Julia Swayne GordonFilmography

Secrets of the French Police

Actors: Gwili Andre, Frank Morgan, Gregory Ratoff, Murray Kinnell, John Warburton

Synopsis: A Parisian flower girl is trotted out as the missing Grand Duchess Anastasia in this fast-moving thriller based on a popular newspaper serial, Secrets of the French Sureté. Discovered by evil White Russian Count Moloff (Gregory Ratoff), Eugénie Dorain (Gwili Andre) is hypnotized into believing Read More

The Golden West

Synopsis: In this western, based on a Zane Grey novel, the hero leaves town after someone is killed during a feud. As he escapes, he meets up with Indians. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Misbehaving Ladies

Synopsis: When European princess Lee comes back to her Midwestern hometown, she is thought to be a seamstress and goes along with the ruse in this comedy. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Captain Applejack

Synopsis: This British remake of 1923's Captain Applejack follows the courageous exploits of a mild mannered citizen who fights back when robbers break into his house in search of treasure. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

For the Love O'Lil

Actors: Jack Mulhall, Elliott Nugent, Sally Starr, Margaret Livingston, Charles Sellon

Synopsis: Lawyer Wyn Huntley (Jack Mulhall) is a lion in the courtroom, but a lamb when it comes to women. In love with the beautiful but financially irresponsible Lil (Sally Starr), Wyn is advised that the way to Lil's heart is to indulge her every extravagance. Unfortunately, the man offering this advice Read More

Dumbbells in Ermine

Actors: Robert Armstrong, Barbara Kent, Beryl Mercer, James Gleason

Synopsis: In this romantic comedy, a fighter goes to a southern town to train for the championship. He soon falls in love. The girl loves him too; they are very happy until the girl's grandmother, who wants her granddaughter to marry a rich man, begins interfering. She tries her best to break them up, but Read More

The Dude Wrangler

Actors: Lina Basquette, Clyde Cook, Francis X. Bushman, Margaret Seddon

Synopsis: One of the most overworked plots of the silent era was the one about an Eastern wastrel who toughens up on a Western ranch. The charismatic Douglas Fairbanks popularized the character in the mid 1910s, but George Duryea, the Eastern snob this time around, was no Fairbanks. Duryea hires out as a Read More

Today

Actors: Conrad Nagel, Catherine Dale Owen, Sarah Padden, Judith Vosselli

Synopsis: Wiped out in the 1929 Wall Street crash, Fred Warner (Conrad Nagel) is no longer able to support his spendthrift wife Eve (Catherine Dale Owen) in the manner to which she is accustomed. At first resistant to readjusting her lifestyle, Eve finally relents, selling her jewels to help Fred get back Read More

Scandal

Actors: John Boles, Huntly Gordon, Jane Winton, Nancy Dover

Synopsis: In this early sound drama, an ex-socialite is forced to get a job after hard times cause her to lose her fortune. In her new job she runs into many of her old pals, including her ex-boyfriend who is currently married. Later his wife is murdered and he begins to woo the girl. Though she secretly Read More

The Divine Lady

Actors: Corinne Griffith, Victor Varconi, H.B. Warner, Ian Keith, Marie Dressler

Synopsis: Frank Lloyd both produced and directed The Divine Lady, a Hollywood slant on the 19th century romance of Lord Horatio Nelson and Lady Emma Hamilton. American film star Corinne Griffith, decked out in a blonde wig, is decorative but otherwise unconvincing as Lady Emma, while Hungarian-born Victor Varconi Read More

The Eternal Woman

Actors: Olive Borden, Ralph Graves, John Miljan

Synopsis: Most of the films of silent screen starlet Olive Borden have apparently been lost to the ages, and Columbia's The Eternal Woman is no exception. The story begins with a shipwreck, as Argentine stowaway Anita (Borden) rescues handsome American passenger Hartley Forbes (Ralph Graves). She comes to Read More

The Girl in the Glass Cage

Actors: Loretta Young, Matthew Betz, Lucien Littlefield, Charles Sellon, Julia Swayne Gordon

Synopsis: In her second talking picture, Loretta Young stars as Gladys Cosgrove, the ticket-taker at a small-town movie house. Although she's sweet on socialite Terry Pomfret (Carrol Nye), Gladys is ardently pursued by gangster Doc Striker (Matthew Betz). This results in a loud and very public confrontation Read More

Gold Diggers of Broadway

Actors: Nancy Welford, Conway Tearle, Winnie Lightner, Ann Pennington, Lilyan Tashman

