Lionel BarrymoreFilmography

Main Street to Broadway

Actors: Mary Murphy, Agnes Moorehead, Herb Shriner, Rosemary de Camp

Synopsis: A genuine novelty, MGM's Main Street to Broadway offers the modern viewer a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of the 1953 theatrical scene. The main plot concerns aspiring playwright Tony Monaco (Tom Burton), who pins his future on the possibility that Tallulah Bankhead will star in his first Read More

Lone Star

Actors: Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Broderick Crawford, Lionel Barrymore, Beulah Bondi

Synopsis: During the 1845 battle for Texas' independence, a cattle baron (Clark Gable) spars with an evil senator (Broderick Crawford) over the state's future and for the affections of newpaperwoman Ava Gardner. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Bannerline

Actors: Keefe Brasselle, Sally Forrest, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, J. Carrol Naish

Synopsis: Bannerline was Don Weis' first solo directorial credit for MGM. Keefe Brasselle stars as cub reporter Mike Perrivale, who devises a heart-tugging promotional stunt. Upon learning that crusty old history teacher Hugo Trimble (Lionel Barrymore) is dying, Mike writes up a glowing tribute, ascribing Read More

Right Cross

Actors: June Allyson, Dick Powell, Ricardo Montalban, Lionel Barrymore, Teresa Celli

Synopsis: Right Cross stars Dick Powell as cynical sportswriter Rick Gavery and Powell's wife June Allyson as boxing manager Pat O'Malley. Subbing for her incapacitated father (Lionel Barrymore), Pat grooms prizefighter Johnny Monterez (Ricardo Montalban) for the championship. Johnny holds a grudge against Read More

Down to the Sea in Ships

Actors: Dean Stockwell, Richard Widmark, Lionel Barrymore, Gene Lockhart, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: This full-blooded saga of the 19th century whaling industry stars Lionel Barrymore as tough old salt Captain Bering Joy and Dean Stockwell as his grandson Jed. Anxious to embark upon a life on the sea, Jed aligns himself with Joy's first mate, Dan Lunceford (Richard Widmark). The captain Read More

Malaya

Actors: Spencer Tracy, James Stewart, Valentina Cortese, Sydney Greenstreet, John Hodiak

Synopsis: Spencer Tracy and James Stewart team up for this World War II adventure, based on an supposedly true incident from World War II. Stewart plays John Royer, an ex-newspaper reporter with a backhand knowledge of Malaya, and Tracy plays a criminal named Carnaghan, doing time in Alcatraz for smuggling. Read More

Key Largo

Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Monte Blue, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Claire Trevor, Thomas Gomez

Synopsis: Richard Brooks and John Huston's screenplay for Huston's Key Largo eschews the lofty blank verse of Maxwell Anderson's original play, concentrating instead on the simmering tensions among the many characters. Humphrey Bogart plays Frank McCloud, an embittered war veteran who travels to Key Largo Read More

Dark Delusion

Actors: Warner Anderson, Art Baker, Lionel Barrymore, Marie Blake, Lucille Bremer

Synopsis: After 15 entries, MGM's "Dr. Kildare" series came to a quiet end with Dark Delusion. Although Dr. Leonard Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore), crusty chief surgeon at Blair General Hospital, is officially the leading character, most of the footage is devoted to Gillespie's outspoken protégé, Dr. Tommy 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

The Secret Heart

Actors: Claudette Colbert, June Allyson, Walter Pidgeon, Lionel Barrymore, Robert Sterling

Synopsis: The Secret Heart is a psychological drama starring June Allyson as a disturbed teenager obsessed with the memory of her dead father and unable to embrace her stepmother. Following the suicide of her father, Penny Addams (Allyson) begins to behave strangely, even locking herself in her room and Read More

Three Wise Fools

Actors: Margaret O'Brien, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Arnold, Thomas Mitchell

Synopsis: Even if the film had been released without opening and closing titles, it wouldn't have been hard to identify Three Wise Fools as an MGM production. Margaret O'Brien stars as Sheila O'Monhan, a wide-eyed Irish colleen who insists that she sees leprechauns (as, indeed, does the audience). She Read More

Duel in the Sun

Actors: Griff Barnett, Jennifer Jones, Gregory Peck, Joseph Cotten, Charles Bickford, Sidney Blackmer, Lionel Barrymore, Harry Carey, Lillian Gish

