher

Synopsis: Although Priscilla Dean is starred in this dramatic Universal character study, it's Tom Santschi who has the meatier role. Brute Morgan (Santschi) is the skipper of a large sailing vessel which runs down a little fishing boat belonging to Kate Masterson (Dean). Morgan rescues her, then forces her 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

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

Quicksands

Actors: Helene Chadwick, Richard Dix, Alan Hale, Noah Beery, Sr.

Synopsis: With a screenplay by Howard Hawks and direction by Jack Conway, this Mexican border tale couldn't possibly have been anything less than a vigorously rugged production. The all-star cast, including some of the best-known villains of the day (Noah Beery and Walter Long among them), adds to the Read More

Racing Hearts

Actors: Agnes Ayres, Richard Dix, Theodore Roberts, Robert Cain, Warren Rogers

Synopsis: Even though Wallace Reid died only a few weeks before this film's release, the genre of racing car movies which he made famous apparently lived on. Since Reid was no longer around to star in them, Paramount put Richard Dix in the lead and gave him Agnes Ayres as his co-star. All but stealing the Read More

Bonded Woman

Actors: Betty Compson, John Bowers, Richard Dix, John Farrell MacDonald, Ethel Wales

Synopsis: Angela Gaskill (Betty Compson) travels to the South Seas to help sailor John Somers (John Bowers) kick his addition to alcohol. The two are marooned on a desert island after her sober father Captain Gaskill (J. Farrell MacDonald) wrecks the boat, but the drunken sailor has the wherewithal to save Read More

The Ghost Breaker

Actors: Wallace Reid, Lila Lee, Walter Hiers, Arthur Edmund Carewe

Synopsis: This jumbled light comedy was one of the last pictures featuring silent matinee idol Wallace Reid -- after being given morphine for an injury in 1919, Reid became a drug addict and he died a few months after this film's release. When the penniless Maria Theresa (Lila Lee) hears of a treasure Read More

Over the Border

Synopsis: In the days before air-conditioned theaters, this action-packed tale of the frozen Northwest was a welcome summer release. Its subject matter -- bootlegging -- was also a popular one in the days of the Volstead Act, better known as Prohibition. Sergeant Tom Flaherty of the Northwest Mounted (Tom 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

The Young Rajah

Actors: Rudolph Valentino, Wanda Hawley, Pat Moore, Charles Ogle

Synopsis: Having played a sheik, it only made sense to cast Rudolph Valentino -- whose first name was still being spelled Rodolph -- as an Indian rajah. At least, that's how Paramount saw things, and that's really the only excuse for the creation of this drama. The Judds, Caleb (Spottiswoode Aitken) and Read More

Sky High

Synopsis: Tom Mix went the Douglas Fairbanks route with this silent West, augmenting the usual sagebrush melodramatics with a clear sense of comedy, even satire. The tale of an immigration officer battling a gang smuggling Chinese labor across the border from Mexico was merely an excuse for Mix to perform a Read More

Riding with Death

Synopsis: A strong supporting cast that included blond flapper Betty Francisco, veteran supporting player J. Farrell McDonald and smooth-looking action leading man Jack Mower elevated Riding with Death above the average Buck Jones western. Texas Ranger Steve Dorsey (Jones) searches for the villain who Read More

Freeze Out

Synopsis: A stranger (Harry Carey) comes to the Western town of Broken Buckle, but discovers that the gambling hall there is crooked. He decides to open up an honest one of his own, but town school teacher Zoe Whipple (Helen Ferguson) wants him to do something more positive with himself. Denver Red, the Read More

The Wallop

Synopsis: Director John Ford based this silent western on The Girl He Left Behind by Eugene Manlove Rhodes, turning it into a fine vehicle for the veteran Harry Carey as a prospector who strikes it rich but loses his girl in the process. The husband-to-be is Carey's best friend, William A. Steele, a Read More

Trailin'

Actors: Tom Mix, Eva Novak, Bert Sprotte, James Gordon, Carol Holloway

Synopsis: Max Brand's 1920 novel became a rousing Tom Mix Western less than a year later. A complicated story of love and revenge, Trailin' opens with rivals William Drew (Jay Morley) and John Bard (Cecil Van Auker) battling for the love of Joan (Carol Holloway), the daughter of notorious outlaw Blotto (J. Farrell McDonald Read More

Desperate Youth

Synopsis: This romance of the post-Civil War days begins in the old West. When her father (Louis Willoughby) is killed by a claim jumper, Rosemary Merridew (Gladys Walton) leaves California and goes back home to Alabama. She stays with her uncle (also played by Willoughby), but she is mistreated by his wife Read More