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1923, Avery Hopwood's 1920 comedy The Gold Diggers was resurrected in 1929 as the Technicolor musical Gold Diggers of Broadway. Nancy Welford, Winnie Lightner and Ann Pennington stars as Jerry, Mable and Ann, three chorus girls who try to entice a wealthy backer to put his Read More

The Younger Generation

Actors: Jean Hersholt, Lina Basquette, Rosa Rosanova, Rex Lease

Synopsis: In this sentimental drama, the son of a Jewish pushcart vendor abandons his roots as he builds himself a successful new life and moves his family to a posh Fifth-Avenue apartment. Though he loves his parents, he is deeply embarrassed by their humble provincial ways and introduces them as his Read More

Viking

Actors: Donald Crisp, Pauline Starke, LeRoy Mason, Anders Randolph, Richard Alexander

Synopsis: The Technicolor "spectacular" The Viking was loosely based on the exploits of Norwegian explorer Leif Ericsson. Using O. A. Liljencrantz' highly fanciful novel Leif the Lucky as its guide, the film weaves a delightfully inaccurate account of Ericsson's bold journey from Scandinavia to the coast of Read More

Is Everybody Happy?

Actors: Ted Lewis, Alice Day, Ann Pennington, Lawrence Grant, Julia Swayne Gordon

Synopsis: Inimitable, top-hatted clarinetist Ted Lewis stars in Is Everybody Happy? (the title, of course, was a Lewis catchphrase). Lewis plays Tod Todd, a Hungarian-emigre violinist who disdains the classics in favor of jazz, much to the dismay of his traditionalist parents (didn't we already see this Read More

The Scarlet Dove

Actors: Lowell Sherman, Margaret Livingston, Robert W. Frazer, Shirley Palmer

Synopsis: Raised in a convent, pretty young heiress Mara (Josephine Boro) has been slated from birth to wed Russian officer Ivan Orloff (Lowell Sherman). Though she doesn't know much about men, Mara does know that she isn't fond of Orloff, and she begins formulating plans to avoid her wedding. She escapes Read More

The Smart Set

Actors: William Haines, Jack Holt, Alice Day, Hobart Bosworth

Synopsis: Having played an egotistical baseball player in Slide, Kelly, Slide, an egotistical golfer in Spring Fever, and an egotistical football star in West Point, can it be any surprise that William Haines was cast as a you-know-what polo player in The Smart Set? While touring Europe, Tommy van Buren Read More

Three Week-Ends

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

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

13 Washington Square

Actors: Jean Hersholt, Alice Joyce, Helen Foster, ZaSu Pitts

Synopsis: In this comedy, a wealthy matron is terribly upset when she learns that her socialite son is planning to marry a blue collar girl. Upon hearing the dreadful news, the irate mother immediately cancels her vacation in Europe, disguises herself, and takes up residence in her cousin's boardinghouse. Read More

Road House

Actors: Maria Alba, Lionel Barrymore, Julia Swayne Gordon, Tempe Piggott

It

Actors: Clara Bow, Antonio Moreno, William Austin, Jacqueline Gadsden, Julia Swayne Gordon

Synopsis: Contrary to popular belief, Clara Bow was already Paramount's biggest box-office draw when she starred in this delightful rags-to-riches comedy. But It, from the fertile mind of bizarre best-selling author Elinor Glyn, remains perhaps the quintessential Bow picture. Not that the story of a poor Read More

Children of Divorce

Actors: Clara Bow, Esther Ralston, Gary Cooper, Norman Trevor

Synopsis: Kitty Flanders (Yvonne Pelletier), Jean Waddington and Ted Larrabee (Don Marion) are all "children of divorce" -- the two girls are left in a convent school by their mothers and Ted's upbringing is sketchy at best. When the three of them grow up, Ted (now played by Gary Cooper) falls deeply in Read More

Wings

Actors: Clara Bow, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Richard Arlen, Jobyna Ralston, Gary Cooper

Synopsis: Wings, the first feature film to win an Academy Award, tends to disappoint a little when seen today. Too much time is afforded the wheezy old plotline about two World War I aviators (Buddy Rogers, Richard Arlen) in love with the same woman (Jobyna Ralston), while the comedy relief of El Brendel is Read More

The King of Kings

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

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

Bride of the Storm

Actors: Dolores Costello, John Harron, Sheldon Lewis

Synopsis: This melodrama, released after Vitagraph had been bought by Warner Bros., was one of the last directorial efforts from film pioneer J. Stuart Blackton. It was based on the novel Maryland, My Maryland by James Francis Dwyer, and starred beautiful Dolores Costello, who had recently shot to fame when Read More