Synopsis: In David O. Selznick's Duel in the Sun, Jennifer Jones stars as Pearl Chavez, whom everyone has tagged as a "bad girl" foredoomed to an unhappy end. She is taken into the home of wealthy, greedy rancher McCanles (Lionel Barrymore) and his kindly wife Laura Belle (Lillian Gish), who'd once been the Read More

The Valley of Decision

Actors: Greer Garson, Gregory Peck, Donald Crisp, Lionel Barrymore, Preston S. Foster

Synopsis: Based on Marcia Davenport's novel and set in 1870, Valley of Decision details the romance between a housemaid named Mary Rafferty (Greer Garson) and her employer's son, Paul Scott (Gregory Peck). Paul's father, William (Donald Crisp), owns a Pittsburgh steel mill where Mary's father, Pat (Lionel Barrymore Read More

Between Two Women

Actors: Van Johnson, Lionel Barrymore, Keenan Wynn, Marilyn Maxwell

Synopsis: The oft-used movie title Between Two Women was resurrected once more for this entry in MGM's "Dr. Kildare" series. Though Kildare is nowhere to be found, Lionel Barrymore is very much in evidence as Dr. Leonard Gillespie, crusty chief surgeon of Blair General Hospital. Gillespie's assistant is Dr. Read More

Since You Went Away

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Monty Woolley, Agnes Moorehead

Synopsis: David O. Selznick's first production since 1940's Rebecca, Since You Went Away, based on Margaret Buell Wilder's bestselling novel, is a long but rewarding paean to the World War 2 "home front". Claudette Colbert plays the wife of a businessman who, though well past draft age, volunteered to serve Read More

A Guy Named Joe

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne, Van Johnson, Ward Bond, Lionel Barrymore, James Gleason

Synopsis: Opening in England during the middle of World War II, A Guy Named Joe tells the story of Pete Sandidge (Spencer Tracy), a tough, devil-may-care bomber pilot who's amassed an enviable record in combat, mostly by taking chances that give his C.O. (James Gleason) the shakes, much as he and the top Read More

Three Men in White

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Van Johnson, Marilyn Maxwell, Keye Luke, Ava Gardner

Synopsis: MGM's popular Dr. Kildare series spanned 1938-47. Lew Ayres played the title character, but parted in 1942. Though crusty and craggly Lionel Barrymore, portrayed Dr. Gillespie (one of {%Kildare's contemporaries at Blair General Hospital)) from the beginning of the series, he initially came second Read More

Dragon Seed

Actors: Katharine Hepburn, Walter Huston, Aline MacMahon, Akim Tamiroff, J. Carrol Naish, Turhan Bey

Synopsis: This lavish, 145-minute cinemadaptation of the Pearl Buck best-seller Dragon Seed was intended by MGM as a followup to the studio's successful film version of Buck's The Good Earth. In true Hollywood fashion, the Chinese protagonists are all played by Caucasian actors, with fascinating if not Read More

Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Van Johnson, Donna Reed, Keye Luke

Synopsis: The third of MGM's Dr. Kildare series to dispense with the services of Dr. Kildare (Lew Ayres), Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case stars crusty old Lionel Barrymore in the title role. The first half of the film concerns Gillespie's efforts to expedite the romance of Army sergeant Orisin (Michael Duane) Read More

Thousands Cheer

Actors: Kathryn Grayson, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Red Skelton, Mary Astor, John Boles, Eleanor Powell, Ann Sothern, José Iturbi

Synopsis: Storywise, Thousands Cheer is thin stuff indeed. Insouciant PFC Eddy Marsh (Gene Kelly) wants to put on a Big Show for his fellow serviceman. Along the way, Eddy falls in love with Kathryn Jones (Kathryn Grayson), the daughter of Colonel William Jones (John Boles). End of story. The principal Read More

Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Van Johnson, Susan Peters, Richard Quine, Keye Luke

Synopsis: On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Dr. Leonard Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore) realizes that it's time to appoint a new assistant to replace young Dr. Kildare. Gillespie is obliged to choose from three highly qualified candidates: Dr. Randall "Red" Adams (Van Johnson), Dr. Lee Wong How (Keye Luke) Read More

