Joseph W. GirardFilmography

Sergeant York

Actors: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, Ward Bond, Margaret Wycherly, Stanley Ridges

Synopsis: When World War I hero Alvin York agreed to sell the movie rights to his life story to Warner Bros., it was on three conditions: (1) That the film contains no phony heroics, (2) that Mrs.York not be played by a Hollywood "glamour girl" and (3) That Gary Cooper portray York on screen. All three Read More

The Green Archer [Serial]

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

Tough Kid

Actors: Frankie Darro, Dick Purcell, Judith Allen, Lillian Elliott, Don Rowan

Synopsis: A bad seed tries to keep his older brother from making the same mistakes in this crime drama. The latter is a prize fighter who is becoming entangled with the mob. The younger one is already connected and doesn't want to see gangsters exploiting his elder sibling. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Crashing Thru

Actors: James Newill, Warren Hull, Jean Carmen, Milburn Stone, Walter Byron

Synopsis: This adventure is the last entry in the "Renfrew of the Mounties" series. This time the tuneful Mountie travels to the north woods where he must thwart an American mobster's plot to swipe a large gold shipment. Interspersed amongst the action are two songs: "You're Easy on the Eyes," and "Crimson Read More

Navy Secrets

Actors: Fay Wray, Grant Withers, Dewey Robinson, William Von Brincken, Craig Reynolds

Synopsis: A federal agent and a petty Naval officer are both investigating the theft of top-secret defense plans. Since neither one is aware that the other is working on the case, each considers the other to be the prime suspect. They end up getting romantic and catching the real spies. ~ Steve Huey, All Read More

Ride 'em Cowgirl

Actors: Dorothy Page, Milton Frome, Frank Ellis, Harrington Reynolds

Synopsis: In what must have seemed like a good idea at the time, Grand National pictures attempted to build a series of westerns around a singing cowgirl, played by Dorothy Page. In Ride 'Em Cowgirl, Page acquits herself nicely as Helen Rickson, who tries to combat the villains all by her lonesome. Though Read More

Unashamed

Synopsis: This independently-produced exploitationer is set in a nudist colony, populated almost exclusively by attractive young women. It all begins when young pill-popper Robert Lawton (Robert Stanley) is advised to take a long rest. Lawton's secretary Rae Lane (Rae Kidd), a dedicated nudist, suggests Read More

Whirlwind Horseman

Actors: Ken Maynard, Joan Barclay, Kenneth Harlan, Joseph W. Girard

Synopsis: The first of six Ken Maynard Westerns produced on the cheap by the Alexander brothers, Max and Arthur, Whirlwind Horseman awarded Ken one of filmdom's least memorable sidekicks, Bill Griffith. En route to their friend Cherokee Jake's (Budd Buster) gold mine, Ken and Happy Holmes are waylaid by Read More

Clipped Wings

Actors: Lloyd Hughes, Rosalind Keith, William Janney, George Regas, Rychard Cramer

Held for Ransom

Actors: Blanche Mehaffey, Grant Withers, Jack Mulhall, Kenneth Harlan

Synopsis: Cheap-looking even by the standards of Grand National Pictures, Held for Ransom appears to have been completed several years before its official 1938 release date. The charmingly untalented Blanche Mehaffey heads the cast as FBI agent Betty Mason. At the risk of her own neck, Betty pursues the Read More

S.O.S. Coast Guard [Serial]

Actors: Ralph Byrd, Bela Lugosi, Maxine Doyle, Herbert Rawlinson, Richard Alexander

Synopsis: In his third of four action serials, horror star Bela Lugosi played Boroff, an internationally notorious fiend who's attempting to pawn off his deadly invention, a disintegrating gas, to the highest bidder. Before the gas can be manufactured, however, Boroff must go in search of certain hard to Read More

The Mystery of the Hooded Horseman

Actors: Tex Ritter, Iris Meredith, Horace Murphy, Charles King, Earl Dwire

Synopsis: Based on the notorious Black Legion which had created quite a turmoil in Michigan a few years earlier, screenwriter Edmund Kelso and director Al Taylor crafted one of the better Tex Ritter musical Westerns. Filmed on location at Kernville, California, The Mystery of the Hooded Horsemen was made Read More

The Rangers Step in

Actors: Eleanor Stewart, John Merton, Hal Taliaferro, Jack Ingram

Synopsis: A courageous Texas Ranger leaves his job to mediate a violent, long-standing dispute between his family and that of his sweetheart. When, his investigations reveal that there is a third party of troublemakers involved, he gallops off to stop them and restore the peace. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Read More

A Tenderfoot Goes West

Actors: Jack LaRue, Virginia Carroll, Russell Gleason, Joseph W. Girard, John Ince

Synopsis: In this western, a citified writer of pulp westerns decides to head into the West to experience it first hand. Unfortunately, he finds himself entangled with an outlaw and then falsely accused of murder. Fortunately, the greenhorn is saved from hanging by a brave hero. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Read More

The Oregon Trail

Synopsis: Though released by Republic, The Oregon Trail was actually filmed by the Lone Star unit at Monogram. John Wayne stars in a bargain-basement rehash of his earlier The Big Trail. Battling his way through reams of stock footage, the Duke leads a wagon train through the rugged frontier. He also keeps Read More