Diplomacy

Actors: Blanche Sweet, Neil Hamilton, Arlette Marchal, Matt Moore, Gustav von Seyffertitz

Synopsis: Adapted from a play by Victor Sardou, Diplomacy was another collaboration between actress Blanche Sweet and her then-husband Marshall Neisan. Most of the action takes place along the Riviera, where heroine Dora de Zares (Sweet) comports herself in a most mysterious fashion. The audience is Read More

Early to Wed

Actors: Matt Moore, Katherine Perry, Julia Swayne Gordon, Arthur Houseman

Synopsis: The masterful direction of Frank Borzage adds three-dimensionality to the otherwise cardboard complications in Easy to Wed. Young marrieds Tommy (Matt Moore) and Daphne Carter (Kathryn Perry) try desperately to "keep up with the Joneses." In the process, they spend themselves into poverty. But Read More

The Far Cry

Actors: Blanche Sweet, Jack Mulhall, Myrtle Stedman, Hobart Bosworth, Leo White

Synopsis: This society drama, adapted from the play by Arthur Richman, was the first directorial effort of cinematographer Silvano Balboni, who often was known just as Balboni. It features a color sequence of a decadent Roman banquet as its climax. Claire Marsh (Blanche Sweet) uses up a good chunk of her Read More

Not So Long Ago

Actors: Betty Bronson, Ricardo Cortez, Edwards Davis, Julia Swayne Gordon

Synopsis: Although trade paper Motion Picture News insisted no pun was intended, readers probably groaned anyhow when it stated that this drama was meant to prove that actress Betty Bronson was no "flash in the pan" -- after all, Bronson had just recently won the lead role in Peter Pan over every female Read More

Lights of Old Broadway

Actors: Conrad Nagel, Frank Currier, George K. Arthur, Marion Davies

Synopsis: Because Little Old New York was so successful, MGM and newspaper/sometime film magnate William Randolph Hearst decided to put Marion Davies into another picturesque tale of New York in the 1800s -- this time a few decades later, circa 1870. The idea actually worked. The film, based on the Laurence Read More

The Tie That Binds

Actors: Robert Edeson, Walter Miller, Barbara Bedford, Marian Swayne

Synopsis: Mary Ellen Grey (Barbara Bedford) is the secretary to toy-manufacturer Daniel Kenyon (William P. Carleton). After Mary Ellen turns down a marriage proposal from Daniel and instead marries fellow-worker David Winthrop (Walter Miller), David is fired and Mary Ellen leaves her position three weeks Read More

The Darling of the Rich

Actors: Betty Blythe, Montagu Love, Charles Gerrard, Gladys Leslie, Julia Swayne Gordon

Synopsis: When her father dies, Charmion Winship (Betty Blythe) is left completely penniless. But she wants to live well so she travels to New York in search of the good life. A gang of crooks hire her to pose as a princess. She is supposed to be the owner of a valuable jewel collection which she is selling Read More

Scaramouche

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

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

Men, Women Marry

Actors: E.K. Lincoln, Florence Dixon

Synopsis: Although it wasn't much more than a standard programmer, this society drama was well cast. When he loses both his wife and child, Montgomery Rogers (Charles C. Hammond) adopts his servants' little girl and raises her as his own. Completely unaware of her origins, Emerie (Florence Dixon) grows up Read More

My Old Kentucky Home

Actors: Sigrid Holmquist, Monte Blue, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Julia Swayne Gordon

Synopsis: Other than the title, this horseracing melodrama had little to do with the Stephen Foster song. Kentucky native Richard Goodloe (Monte Blue) goes to New York to make his fortune, but instead he winds up in Sing Sing, convicted of a crime he did not commit. After two years, he returns home, hiding Read More

Till We Meet Again

Actors: Julia Swayne Gordon, J. Barney Sherry, Mae Marsh, Martha Mansfield, Norman Kerry

Synopsis: Mae Marsh stars in this society/crime drama, which rates just a tad above your average programmer. The unscrupulous Arthur Montrose (J. Barney Sherry) handles the finances of Mrs. Whitney Carter (Julia Swayne Gordon), and of his ward, orphan Marion Bates (Marsh). Because he wants complete control Read More

What's Wrong with the Women?