Tennessee Johnson

Actors: Van Heflin, Ruth Hussey, Lionel Barrymore, Marjorie Main, Regis Toomey

Synopsis: The tumultuous presidency of 17th-president Andrew Johnson is chronicled in this biopic. The story begins with Johnson's boyhood and covers his early life. During the Civil War, Johnson stays a staunch Unionist and upon Lincoln's reelection in 1864, becomes his Vice President. After Lincoln's Read More

Calling Dr. Gillespie

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Philip Dorn, Donna Reed, Phil Brown, Nat Pendleton

Synopsis: When Lew Ayres' wartime conscientious-objector status caused MGM to drop the actor like a hot potato, Ayres' "Dr. Kildare" series became the sole responsibility of Lionel Barrymore as the crusty Dr. Leonard Gillespie. In the first Kildare-less entry, Calling Dr. Gillespie, the ageing medico has a Read More

The People vs. Dr. Kildare

Actors: Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore, Laraine Day, Bonita Granville

Synopsis: Dr. Jim Kildare (Lew Ayres) plays Good Samaritan with potentially disastrous results in The People vs. Dr. Kildare. Happening upon the scene of a motor accident, Kildare performs an emergency operation on crash victim Frances Marlowe (Bonita Granville), an ice-skating star. While recovering in Read More

The Bad Man

Actors: Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, Laraine Day, Ronald Reagan, Henry Travers

Synopsis: Lionel Barrymore and Ronald Reagan star, respectively, as grandfather Henry Jones and grandson Gil Jones, two proprietors of a Mexican ranch, in The Bad Man. Gil is overjoyed to discover that his childhood sweetheart, Lucia (Laraine Day) has returned to town, but feels slightly dismayed by her Read More

Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day

Crew: Composer (Music Score)

Actors: Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore, Laraine Day, Red Skelton, Alma Kruger

Synopsis: When MGM decided to move up-and-coming star Laraine Day out of the "Dr. Kildare" series, the studio did so in a startlingly dramatic fashion. In Dr. Kildare's Wedding Day, Dr. Jim Kildare (Lew Ayres) and nurse Mary Lamont (Laraine Day) are finally able to exchange their marital vows. Alas, the Read More

The Penalty

Actors: Edward Arnold, Lionel Barrymore, Marsha Hunt, Robert Sterling, Gene Reynolds

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a ruthless gangster's son is soon following in his father's footsteps. When his daddy kills an FBI agent and a cabby, the boy sees it all. Fortunately the courts intervene and send the lad off to live with a family of farmers. Country living agrees with the boy and soon with Read More

Lady Be Good

Actors: Eleanor Powell, Ann Sothern, Robert Young, Lionel Barrymore, John Carroll

Synopsis: The 1924 George Gershwin stage hit Lady Be Good was brought to the screen by MGM; any resemblance (beyond the Gershwin score) to the original play is purely accidental. The MGM scriveners came up with a new story concerning married songwriters Ann Sothern and Robert Young, who can't live with each Read More

Dr. Kildare's Victory

Actors: Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore, Ann Ayars, Robert Sterling, Jean Rogers

Synopsis: In this episode of the popular medical series, Kildare finds himself involved in a dispute between to competing hospitals. The trouble begins when an intern rushes a beautiful girl to Kildare's hospital. She has a shard of glass imbedded in her heart. The girl survives the surgery, and the intern Read More

Dr. Kildare's Strange Case

Actors: Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore, Laraine Day, Shepperd Strudwick, Samuel S. Hinds

Synopsis: This fourth entry in MGM's "Dr. Kildare" series once again stars Lew Ayres as Kildare, Laraine Day as his sweetheart Mary Lamont, and Lionel Barrymore as crusty Dr. Gillespie. In this outing, surgeon Gregory Lane (Sheppard Strudwick) begins pitching woo at Mary himself, much to Kildare's dismay. Read More

Dr. Kildare's Crisis

Actors: Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore, Laraine Day, Robert Young, Nat Pendleton

Synopsis: Dr. Kildare's Crisis is actually one suffered by his fiancee, nurse Mary Lamont (Laraine Day). Mary's financier brother Douglas Lamont (Robert Young) is subject to unpredictable seizures, and for a while it seems that he is suffering from hereditary epilepsy. This being 1940, Douglas' affliction Read More

Dr. Kildare Goes Home

Actors: Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore, Laraine Day, Gene Lockhart, Samuel S. Hinds

Synopsis: Appointed resident assistant at the Byng State Hospital by his mentor Dr. Leonard Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore), young Doctor James Kildare (Lew Ayres) has every reason to celebrate. His euphoria, however, is short-lived: Kildare is forced to return to his hometown when his general-practitioner Read More