Ride 'em Cowboy

Actors: Buck Jones, George Cooper, William E. Lawrence, Luana Walters, Joseph W. Girard

Synopsis: Buck Jones was producing as well as starring in his own western series by the time Ride 'Em Cowboy hit the screen. A heady combination of old and new, this one casts Jones as champeen auto racer Jess Burns, who reverts to his horse when called upon to rout the villains. The story comes to a Read More

Aces and Eights

Actors: Tim McCoy, Jimmy Aubrey, Luana Walters, Wheeler Oakman, Earl Hodgins

Synopsis: Although slow-moving at times, Aces and Eights is nevertheless a fine little Western and certainly the best of the ten Tim McCoy would make for low-budget (and short-lived) Puritan Pictures. McCoy plays the legendary Wild Bill Hickock in a prologue that depicts how Wild Bill is assassinated during Read More

The Clutching Hand [Serial]

Synopsis: The second of three serials produced by the Weiss Bros. for low-budget Stage and Screen Productions, The Clutching Hand brought back that eminent detective Craig Kennedy, who had first appeared in Pearl White's The Exploits of Elaine back in 1915. Now played by the veteran Jack Mulhall, another Read More

Kentucky Blue Streak

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a jockey, wrongfully imprisoned for riding at an "illegal" racetrack, escapes from prison just prior to his parole so he can ride Blue Streak in the Kentucky Derby. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Outlawed Guns

Actors: Monte Montague, Buck Jones, Pat O'Brien, Frank McGlynn, Sr.

Synopsis: Outlawed Guns stars Buck Jones as Reece Rivers, the nice-guy older brother of headstrong Babe Rivers (played by Pat O'Brien -- not the Warner Bros. star of the same name). When Babe gets mixed up with outlaws, Reece loyally takes the rap. Eventually Babe pays for his recklessness with his life Read More

The Ivory-Handled Gun

Actors: Buck Jones, Charlotte Wynters, Walter Miller, Carl Stockdale, Frank Rice

Synopsis: In this Western, neighboring sheep farmers engage in a long-standing feud over that results in tragedy. The problem began when someone began stealing their livestock. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Outlaw Deputy

Actors: Tim McCoy, Nora Lane, Bud Osborne

Synopsis: Based on "The King of Cactusville", a 1923 short story by Johnston McCulley, the creator of Zorro, The Outlaw Deputy was the first of ten Tim McCoy Westerns from Poverty Row company Puritan Pictures. When McCoy's friend, Charlie Adams (Si Jenks), is killed by Bill Sanderson, the former cowboy and Read More

Blazing Guns

The Tonto Kid

Frontier Justice

Actors: Hoot Gibson, Jane Barnes, Rychard Cramer, Roger Williams

Synopsis: Unlike most low-budget B-Westerns, several of Hoot Gibson's vehicles from Diversion Pictures were based on a literary source, in this case a pulp fiction novel by Colonel George B. Rodney. Helmed by former Our Gang director Robert McGowan, Frontier Justice presented Gibson as Brent Halston, a Read More

His Fighting Blood

Synopsis: This Western stars Kermit Maynard as a man who goes to jail for a crime actually committed by his brother and his gang. Upon his release, Maynard joins the Canadian Mounties to track down the real bad guys. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Murder in the Museum

Synopsis: The distinguished Henry B. Walthall, a major star of the early silent screen, headlined this cheap whodunit that fully capitalized on his remaining box-office pull in the hinterlands. Walthall plays Professor Mysto, a carnival magician warned by his boss, Carr (Lynton Brent), that a group of Read More

The Fighting Trooper

Actors: Kermit Maynard, Barbara Worth, LeRoy Mason, Charles Delaney

Synopsis: Kermit Maynard, the talented brother of western favorite Ken Maynard, launched his own starring series for Ambassador Films with The Fighting Trooper. Maynard is cast as fledgling Royal Canadian Mountie Burke, who hopes to avenge the murder of his best friend. Disguising himself as a trapper Read More

Racetrack

Actors: Leo Carrillo, Kay Hammond, Lee Moran, Huntly Gordon

Synopsis: In this drama, Joe Tomasso, a slightly corrupt gambler, goes completely straight after he catches an orphan hanging around the racing stables and decides to take the lad under his wing. He then helps the kid become a jockey. Later the boys real mother appears and begs her son not to race; she also Read More

The Fiddlin' Buckaroo

Actors: Ken Maynard, Gloria Shea, Fred Kohler, Frank Rice, Joseph W. Girard

Synopsis: In this musical western, everybody sings, even the outlaws. The story follows a government agent who goes undercover as a musical ventriloquist named Fiddlin' to find an ruthless outlaw and his gang. The gang comes to Fiddlin's town, commits a robbery and leaves the ventriloquist to shoulder the Read More