Action

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

While Paris Sleeps

Actors: Lon Chaney, Mildred Manning

Synopsis: This melodrama, made in 1920 but not released until 1923, was based on a novel, The Glory of Love, by "Pan." Henri Santados (Lon Chaney), a sculptor in the Latin Quarter of Paris, is in love with his model, Bebe Larvache (Mildred Manning). Bebe, however, has met and fallen in love with a young Read More

Under Sentence

Hitchin' Posts

Synopsis: Following the Civil War, Southerner Jefferson Todd (Frank Mayo) finds himself broke, so he becomes a river boat gambler. One of his fellow card players is Colonel Brereton (Mark Fenton), who bets four horses -- the last of his possessions -- and loses. As a result, he commits suicide and Todd is Read More

Path She Chose

Synopsis: In this tale, Virginia Clerson (Anne Cornwall) is a girl of the tenements. Her father (J. Farrell McDonald) is a drunk, her brother a liar, and her sister (Claire Anderson) seeks a life of glamour and ease. But Virginia wants something different, so she strikes out on her own and finds work in a Read More

Marked Men

Synopsis: This heartwarming Harry Carey Western was based on the story Three Godfathers by Peter B. Kyne, which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. Harry is in jail on a train robbery charge, along with his two pals Tom Gibbons (Joe Harris) and Tony Garcia (Ted Brooks). They break out of jail and go Read More

Molly of the Follies

Synopsis: Margarita Fisher -- who'd dropped the "c" in her last name as part of the "de-Germanization" policies of WWI -- played the title role in the Pathe five-reeler Molly of the Follies. Heroine Molly Malone (Fisher) is a sideshow dancer at a carnival where the star attraction is underwater acrobat Joe Read More

Roped

Synopsis: Ranch owner Cheynne Harry (Harry Carey) winds up romancing Easterner Aileen Judson-Brown (Neva Gerber) because of an advertisement run by his friends as a joke. Harry and Aileen fall in love, though, and he goes to New York to marry her. But her mother (Molly McConnell) sees Harry only as a meal Read More

Fight for Love

Synopsis: In this tale of the Canadian Northwest, Harry Carey plays Cheyenne Harry, who is on the lam after getting tangled up with some cattle rustlers. He hides out at an Indian camp, where he encounters a lovely young Native-American maiden (Neola May). But along comes half-breed whiskey runner Black Read More

The Outcasts of Poker Flat

Synopsis: Bret Harte's story gets an unusual adaptation in the hands of director John Ford (in the days when he was known as Jack Ford) and western star Harry Carey. Carey takes a break from his usual "Harry Carey" role to play a man in love with a much younger woman (Gloria Hope). He is convinced however Read More

This Hero Stuff

Synopsis: Captain November Jones (William Russell) returns to his home in the West after fighting in the Great War and earning three medals for valor. But he's put off by the unstinting hero worship he receives, and when some swindlers try to ruin his reputation by branding him a coward, he is rather happy Read More

Riders of Vengeance

Synopsis: Legendary director John Ford began his long, eventful screen career helming Harry Carey westerns for Universal. He got that job courtesy of big brother Francis Ford, but the youngster quickly established himself as the Ford to watch. He was not quite there yet, but Riders of Vengeance was a Read More

Sporting Chance

Actors: William Russell

Synopsis: John Stonehouse (William Russell) checks into a hotel, intending to commit suicide. But instead he winds up helping a girl, Gilberte Bonheur (Fritzi Brunette), out of a jam. He finds her bending over a man who she has apparently killed, and since he's about to kill himself anyway, he offers to Read More

Rags

Synopsis: The relationship between a plucky daughter and her brutish father is dissected in this classic Mary Pickford drama set in a mining community. Pickford plays "Rags," a pretty but wild girl who defends her alcoholic father (J. Farrell MacDonald), a disgraced bank cashier, no matter how he mistreats Read More

The Last Egyptian

Synopsis: Disappointed with the meager box-office returns from such earlier films as Patchwork Girl of Oz and His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz, the financial backers of L. Frank Baum's Oz Film Company demanded that Baum temporarily abandon the family trade and concentrate on an "adult" story. The Read More

The Patchwork Girl of Oz

Crew: Director

Actors: Pierre Couderc, Violet MacMillan, Frank Moore

Synopsis: Patchwork Girl of Oz is one of a handful of extant productions from author L. Frank Baum's short-lived Oz Film Manufacturing Company. It was also the company's first release, and as such was carefully designed to entreat audiences into demanding additional "Oz" pictures. Patrick Couderc, who Read More

The Magic Cloak of Oz

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Author L. Frank Baum adapts his own original story for the silver screen in this fantasy adventure directed by J. Darrell MacDonald. A young girl named Fluff is bestowed a magical robe that was woven by fairies, and has the power to grant its owner a single wish. Soon thereafter, Fluff and her Read More