Let Freedom Ring

Actors: Nelson Eddy, Virginia Bruce, Victor McLaglen, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Arnold

Synopsis: Originally filmed in Sepiatone, Let Freedom Ring is a satisfying Nelson Eddy musical with patriotic overtones. Set in the years following the Civil War, the story focuses on the battle of wills between Harvard-educated idealist Steve Logan (Eddy) and bullying railroad magnate Jim Knox (Edward Arnold Read More

Land of Liberty

Synopsis: Originally designed for exhibition at the 1939 World's Fair, Land of Liberty is a 137-minute compendium of filmclips from past American historical epics. The project was sponsored by the Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc. and supervised by Cecil B. DeMille, who also edited Read More

Calling Dr. Kildare

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Lew Ayres, Lana Turner, Laraine Day, Nat Pendleton

Synopsis: The second of MGM's "Dr. Kildare" series, Calling Dr. Kildare finds the title character (Lew Ayres) transferred to Blair General's downtown outpatient clinic by his crusty superior Dr. Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore). It is Gillespie's hope that Kildare will gain valuable experience by working in Read More

The Secret of Dr. Kildare

Actors: Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore, Lionel Atwill, Helen Gilbert, Nat Pendleton

Synopsis: In this third installment of MGM's "Dr. Kildare" series, Dr. James Kildare (Lew Ayres) comes to the rescue when his supervisor/mentor Dr. Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore) nearly collapses from overwork. Gillespie is seeking a permanent cure for pneumonia, and must ask Kildare for assistance when the Read More

On Borrowed Time

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Cedric Hardwicke, Una Merkel, Beulah Bondi, Bobs Watson

Synopsis: Old Gramps (Lionel Barrymore) is not about to go gentle into that good night when Mr. Brink (Cedric Hardwicke), who sometimes travels under the name of the Grim Reaper, comes calling. Through a ruse, Gramps chases Brink up a tree in his garden, rendering the mysterious stranger helpless. As a Read More

The Movies March On

Actors: Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, William S. Hart, Charles Chaplin, Ben Turpin

Synopsis: The Movies March On was Number 12, volume 9 of Louis de Rochemont's March of Time series. Narrated by the stentorian Westbrook Van Vorhees, this fascinating documentary manages to squeeze 40 years of filmmaking into a mere two reels. Beginning with the once scandalous The Kiss (1898), the film Read More

Test Pilot

Actors: Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy, Lionel Barrymore, Samuel S. Hinds

Synopsis: Test Pilot is one of those irresistible MGM potboilers of the 1930s that coast along on sheer star power. Clark Gable plays a courageous test pilot, who compromises his achievements with his frequent bouts of drinking. Gable's mechanic, Spencer Tracy, does what he can to keep his boss out of Read More

A Yank at Oxford

Actors: Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Vivien Leigh, Edmund Gwenn

Synopsis: A Yank at Oxford was filmed in England at MGM's "sister studio", Elstree. Robert Taylor plays Lee Sheridan, an arrogant young American scholar/athlete who intends to show the "Brits" a thing or two while attending Oxford University. His abrasive attitude grates against the Oxonian students, who Read More

You Can't Take It with You

Actors: Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Edward Arnold, Mischa Auer, Ann Miller, Spring Byington

Synopsis: Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman's whimsical Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play You Can't Take It With You was transformed into a paean to populism by director Frank Capra and screenwriter Robert Riskin. This is the story of the zany Sycamore household, presided over by Grandpa Vanderhof (Lionel Barrymore Read More

Young Dr. Kildare

Actors: Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore, Lynne Carver, Nat Pendleton, Jo Ann Sayers

Synopsis: Though not the first Dr. Kildare film ever made, this is the first entry in MGM's long-running series set at Blair General Hospital. With the ink still wet on his diploma, Dr. Kildare is faced with a difficult decision: should he return home to work in his father's quiet country practice, or work Read More

Captains Courageous

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Freddie Bartholomew, Lionel Barrymore, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Grapewin

Synopsis: A boy learns life-changing lessons about the importance of friendship and the dignity of labor in this adventure saga based on a story by Rudyard Kipling. Young Harvey Cheyne (Freddie Bartholomew) is the working definition of a spoiled brat; the only child of a wealthy widowed businessman, Harvey Read More