Via Pony Express

Actors: Lane Chandler, Marceline Day, Julian Rivero, Matthew Betz, Doris Hill

Synopsis: Former silent screen cowboy star Jack Hoxie played a Pony Express rider in this, the fourth of six low-budget oaters produced by Majestic. Delivering a valuable deed to El Rio Rancho, Buck Carson (Hoxie) is ambushed by Clem Porter (Matthew Betz) and his gang, who steal the deed. Meanwhile, at El Read More

The World Gone Mad

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Evelyn Brent, Neil Hamilton, Mary Brian, Louis Calhern

Synopsis: Plodding through the dialogue-heavy script, this is still a timely movie topic. Dealing with white collar crime, this is the story of a reporter who discovers that the District Attorney is going to be murdered by some high-rolling Wall Streeters. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Officer 13

Actors: Charles Delaney, Robert Ellis, Frances Rich, Joseph W. Girard, Jackie Searl

Synopsis: Police officer Tom Malone is the only honest man left who can salvage his crooked city after his partner is killed on his motorcycle by a wealthy playboy on a careless joyride. With criminals and crooked city officials at every turn, it will take courage, duty, and decency for Tom to make right Read More

Renegades of the West

Synopsis: A vengeful cowpoke rides out for revenge against the cattle rustlers who killed his pa in this western. Along the way, he finds and adopts a cuddly little baby. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide 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

Radio Patrol

Actors: Robert Armstrong, Russell Hopton, Lila Lee, June Clyde, Andy Devine

Synopsis: The concept of radio patrol cars was still brand-spanking new when this fast-moving programmer came off the Universal assembly line. Robert Armstrong and Russell Hopton star as Bill Kennedy and Pat Bourke, a pair of radio cops assigned to protect the payroll of a meat-packing company. Their job is Read More

The Big Stampede

Actors: John Wayne, Noah Beery, Sr., Mae Madison

Synopsis: Thrifty Warner Bros. remade their old silent Ken Maynard Westerns as starring vehicles for John Wayne, dressing young Wayne up to match the stock footage of Maynard in action. The Big Stampede used plenty of footage from its 1927 predecessor, The Land Beyond the Law, and the inserts, filmed at a Read More

Trapped in Tia Juana

Actors: Edwina Booth, Duncan Renaldo, Dot Farley, Joseph W. Girard

Synopsis: Produced by one of Hollywood's few women executives, Fanchon Royer, this inexpensive "Zorro" rip-off features future Cisco Kid Duncan Renaldo as identical twins separated in childhood by an Indian raid. The remaining twin, Kenneth, later graduates from West Point and falls in love with beautiful Read More

Texas Bad Man

Actors: Tom Mix, Fred Kohler, Willard Robertson, Lucille Powers, Joseph W. Girard

Synopsis: The 1932 Tom Mix western talkie Texas Bad Man has much in common with the sombre silent efforts by Mix's former rival William S. Hart. Lawman Mix deliberately cultivates a reputation as an outlaw in order to infiltrate a gang of thieves. What sets this one apart from most budget westerns of its Read More

The Crusader

Actors: Evelyn Brent, H.B. Warner, Lew Cody, Ned Sparks, Walter Byron

Synopsis: The Crusader was one of the earliest efforts from Majestic Pictures, for many years the most ambitious of the independent production firms. H.B. Warner plays the title character, incorruptible district attorney Phillip Brandon. Hoping to silence Brandon, a gang of crooks uncover some unsavory Read More

Mystery Train

Actors: Hedda Hopper, Bryant Washburn, Marceline Day, Jack Richardson

Synopsis: Future gossip columnist Hedda Hopper enjoyed one of her few top-billed movie roles in the independently-produced thriller Mystery Train. After several reels of heavy plotting, a Pullman car is cut loose from its train and sent hurtling down a steep railway slope in the Rockies. Hero Ronald Read More

Is There Justice?

Actors: Henry B. Walthall

Synopsis: The answer to the question asked by small-scale Sono Art/World Wide Pictures in this minor crime drama was a resounding -- only if the screenwriters pulled a couple of fast ones. All-purpose leading man Red Lease starred as Jerry Heath, an intrepid reporter whose sister, June (Helen Foster), goes Read More

The Gang Buster

Actors: Jack Oakie, Jean Arthur, William "Stage" Boyd, Wynne Gibson, William Morris

Synopsis: In this comedy, a bumbling rube from a small town manages to get involved in a gang war. The trouble really begins when one mob boss orders him to kidnap a young woman. The naive simpleton protests, telling him that he cannot because it is against the law. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Defenders of the Law

Actors: Edmund Breese, Catherine Dale Owen, John Holland, Robert Gleckler

Synopsis: Assigned by the police commissioner to catch a notorious gangster, a young police captain discovers that his adversary is a former friend in this low-budget crime drama from Syndicate Film Exchanges. The gangster, Joe Velet (Robert Gleckler), is arrested for possession of a firearm and is revealed Read More

Desert Vengeance

Actors: Buck Jones, Barbara Bedford, Douglas Gilmore, Ed Brady

Synopsis: In this western, the leader of an outlaw band gets conned on a steamship voyage. To get revenge he holds the con man's fearless sister hostage in the mining town he calls home base. The two fall in love. Another band of desperados attacks the town. A shoot-out ensues and only the gang leader and Read More