Actors: Wilton Lackaye, Julia Swayne Gordon, Constance Bennett, Montagu Love, Rod La Rocque

Synopsis: The answer to the burning question posed by this low-budget domestic drama was that they tended to want more from life than their husbands were able to afford. Janet Lee's (Barbara Castleton) new "jazz wild" lifestyle all but brings her husband Jack (Rod la Rocque) to the brink of bankruptcy. When Read More

How Women Love

Actors: Betty Blythe, Gladys Hulette, Julia Swayne Gordon, Robert W. Fraser

Synopsis: Although she had been Fox's replacement vamp after the exit of Theda Bara, Betty Blythe chose a far less exotic character than 1921's Queen of Sheba for her first self-produced picture. Here she is Rosa Roma, the daughter of a famous prima donna, who has inherited her mother's voice. She comes to Read More

Handcuffs or Kisses?

Actors: Elaine Hammerstein, Julia Swayne Gordon, Dorothy Chappell, Robert Ellis, Alison Skipworth

Synopsis: aka Handcuffs and Kisses The producers of this picture apparently got their inspiration from a magazine story about the mistreatment of girl inmates at New York's Bedford Reformatory. Elaine Hammerstein got stuck with the starring role, Lois Walton. Poor Lois is sent to the reformatory by her Read More

Shams of Society

Actors: Barbara Castleton, Montagu Love, Macey Harlam, Julia Swayne Gordon, Ann Brody

Synopsis: Even though he pays all her bills, Herbert Porter (Montagu Love) refuses to give his wife Helen (Barbara Castleton) any cash. So she heads to a gambling hall with Mrs. Crest (Julia Swayne Gordon), but instead of making any money, she loses five hundred dollars which she doesn't have. She pawns her Read More

The Silver Lining

Actors: Jewel Carmen, Coit Albertson, Julia Swayne Gordon

Synopsis: Secret agent George Johnson (Coit Albertson) recalls the story of two orphan girls to a pair of cohorts at a Paris cafe. The virtuous Angel (Jewel Carman) is adopted by crooks who teach her to steal, while Evelyn (Virginia Valli) is the criminally inclined girl adopted by a wealthy family. When Read More

Burn 'em up Barnes

Actors: Johnny Hines, Edmund Breese, George Fawcett, J. Barney Sherry

Synopsis: After making a hit in the Torchy series of two-reelers, Johnny Hines chose this lively picture as his first full-length comedy. It was one of the year's hits. Young Barnes (Hines) is called "Burn 'Em Up" because of his love for fast driving, both on the track and on the street -- much to the Read More

Passionate Pilgrim

Actors: Matt Moore, Mary Newcomb, Julia Swayne Gordon, Tom Guise, Frankie Mann

Synopsis: This drama was adapted from a popular novel by Samuel Merwin. Matt Moore stars as Henry Calverly, an ex-convict who went to prison, even though he was innocent, to protect someone else. On his release, he takes on an assumed name and becomes a newspaper reporter. But when he writes a story Read More

A Child for Sale

Synopsis: Charles Stoddard (Creighton Hale) is a struggling Greenwich Village painter. He lives with his wife and two children, Walter and Sylvia (Bobby Connolly and Ruth Sullivan) in an overpriced apartment. Their hypocritical landlord, William Harrison (William Tooker), gives to charity on one hand while Read More

Greater Than Fame

Synopsis: Margaret Brooke (Elaine Hammerstein) has a lovely voice, and the choirmaster at her church suggests that she travel from her home in Dorchester, Massachusetts, to New York City to pursue a singing career. She does, and while she is taking opera lessons, she is dazzled by the usual temptations Read More

Lifting Shadows

Synopsis: Vania (Emmy Wehlen) is a political refugee who travels from Russia to the United States. But even in America, she is pursued by assassins known as "the Ring of Death" because she carries certain papers given to her back home by her father. She marries a man who turns out to be a drug addict, and Read More

Miss Dulcie from Dixie

Synopsis: Because of a stipulation in a will, Southern girl Dulcie (Gladys Leslie) must go to New York and live with her Uncle John (Arthur Donaldson) for six months so she can inherit five thousand dollars. She expects this to be rough, since the two sides of the family have been feuding since the Civil Read More

The Captain's Captain

Synopsis: Also known as Captain Abe's Niece, this Vitagraph 5-reeler stars the studio's all-purpose leading lady Alice Joyce. The scene is a fishing town, where Joyce is hiding from her domineering aunt. Fascinated by the tall tales told by Cap'n Abe (Arthur Donaldson), Joyce suggests that, for fun's sake Read More

The Desired Woman

Synopsis: Husky leading man Harry T. Morey won't be happy in life until he finds The Desired Woman. Morey experience a series of desultory romances in his search for connubial bliss. Among the ladies in his life are Florence Deshon, Jean Paige and Eulalie Jensen. In the end, however, Morey finds true solace Read More