Navy Blue and Gold

Actors: Robert Young, James Stewart, Florence Rice, Billie Burke, Lionel Barrymore

Synopsis: MGM's Navy Blue and Gold prettily dresses up some of the oldest cliches in the "military cadet" movie genre. The film charts the progress of three Annapolis "plebes," all played by actors in the age range of 24 to 30. Wisecracking Roger Ash (Robert Young) is a cynic, wide-eyed Richard Gates Jr. (Tom Brown Read More

A Family Affair

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Cecilia Parker, Eric Linden, Mickey Rooney, Charles Grapewin

Synopsis: Based on Aurania Rouveyrol's Broadway play Skidding, A Family Affair is a gentle comedy/drama centering around the Hardy family of Carvel (a small, idealized American town). Judge Hardy (Lionel Barrymore) hopes to be re-elected, but his campaign is put in jeopardy by his opposition of a wasteful Read More

Saratoga

Actors: Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Frank Morgan, Walter Pidgeon

Synopsis: Jean Harlow offers her final screen performance in this witty and -- in retrospect -- quite moving racetrack comedy-drama co-starring Clark Gable and Walter Pidgeon. When her father dies shortly after losing his horse farm to Duke Bradley (Gable), Carol Clayton (Harlow) refuses the handsome Read More

The Gorgeous Hussy

Actors: Joan Crawford, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Franchot Tone, Melvyn Douglas

Synopsis: The Gorgeous Hussy purports to be based on the life of Margaret "Peggy" O'Neill, the controversial wife of early 19th-century politician John Eaton, who served as cabinet minister during the Andrew Jackson presidency. Snubbed by the Washington elite because of her questionable background as a Read More

The Voice of Bugle Ann

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Eric Linden, Dudley Digges, Spring Byington

Synopsis: Based on the novel by MacKinlay Kantor, this 1936 drama from director Richard Thorpe stars Lionel Barrymore as Springfield Davis, an avid fox hunter in the Ozarks who relies on his loyal dog, Bugle Ann, to aid in his hunt. When curmudgeonly shepherd Jacob Terry (Dudley Digges) puts up a fence Read More

Camille

Actors: Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Jessie Ralph

Synopsis: Greta Garbo enjoyed one of her greatest triumphs in this glossy adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' oft-filmed romantic tragedy. Here, Garbo stars as Marguerite Gauthier, who is born into humble circumstances but in time becomes Dame aux Camille, one of the most glamorous courtesans in Paris. Camille Read More

The Road to Glory

Actors: Fredric March, Warner Baxter, June Lang, Lionel Barrymore, Gregory Ratoff

Synopsis: Set in the French trenches, this WWI melodrama was cowritten by William Faulkner and directed by Howard Hawks. Hard-drinking Captain La Roche (Warner Baxter) delivers the same hollow speech to each wave of fresh soldiers assigned to his command, only to see them senselessly slaughtered by the Read More

The Devil Doll

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Frank Lawton, Robert Greig, Lucy Beaumont

Synopsis: Falsely convicted Lionel Barrymore escapes from Devil's Island with fellow prisoner H.B. Walthall. A brilliant scientist, Walthall reveals to Barrymore that he has developed a process to shrink human beings. Upon Walthall's death, Barrymore makes his way back to the old scientist's lab, intending Read More

Public Hero No. 1

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Jean Arthur, Chester Morris, Joseph Calleia, Paul Kelly

Synopsis: The stringent censorship imposed upon Hollywood of the mid-1930s dictated that gangsters could no longer be the "heroes" in any crime film. Public Hero No. 1 reflects this restriction. G-Man Chester Morris poses as a crook to infiltrate the notorious Purple Gang, a band of hoodlums which preys Read More

Ah, Wilderness!