Scareheads

Actors: Gareth Hughes, Joseph W. Girard, Virginia True Boardman, King Baggot

Synopsis: To say that ace stuntman Richard Talmadge was invariably better than his movie vehicles is small praise, indeed, since most of his films were shabbily produced and miserably directed. Scareheads isn't much better than the usual Talmadge epic, but the star is as watchable as ever. This time, Talmadge Read More

Strictly Dishonorable

Actors: Paul Lukas, George Meeker, William Ricciardi

Synopsis: Preston Sturges' hit Broadway play Strictly Dishonorable was adapted for the movies in 1931 with virtually all its sexual innuendo intact. In New York City, a young American girl (Sidney Fox) tires of her abusive live-in boy friend. She falls for a roguish Italian singer (Paul Lukas) with a bad Read More

Dishonored

Actors: Marlene Dietrich, Victor McLaglen, Lew Cody, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Warner Oland

Synopsis: Contemporary viewers who go into Dishonored expecting a musty, dated espionage melodrama will be in for a surprise. Marlene Dietrich delivers a subtle and witty performance as a Viennese prostitute who offers her services as a spy during WWI. As "Agent X-27" our heroine proves invaluable to her Read More

The Sky Spider

Actors: Glenn Tryon, Beryl Mercer, Blanche Mehaffey, John Trent

Synopsis: A decidedly minor entry in the then-popular aviation melodrama cycle, The Sky Spider was the first film produced by sound engineer Ralph M. Like's low-budget Action Pictures. Former silent screen juvenile Glenn Tryon and Pat O'Malley are sibling air mail pilots vying for the same girl, Blanche Mehaffey Read More

Just Imagine

Actors: El Brendel, Maureen O'Sullivan, John Garrick, Marjorie White, Frank Albertson

Synopsis: Made in 1930, this well-known sci-fi musical chronicles the adventures of a lightning-struck man who awakens to find himself in futuristic New York City, circa 1980. He finds it a strange new world where fantastically attired people are ascribed numbers rather than names and all marriages must be Read More

Troopers Three

Actors: Rex Lease, Dorothy Gulliver, Roscoe Karns, George "Slim" Summerville, Tom London

Synopsis: Rex Lease, Tiffany Studios' all-purpose leading man, heads the cast of Troopers Three. Eddie Haskins (Lease) and his buddies Bugs (Roscoe Karns) and Sunny (Slim Summerville) are washed-up vaudevillians who decide to join the Cavalry, if only for three square meals a day. Once they've filled their Read More

Sons of the Saddle

Actors: Doris Hill, Francis Ford, Joseph W. Girard, Carroll Nye, Harry Todd

Synopsis: The dashing Ken Maynard, who always warned that he sang loudly rather than well, finished his 1929-1930 stay at Universal with this average early sound western. Maynard sang several heart-felt prairie ballads in the film and even cut a record for Columbia. One of his songs, Down the Home Trail Read More

The Unholy Three

Actors: Lila Lee, Elliott Nugent, Harry Earles, John Miljan

Synopsis: A remake of the 1925 Lon Chaney melodrama of the same name, 1930's The Unholy Three makes several concessions to the newly strengthened Hollywood censors, but is still quite entertaining in a macabre sort of way. Chaney reprises his role as Professor Echo, a sideshow ventriloquist who moonlights 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 Third Alarm

Actors: Anita Louise, James Hall, Paul Hurst, Jean Hersholt, Hobart Bosworth

Synopsis: In this drama, the children of a recently deceased firefighter are sent to an orphanage. Two other firefighters offered to take the brother and his older sister in, but the authorities demurred and the children are whisked away. Time passes and one day the orphanage catches fire. The fireman rush Read More

Back from Shanghai

Actors: Henry Sedley, Joseph W. Girard, Sojin, Vera Reynolds

Synopsis: Stuntman extraordinaire Richard Talmadge starred in several movie vehicles in the 1920s and 1930s, few of which advanced the art of film but all of which made money. One of Talmadge's last silent efforts was Back From Shanghai, in which our hero tries to save Vera Reynolds from a band of Chinese Read More

King of the Rodeo

Synopsis: One of Hoot Gibson's final silent westerns (and a sequel to the popular Chip of the Flying U (1926)), King of the Rodeo presented the canny star as a rodeo champion from Montana getting himself ready for the big Chicago meet. There are, of course, a couple of bad guys to be dealt with along the Read More

Courtin' Wildcats

Actors: Hoot Gibson, Eugenia Gilbert, Harry Todd, Joseph W. Girard, Monte Montague

Synopsis: A bookish Easterner (Hoot Gibson) is shipped off to a Western ranch for toughening up. Once on the ranch, he falls for a tough dame (Eugenia Gilbert) who is falsely accused of murdering her father's enemy. To the strains of "Courtin' Calamity," the former dude shows what he is really made of by Read More

From Headquarters

Actors: Monte Blue, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Gladys Brockwell, Henry B. Walthall