Message of the Mouse

Synopsis: Financier Harry Winthrop (Franklyn Hanna) is tricked by a pair of spies, Varrie (L. Rogers Lytton) and Marcia Elmore (Julia Swayne Gordon), into giving his millions to foreign powers who do not have the United States' best interests at heart. But Winthrop's daughter Wynn (Anita Stewart) knows Read More

Arsene Lupin

Synopsis: Originally a novel and then a stage play, Arsene Lupin should have made an intriguing film, but something in its suave spirit was lost. Perhaps this is due, in part, to Earle Williams' shallow interpretation of the arch criminal. Arsene Lupin (Williams) revels in outwitting the Parisian police Read More

In the Balance

Synopsis: Though not quite as popular as he'd been a few years earlier, Vitagraph leading man Earle Williams could still "open" a picture in 1918. In the Balance casts Williams as the younger of two brothers living in a remote rural community. When her car breaks down, actress Louise Maurel (Grace Darmond) Read More

Clover's Rebellion

Synopsis: Anita Stewart's lovely presence couldn't hide the fact that this drama featured one of the most tired plotlines of the silent era. Clover Dean (Stewart) is orphaned and living with her wealthy uncle, John Childe (Charles Stevenson), and his wife (Julia Swayne Gordon). Childe wants to marry his Read More

Daring of Diana

Actors: Anders Randolph

Synopsis: The trade magazine Variety hailed Vitagraph's The Daring of Diana as a "return" to old-fashioned melodrama -- as if this particular movie genre had ever been absent from the screen! To assuage his grief over the death of his wife during childbirth, newspaper publisher John Briscoe (Frances Read More

My Lady's Slipper

Synopsis: A story by Cyrus Townsend Brady was the foundation for the lavish Vitagraph star vehicle My Lady's Slipper. The popular Anita Stewart and Earle Williams were cast respectively as the Countess Gabrielle de Villars and American lieutenant Francis Burnham. The story is set in the late 18th century Read More

The Suspect

Synopsis: Anita Stewart may have received top billing in Vitagraph's The Suspect, but the true star of the proceedings was S. Rankin Drew, who also directed the picture. Set in France and Russia, the plot revolves around the cruelties of Russian Grand Duke Karatoff (Anders Randolf, known to friends and Read More

The Juggernaut

Synopsis: Juggernaut might be better known today if it hadn't had the bad luck to open the same week as D.W. Griffith's super-spectacle The Birth of a Nation. Frank Currier plays a mercenary railroad owner who, oblivious to the dangers posed to his customers, has allowed his line to become appallingly Read More

The Battle Cry of Peace

Synopsis: In a war-torn world, enemies of the United States use pacifists as pawns to insure that the Government doesn't spend too much on defense. This insures that when those enemies, looking a lot like Germans from WW I, finally invade, the US will be unable to defend itself. Sure enough the enemies Read More

Two Women

Synopsis: This Vitagraph three-reeler stars two of the studio's most popular attractions, Anita Stewart and John Emerson. While married businessman John (Emerson) is away on business, his employer takes advantage of his absence by "making whoopee" with John's wife. Upon finding this out, John divorces his Read More

Sins of the Mothers

Synopsis: Julia Swayne Gordon and Anita Stewart, two of Vitagraph's most popular contract players, were co-starred once again in the 5-reel Sins of the Mothers. The "mother" in this instance is Mrs. Raymond (Gordon), a chronic gambler. Alas, Mrs. Raymond's otherwise viceless daughter (Stewart) inherits her Read More

Painted World

Synopsis: It's just possible that Vitagraph didn't take this three-reel backstage yarn too seriously: the studio advertised the picture as "a semi-theatrical drama of thrilling intensity" (sounds like an episode of Dudley Do-Right). Raised to believe that her mother Elois (Julia Swayne Gordon), is dead Read More

He Never Knew

Uncle Bill

Synopsis: Marguerite Bertsch, one of Vitagraph's busiest screenwriters, was responsible for the three-reel "melodramatic farce" Uncle Bill. The title character, played by Donald Hall, is the wealthy relative of bickering married couple John and Julia Mason (William Humphrey, Julia Swayne Gordon). A burglar Read More

Shadows of the Past

Synopsis: "A Melodrama in Three Acts," this Vitagraph production was written for the screen by Marguerite Bertsch. The villain of the piece is Mark Stetson (L. Rogers Lytton), a politician who has eliminated his principal competition, the honest Mr. Brandon (Harry T. Morey), by sending Brandon off to prison Read More

The Victoria Cross

At Scrogginse's Corner

The Gamblers

The Merchant of Venice

Actors: William V. Ranous, Julia Swayne Gordon