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Eric Linden, Aline MacMahon, Cecilia Parker, Mickey Rooney

Synopsis: Playwright Eugene O'Neill's only comedy, Ah, Wilderness! was filmed by MGM in 1935. Impressionable turn-of-the-century lad Eric Linden, whose knowledge of the ways of the world has come from French novels, is anxious to taste life to the fullest. Linden's father Lionel Barrymore sternly advises Read More

David Copperfield

Actors: W.C. Fields, Lionel Barrymore, Freddie Bartholomew, Maureen O'Sullivan, Madge Evans, Frank Lawton, Edna May Oliver

Synopsis: David Copperfield was MGM's major Christmas release for its 1934-1935 season and also the first of producer David O. Selznick's major "literary" films for that studio. While a great deal of editing and streamlining was necessary to distill Charles Dickens' massive novel into 133 minutes of screen Read More

The Return of Peter Grimm

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Helen Mack, Edward Ellis, Donald Meek, George Breakston

Synopsis: Previously filmed in 1921 and 1926, this venerable 1911 David Belasco stage play provides a good, if slightly risible, vehicle for Lionel Barrymore. Greedy businessman Peter Grimm (Barrymore) returns from the dead in spirit form to correct all the mistakes he made during his lifetime. The old man Read More

The Little Colonel

Actors: Shirley Temple, Lionel Barrymore, Evelyn Venable, John Lodge, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: Shirley Temple's first costume picture -- and one of her best pictures of any kind -- was 1935's The Little Colonel. The story begins in 1870, when unreconstructed Southerner Colonel Lloyd (Lionel Barrymore) disowns his daughter Elizabeth (Evelyn Venable) when she stubbornly marries damn-Yankee Read More

Mark of the Vampire

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Bela Lugosi, Elizabeth Allan, Lionel Atwill, Jean Hersholt, Carroll Borland

Synopsis: Mark of the Vampire is Tod Browning's remake of his own 1927 thriller London After Midnight, which unfortunately no longer exists. The sudden appearance of ghostly vampires in a remote mittel-European community is seemingly tied in with an old, unsolved murder case. Police inspector Neumann (Lionel Atwill Read More

Carolina

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Lionel Barrymore, Robert Young, Richard Cromwell, Henrietta Crosman

Synopsis: Carolina, a melodrama directed by Henry King, follows a young woman's attempt to restore a southern plantation back to its pre-Civil War glory. Joanna Tate (Janet Gaynor), originally travels from her home in Pennsylvania to the plantation in order to collect her deceased father's belongings. Read More

This Side of Heaven

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Fay Bainter, Mae Clarke, Tom Brown, Una Merkel

Synopsis: This Side of Heaven is an early, muted example of what would refine itself into the "screwball comedy" genre. Lionel Barrymore plays an accountant, who's also the head of a large family consisting principally of dizzy buffoons. Not only that, but the Barrymore clan is selfish, totally Read More

Treasure Island

Actors: Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper, Lionel Barrymore, Otto Kruger, Lewis Stone

Synopsis: This fifth film version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island boasts an all-star MGM cast, headed by Wallace Beery as Long John Silver and Jackie Cooper as Jim Hawkins. The screenplay, by John Lee Mahin, John Howard Lawson and Leonard Praskins, remains faithful to the Stevenson original...up Read More

The Girl from Missouri

Actors: Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Franchot Tone, Patsy Kelly

Synopsis: Originally titled Eadie was a Lady, this Jean Harlow vehicle was slated for release under the title Born to be Kissed, but the new Production Code vetoed this "suggestive" cognomen. After a brief and uncomfortable period as One Hundred Percent Pure, the film was finally shipped to theaters as The Read More

One Man's Journey

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, May Robson, Dorothy Jordan, Joel McCrea, Frances Dee

Synopsis: Lionel Barrymore plays one of those selfless general practitioners that seem to exist exclusively in the movies in One Man's Journey. Though his efforts go unappreciated by his patients and even by his own family, the far-from-wealthy Dr. Eli Watt (Barrymore) continues to dedicate his life to Read More

Looking Forward

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Benita Hume, Elizabeth Allan, Phillips Holmes

Synopsis: A shopkeeper suffers after he is laid off during the Depression in this drama adapted from the English play Service. He had worked at that shop for over 40 years. It was a family tradition to work at that shop. But now, his boss is selling the shop to a lower-priced rival, and the poor man and his Read More

Reunion in Vienna

Actors: John Barrymore, Diana Wynyard, Frank Morgan, Henry Travers, May Robson

Synopsis: Reunion in Vienna is a trapped-in-amber adaptation of Robert Sherwood's popular stage play. John Barrymore brings virtually the only life to the proceedings as an amorous Austrian archduke, long exiled from his homeland. Returning to Vienna after twelve years, Barrymore tries to take up where he Read More

Christopher Bean

Actors: Marie Dressler, Lionel Barrymore, Beulah Bondi, Helen Shipman, Helen Mack