Synopsis: Most of Monte Blue's talking-picture career was spent in small character roles, but he was still regarded as a bankable leading man when he appeared in the early Warner Bros. talkie From Headquarters. Blue is cast as gutsy U.S. Marine Captain Slappy Smith, assigned to rescue a passel of tourists Read More

Redskin

Actors: Richard Dix, Jane Novak, Larry Steers, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: Intended as a follow-up (and improvement upon) the 1926 epic western The Vanishing American, Redskin was partially filmed in two-color Technicolor -- and, during its first big-city road show engagements, was shown in Magnascope, an early wide-screen process. Written by Elizabeth Pickett, an expert Read More

One Woman Idea

Actors: Rod La Rocque, Marceline Day, Sharon Lynn, Sally Phipps

Synopsis: Marceline Day plays two women in the late-silent Fox release One-Woman Idea. The actress is cast as haughty aristocrat Lady Alicia Douglas, and as alluring half-caste dancing girl Alizar. Honorable Prince Ahmed (Rod La Rocque) harbors a platonic love for the prim-and-proper Lady Alicia, while her Read More

The Girl from Havana

Actors: Lola Lane, Paul Page, Ken Thomson, Natalie Moorhead, Warren Hymer

Synopsis: The Girl from Havana is a kaleidoscopic early-talkie brew of comedy, melodrama, romance, and high-steppin' musical numbers. Lola Lane, a detective for a jeweler's protective association, disguises herself as a chorus girl and books passage on a Havana-bound liner. Her quarry is young Paul Page Read More

Marlie the Killer

Partners in Crime

Actors: Wallace Beery, Raymond Hatton, Mary Brian, William Powell, Jack Luden

Synopsis: Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton team up again in this silent comedy, in which they (respectively) play Mike Doolan, a half-bright gumshoe, and Scoop McGee, his equally dim-witted journalist pal. While on the trail of a group of gangsters, Doolan and McGee unwittingly fall in with a group of Read More

The Terror

Actors: May McAvoy, Louise Fazenda, Edward Everett Horton, Alec B. Francis, Matthew Betz

Stop That Man

Actors: Barbara Kent, Arthur Lake, Eddie Gribbon, Warner P. Richmond, Joseph W. Girard

Synopsis: The success of First National's Harold Teen prompted Universal to cast gangly juvenile Arthur Lake as lead in Stop That Man. The Harold Lloyd-like plot casts Lake as Tommy O'Brien, the spindly younger brother of musclebound Irish cops Bill and Jim (Eddie Gribbon, Warner Richmond). To prove his Read More

The Bullet Mark

Synopsis: Independently produced by one Frank McConnell, this minor western starred Jack Donovan and McConnell's daughter, Gladys McConnell, in a very ordinary story of a cowboy searching for the villain who framed him in a robbery. The culprit is -- surprise! -- the crooked ranch foreman, which every child Read More

The Leatherneck

Actors: William "Hopalong" Boyd, Alan Hale, Robert Armstrong, Fred Kohler

Synopsis: When Cecil B. DeMille's own production company was absorbed by Pathe in 1928, several DeMille contractees went along for the ride. One of these was William Boyd, the star of the 1929 Pathe effort The Leatherneck. The setting is China, specifically the headquarter of the 6th U.S. Marine regiment Read More

Hello Cheyenne

Actors: Tom Mix, Caryl Lincoln, Jack Baston, Martin Faust, Joseph W. Girard

Synopsis: Rival telephone companies race to complete a line between Cheyenne, Wyoming and Rawhide in this lively Tom Mix Western directed by the star's brother-in-law, Eugene Forde. The foreman of one of the competing companies hires Mix to keep an eye out for sabotage from their rival. Mix swings into Read More

Silent Hero

Actors: Robert W. Frazer, Edna Murphy, Ernest Hilliard, Joseph W. Girard

Synopsis: Produced and directed by poverty row regular Duke Worne, this silent Northwest melodrama starred Napoleon (who, of course, bore the "last name" of Bonaparte), one of Rin-Tin-Tin's less successful imitators. Before leaving to search for gold, Bud Taylor (Robert Frazer) presents his girlfriend Mary Read More

We're in the Navy Now

Actors: Wallace Beery, Raymond Hatton, Chester Conklin, Tom Kennedy, Donald Keith

Synopsis: A follow-up to the enormously successful Behind the Front, We're in the Navy Now reteams the stars of the earlier film, Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton. Beery plays dimwitted boxer Knockout Hannigan, while Hatton is his larcenous manager Stinkey Smith. KO'ed during a preliminary bout, Hannigan Read More

The Shield of Honor

Actors: Neil Hamilton, Dorothy Gulliver, Ralph Lewis, Nigel Barrie

Synopsis: Shield of Honor is predicated on the fact that, in 1927, several big-city police departments were contemplating formation of their own "airborne" units. Neil Hamilton stars as Jack MacDowell, the L.A. Police Department's very first "fly cop." He gets a golden opportunity to display his aviation Read More

Whispering Sage

Actors: Buck Jones, Natalie Joyce, Emile Chautard, Carl Miller, Joseph W. Girard

Synopsis: Starring Buck Jones, Fox's second-string cowboy hero, this fine silent Western featured a group of Basque settlers terrorized by a greedy land baron (Joseph W. Girard). Jones played Buck Kildare, who, after falling for Basque beauty Natalie Joyce, comes to the aid of the settlers. On his sterling Read More

Was He Guilty?