Synopsis: Based on the play by Sidney Howard (of Gone with the Wind and Dead End fame), Christopher Bean is a showcase for the magnificent Marie Dressler. She plays Abby, the poor but proud housekeeper of a small-town doctor (Lionel Barrymore), his wife (Beulah Bondi), and their children. Years before the Read More

Dinner at Eight

Actors: Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Billie Burke

Synopsis: Based on the Broadway hit by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, Dinner at Eight is a near-flawless comedy/drama with an all-star cast at the peak of their talents. Social butterfly Mrs. Oliver Jordan (Billie Burke) arranges a dinner party that will benefit the busines of her husband (Lionel Barrymore Read More

Night Flight

Actors: John Barrymore, Helen Hayes, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore, Robert Montgomery

Synopsis: This suspense drama was based on a novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Riviere (John Barrymore), who operates an air delivery service, is fanatical in his dedication to service, putting prompt delivery before the safety of his men or his fleet after receiving a contract to help transport the mail. Read More

Should Ladies Behave?

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Alice Brady, Conway Tearle, Katherine Alexander, Mary Carlisle

Synopsis: In this romantic comedy, a middle-aged woman married to a much older man begins a harmless flirtation with an artistically inclined gigolo after she mistakes him for her long-lost lover. Unfortunately, the opportunist really loves the woman's daughter. He is also smitten with another woman. Read More

The Stranger's Return

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Miriam Hopkins, Franchot Tone, Stuart Erwin, Irene Hervey

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Phil (State Fair) Stong, The Stranger's Return is one of the most accomplished projects of director King Vidor, and one of the few MGM films of its period to display anything like a "personal touch." Miriam Hopkins stars as a bored Manhattanite who visits her family farm in Read More

Sweepings

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Alan Dinehart, Eric Linden, William Gargan, Gloria Stuart

Synopsis: Lionel Barrymore plays a Marshall Field-like Chicago businessman who emerges from the wreckage of the 1871 fire to build a department-store empire. Barrymore is aided by his Jewish manager Gregory Ratoff, who despite his business acumen is never made a full partner. The store magnate's four Read More

Berkeley Square

Actors: Leslie Howard, Heather Angel, Valerie Taylor, Irene Browne, Beryl Mercer, Alan Mowbray

Synopsis: Adapted from John Balderston's successful stage fantasy (itself based on a story by Henry James), Berkeley Square is the story of a modern-day London scientist (Leslie Howard), who is romantically fascinated by the 18th century. A freak accident propels Howard back to 1784, where he assumes the Read More

Broken Lullaby

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Nancy Carroll, Phillips Holmes, Lucien Littlefield, ZaSu Pitts

Synopsis:
Director Ernst Lubitsch gained international acclaim for his sophisticated romantic comedies, but he also had a talent for more serious themes, as evidenced by this 1932 drama. French musician Paul (Phillips Holmes) joined the Army at the height of WWI. On the field of battle, Paul shot and Read More

Rasputin and the Empress

Actors: John Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Ralph Morgan, Diana Wynyard

Synopsis: It's hard to separate fact and fancy from the many accounts of what happened on the set when all three of the fabulous Barrymores -- Ethel, John and Lionel -- appeared together for the only time in Rasputin and the Empress. As for the end result, John offers the subtlest (!) performance as Russian Read More

Grand Hotel

Actors: Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore

Synopsis: Based on Vicki Baum's novel and produced by Irving Thalberg, this film is about the lavish Grand Hotel in Berlin, a place where "nothing ever happens." That statement proves to be false, however, as the story follows an intertwining cast of characters over the course of one tumultuous day. Greta Garbo Read More

Mata Hari

Actors: Greta Garbo, Ramon Novarro, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, C. Henry Gordon

Synopsis: "So much for Carlotta" muses the head of German Espionage (Lewis Stone), shortly after secret agent Karen Morley is put to death. Morley's successor is exotic dancer Mata Hari (Greta Garbo), an enigmatic woman of Javanese-Dutch ancestry who seldom thinks twice about luring some poor swain to his Read More

Arsene Lupin

Actors: John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Karen Morley, John Miljan, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: John Barrymore plays a burglar and his brother Lionel Barrymore is the detective trying to catch him in this cleverly cast drama. An upscale thief who works under the name of Arsene Lupin is making the rounds of the homes of the wealthy and privileged, and Detective Guerchard (Lionel Barrymore) is Read More