Actors: Carlton S. King, Joseph W. Girard, Vivian Rich, William "Hopalong" Boyd

Synopsis: Producer-writer Frank Grandon reserved himself a juicy leading role in the low-budget Was He Guilty? This cautionary fable unfolds the tragic tale of a WWI soldier who develops a morphine addiction after being wounded in action. Told by the authorities that the boy can only be "saved" by being Read More

The Ladybird

Actors: Betty Compson

Synopsis: The "Ladybirds" are a gang of crooks who prey upon the rich and famous. At present, the Ladybirds are at large in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. Heroine Diane Whitman (Betty Compson) finds herself inextricably involved in the gang's criminal activities, and for a while it looks as though she's Read More

Fireman, Save My Child

Actors: Wallace Beery, Raymond Hatton, Josephine Dunn, Tom Kennedy, Walter Goss

Synopsis: Fireman Save My Child is an exceptionally well-constructed slapstick comedy, utilizing the talents of stars Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton to the utmost. Beery and Hatton go through their usual paces as Elmer and Sam, a pair of firefighters who spend most of their time waiting hand and foot on Read More

When Seconds Count

Actors: Billy Sullivan, Mildred June

Synopsis: In one of his several 1927 vehicles, action star Billy Sullivan plays wealthy Billy Mathewson, who is disowned by his father when he becomes engaged to brassy chorus girl Toots Sweet (Marie Messenger). Hoping to make amends, Billy gets a job with the construction crew working on a small-town dam Read More

Doubling with Danger

Actors: Richard Talmadge, Ena Gregory

Synopsis: Who better to star in Doubling with Danger than one of Hollywood's premiere stunt doubles, Richard Talmadge? "The Prince of Pep" (as he was billed by his studio) stars as a devil-may-care aviator, working on a government project. A gang of unpatriotic criminals intends to steal the plans for a Read More

Lightning Reporter

Synopsis: Popular silent screen light leading man Johnny Walker starred in this low-budget melodrama about a cub reporter helping the president of an upstart railroad best a competitor. Does our hero win the heart of the railroad man's lovely but uppity daughter along the way? Why, of course he does. Burr Read More

Modern Youth

Actors: Gino Corrado, Olive Kirby, Rhea Mitchell, Alma Rayford, Joseph W. Girard

Synopsis: Long before he became established as Hollywood's favorite headwaiter, character actor Gino Corrado enjoyed a brief fling at stardom. Billed as Gene Corrado, he played a courageous French army captain in the 1926 cheapie Modern Youth. Tired of warfare and bloodshed, Corrado sheds his uniform and Read More

The Night Owl

Synopsis: Produced and directed by Harry J. Brown, this minor silent action melodrama starred former male model Reed Howes as a habitual night club patron. Howes' wealthy father (Joseph W. Girard) is so troubled by his son's hedonistic lifestyle that he plans to have him "abducted." The plan, alas, goes Read More

Speed Crazed

Actors: Billy Sullivan

Synopsis: Ace stuntman Billy Sullivan stars as Billy Meeks, who gets into hot water at the very start of the picture when he's forced to drive the getaway car for a gang of bank robbers. The crooks escape, but Billy ends up in the hoosegow. Breaking out of jail, he makes his way to a small town, where he Read More

Forlorn River

Actors: Jack Holt, Raymond Hatton, Arlette Marchal, Edmund Burns, Tom Santschi

Synopsis: Filmed in majestic Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon, Utah, this Paramount Zane Grey Western starred Jack Holt as Nevada, a fugitive from justice left to die in the desert by his treacherous partner Bill Hall (Tom Santschi). Nevada is rescued by Ben Ide (Edmund Burns), a young rancher engaged to Read More

Ten Years

Actors: Richard Holt, Hazel Keener, Joseph W. Girard, Victor Potel

Youth and Adventure

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

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

The Pride of the Force

Actors: Tom Santschi, Edythe Chapman, Gladys Hulette, James Morrison, Crauford Kent

Synopsis: Motion Picture News warned that this melodrama, which was sentimental to the point of "hokum," would be better appreciated in the small towns than in the sophisticated big cities. Danney Moore (Tom Santschi) is a cop who is well loved in the neighborhood he patrols. He suffers a disappointment Read More

Her Husband's Secret

Actors: Antonio Moreno, Patsy Ruth Miller, Ruth Clifford, David Torrence, Frankie Darro

Synopsis: Leon Kent (Walter McGrail) is a ne'er-do-well who throws wild parties. His wife eventually tires of him. She finds sympathy with Ross Brewster, a banker (David Torrence), which angers Kent. After an argument, Kent walks out with the couple's little boy. A couple of decades later, Brewster's Read More

Speed Madness

Actors: Frank Merrill, Clara Horton, Evelyn Sherman, Garry O'Dell, Joseph W. Girard

Synopsis: Frank Merrill appears in this hackneyed melodrama in which he never drives the featured racecar alluded to by the title of this forgettable film. A widowed mother offers her daughter to the lecherous landlord in order to save the family farm. Clara Horton, Evelyn Sherman, and Gary O'Dell co-star Read More

After A Million

Synopsis: Taking a breather from issuing B-Westerns starring Jack Hoxie and J.B. Warner, Anthony J. Xydias' Sunset Pictures produced a series of stunt-driven comedies starring Kenneth MacDonald. This time around, MacDonald played Gregory Maxim, a carefree young man who must reach a certain bank at a given Read More

In Hollywood with Potash and Perlmutter

Synopsis: Most of the elements that made the first Potash and Perlmutter film so successful are brought back here: Frances Marion is the scenario's author, Alexander Carr plays Mawruss Perlmutter, and Vera Gordon is Rosie Potash. The original Abe Potash, Barney Bernard, had died, but George Sidney does a Read More

Jack O'Clubs

Synopsis: Herbert Rawlinson starred in this silent, action melodrama based on Gerald Beaumont's Red Book Magazine serial. A tough neighborhood cop, John Francis Foley loses his nerve when he believes that he almost killed Tillie Miller (Ruth Dwyer), the girl he loves. In reality, Tillie's injuries were Read More

Laughing at Danger

Actors: Richard Talmadge, Eva Novak, Bull Montana

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

Gambling Wives

Actors: Marjorie Daw, Dorothy Brock, Edward Earle, Lee Moran, Betty Francisco

Synopsis: Action star Ben Wilson enjoyed a modicum of success as an independent producer in the 1920s. One of Wilson's least typical outings (there were no chase scenes or last-minute rescues) was 1924's Gambling Wives. Marjorie Daw plays Ann Forrest, the wife of chronic gambler/philanderer Vincent Forrest (Edward Earle Read More

Three Jumps Ahead

Actors: Tom Mix, Francis Ford, Buster Gardner, Joseph W. Girard

Synopsis: This above-average Tom Mix western contains one of the star's more spectacular stunts -- a jump on horseback across the 20-foot Beale's Cut. Truth be told, the star, who frequently did his own stunt work, was forced to use a double this time, former rancher from Searchlight, Nevada Earl Simpson. John Ford Read More

Lovebound

Actors: Al Roscoe, Shirley Mason, Joseph W. Girard, Richard Tucker, Edward Martindel

Synopsis: Pert Shirley Mason is the brightest spark in this Fox comedy-melodrama. Besse Belwin (Mason) works as a stenographer for district attorney John Mobley (Albert Roscoe). It doesn't take long for Mobley to fall in love with his cute little employee and he proposes. Besse doesn't reveal that her Read More

Legally Dead

Actors: Margaret Campbell, Claire Adams, Edwin Sturgis

Synopsis: This Universal melodrama took the "rescuing the hero at the last minute" ploy to ridiculous extremes. Milton Sills has the hapless job of trying to make his character -- and the story -- seem plausible. In order to get material for a story, newspaper reporter Will Campbell (Sills) gets himself Read More

The Eagle's Talons

Synopsis: An unscrupulous gang attempts to corner the wheat market in this low-budget but popular serial from Universal starring future cowboy ace Fred Thomson and intrepid veteran Ann Little. Little reportedly performed a couple of hair-raising stunts such as hanging on to the wing of an ascending airplane Read More

The Sting of the Scorpion

Actors: Edmund Cobb

Synopsis: A rancher comes to the assistance of an Indian prospector friend in this low-budget silent Western directed by genre star Dick Hatton and produced by Ashton Dearholt. Dearholt himself portrayed the Indian, whose rich gold mine is desired by an unscrupulous saloon owner (Arthur Morrison). Edmund Cobb Read More

Soft Boiled

Synopsis: Western star Tom Mix enjoyed doing comedy as much as performing daring stunts on his horse, Tony, and this film, about a cowboy with temper tantrum problems, was played almost solely for laughs. Mix portrays Tom Steele, who after a great many scrapes finally learns how to control his temper. A Read More

Step on It!

Synopsis: Based on a story by Courtney Ryley Cooper, this average Hoot Gibson ranch romance tells the usual story of false accusations, cattle rustlings, and murder. This time it is the brother of Lorraine Leighton (Barbara Bedford) who is falsely accused of rustling and murder and shipped off to jail. Read More

Chain Lightning

Actors: Anna Little, Norval MacGregor, William Carroll, Joseph W. Girard, Jack Daugherty

Synopsis: Serial star Ben Wilson produced and directed this lively potboiler. Ann Little plays the daughter of self-sacrificing military officer Norval McGregor. When he runs out of money, McGregor mortgages the family home so that Little can complete his education. She returns the favor by disguising Read More

Her Social Value

Actors: Katherine MacDonald, Roy Stewart, Bertram Grassby, Betty Ross Clarke, Winter Hall

Synopsis: Back in the 1920s one quality that benefited an actress was "the ability to wear clothes." The beautiful Katherine MacDonald does it well here. Marion Hoyte (MacDonald) is a shop girl with an unendurable home life. At work she is accused of stealing a purse, but before she can be fired, it is Read More

Dead or Alive

Actors: Jack Hoxie, Marin Sais, Joseph W. Girard, Wilbur McGaugh

Synopsis: The husband-and-wife team of Jack Hoxie and Marin Sais starred in this inexpensive oater produced by Ben Wilson's Unity Photoplays. Jack is falsely accused of a shooting actually committed by the sheriff's wife (Sais). He escapes and becomes a hero by catching the bandit (Wilbur McGaugh) who Read More

Loot

Synopsis: Englishman Wade Hildreth (Darrel Foss) is sent to America by his employer, Richard Carlow. His assignment is to pick up a diamond necklace that Carlow bought from Arabin, a dealer (Wadsworth Harris). A gang of crooks, headed by Pete Fielding, better known as the Shadow (Joe Girard), also want the Read More

Sealed Envelope

Synopsis: This Universal crime drama has an intricate, but not illogical plot. Peter James Slaney (William Sheer), who has just recently been released from jail, comes to live at a divey hotel where he falls in love with Lena (Fritzi Brunette), the slavey who works there. The landlady abuses Lena and Slaney Read More

Bare Fists

Synopsis: After the father of Cheyenne Harry (Harry Carey) is shot dead, His mother makes him promise to put down his guns. He agrees, though this is easier said than done in the Old West. A pair of rustlers, Boone Travis (Joe Harris) and Lopez (Vester Pegg), hear about Harry's pledge and believe his cattle Read More

The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin

Synopsis: During World War I, Erich von Stroheim wasn't the only "man you loved to hate." Rupert Julian also proved pretty hateful as the title character in this picture, which he also directed. It's pure, black-and-white propaganda, with every German general a "von-something" and the Kaiser as evil as they Read More

Danger, Go Slow

Synopsis: Whenever she was directed by her husband Robert Z. Leonard, Mae Murray ceased behaving like a Movie Star and started acting like a human being. Such was the case in Danger! Go Slow!, in which Murray was cast as a tough, streetwise sneak thief. When the cops close in, she hops a freight to a small Read More

The Brass Bullet

Synopsis: Blond Juanita Hansen, a runner-up to Pearl White and Ruth Roland in the serial queen sweepstakes, starred as Rosalind Joy, the constantly imperiled heiress to a fortune in gold in this Desert Island serial produced by Universal. Rosalind's Uncle Gilbert (Joseph W. Girard) considers the gold his Read More

The Bride's Awakening

Synopsis: Few directors were as successful in coaxing a convincing performance out of the beautiful but highly variable actress Mae Murray as her longtime husband Robert Z. Leonard. In the Leonard-directed The Bride's Awakening, wealthy Elaine Bronson (Murray) is promised in marriage to socialite Richard Read More

The Risky Road

Synopsis: Stenographer Marjorie Helmer (Dorothy Phillips) embarks upon the "risky road" when she agrees to be the kept woman of her former employer Melville Kingston (William Stowell). Curiously, Majorie's "protector" adopts a strictly hands-off policy, but try telling that to the girl's hometown beau Bob Read More

Society's Driftwood

Synopsis: This Universal drama starred minor mid-1910s star Grace Cunard. Lena Rogers (Cunard) supports herself and her brother Paul (William Musgrave) by working as a fortune teller. Paul is falsely accused of stealing a woman's pocketbook, and Judge Grant (Joseph Girard) sentences him to prison. When he Read More

Lair of the Wolf

'49 -'17

Actors: Joseph W. Girard, Leo Pierson, Jean Hersholt, Harry Rattenbury

Synopsis: A judge who had taken part in the gold rush of 1849 hires an acting troupe to recreate the experience in this rather fanciful silent Western. The make-believe turns serious when a real gold-mine is discovered nearby and a local girl (Donna Drew) is kidnapped by a nasty gambler (Jean Hersholt). Read More

Hell Morgan's Girl

Synopsis: Roger Curwell (William Stowell) is disowned by his father (Joseph W. Girard) because of his desire to be an artist. But instead of making good as a painter, Roger finds himself drunk and on the skids in San Francisco's Barbary Coast. At a dive run by Hell Morgan (Alfred Allen), he meets Lola (Dorothy Phillips Read More

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Synopsis: The 1916 silent version of Jules Vernes' 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was "sold" on the basis of its advanced underwater photography, the handiwork of the legendary Williamson Brothers. The film's storyline combines elements from both 20,000 Leagues and another Verne novel, Mysterious Island. Read More

Man from Nowhere

Synopsis: This Universal Studios melodrama gave King Baggot a juicy role. Jim Herron (Baggot) comes home to Virginia to find that his sister Betty (Irene Hunt) is being wooed by Antonio Gaudio (Joseph Granby), a questionable foreigner. The couple run away together, and Herron follows. At the hotel, he hears Read More

Lords of High Decision

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Meredith Nicholson, The Lords of High Decision whisks the viewer into the rarefied world of millionaire business magnates. It soon becomes apparent that many of these captains of industry have feet of clay, notably "coal king" Colonel Craighill (Joseph Gerard), who devotes Read More