Washington Masquerade

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Karen Morley, Diane Sinclair, Nils Asther, Reginald Barlow

Synopsis: Perhaps most noteworthy for the first onscreen performance by future Academy Award winner Hattie McDaniel, this politcal melodrama from director Charles Brabin stars Lionel Barrymore as Jefferson Keane, a widowed US Senator who suddenly finds himself sought after by Consuela, a beautiful young Read More

Ten Cents a Dance

Crew: Director

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Ricardo Cortez, Monroe Owsley, Sally Blane

Synopsis: Ten cents a dance, that's what they pay her -- "her" being downtrodden taxi dancer Barbara (Barbara Stanwyck). The only thing Barbara sells is her time, or at least that's the story she gives her jellyfish husband Eddie (Monroe Owsley). But when wealthy Carlton (Ricardo Cortez) starts making Read More

A Free Soul

Actors: Norma Shearer, Leslie Howard, Lionel Barrymore, Clark Gable, James Gleason

Synopsis: In this Academy Award-winning film, Stephen Ashe (Lionel Barrymore) is a hotshot Californian lawyer from a well-to-do family, whose main failing is his indulgence in alcohol. After winning a case for mobster Ace Wilfong (Clark Gable), Stephen brings his client along to a party at his parents' Read More

Guilty Hands

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Kay Francis, Madge Evans, William Bakewell, C. Aubrey Smith

Synopsis: The titular hands belong to Lionel Barrymore, who plays a prominent defense attorney. To save his daughter (Madge Evans) from a cad (Alan Mobray), Barrymore murders the man and arranges to make the deed look like suicide. The victim's mistress (Kay Francis) suspects foul play, but the lawyer has Read More

The Yellow Ticket

Actors: Elissa Landi, Lionel Barrymore, Laurence Olivier, Walter Byron, Sarah Padden

Synopsis: Based upon a much-filmed play by Michael Morton (which may in turn have been based upon a story by Frank Harris, The Yellow Ticket is also an indirect descendant of the opera La Tosca. In pre-Revolutionary Russia, a Jewish peasant girl named Marya Kalish (played by Elissa Landi) has reason to Read More

Free and Easy

Actors: Buster Keaton, Anita Page, Trixie Friganza, Robert Montgomery, Fred Niblo

Synopsis: Buster Keaton's talkie debut (discounting his non-speaking guest appearance in Hollywood Revue of 1929) was Free and Easy, an uneven but generally amusing comedy with a Hollywood setting. When pretty Elvira (Anita Page) of Gopher City, Kansas wins a beauty contest, her prize includes a trip to Read More

Love Comes Along

Actors: Bebe Daniels, Lloyd Hughes, Montagu Love, Ned Sparks, Alma Tell

Synopsis: Love Comes Along was based on Conchita, a stage melodrama by Edward (Kismet) Knoblock. The story takes place on the mythical island of Caparjota, a gathering spot for virtually every hot-to-trot sailor in the universe. One of these amorous tars is Johnny Stark (Lloyd Hughes), who falls hard for Read More

The Rogue Song

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Lawrence Tibbett, Catherine Dale Owen, Nance O'Neil, Judith Vosselli, Ullrich Haupt, Sr.

Synopsis: Metropolitan opera star Lawrence Tibbett headed the cast of The Rogue Song, an opulent Technicolor adaptation of the Franz Lehar operetta Gypsy Love. Set (vaguely) in 19th-century Russia, the film stars Tibbett as Yegor, dashing leader of an outlaw band called "The Robbing Larks." During one of Read More

Hollywood Revue of 1929

Synopsis: With the arrival of talkies, every major studio hopped on the musical bandwagon by turning out lavish "revues," spotlighting their top stars performing specialty numbers. MGM's entry in this all-star genre was Hollywood Revue of 1929, which, though a box-office smash and a "Best Picture" Oscar Read More

The Mysterious Island

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Jane Daly, Lloyd Hughes, Montagu Love, Harry Gribbon

Synopsis: Jules Verne's fantastic 19th century novel Mysterious Island provided the title and little else for this spectacular filmization. Lionel Barrymore plays an altruistic scientist who has built an underground city, hoping to use the modernistic devices he has installed to bring about world peace. But Read More

The Unholy Night

Crew: Director

Actors: Ernest Torrence, Roland Young, Dorothy Sebastian, Natalie Moorhead, Sidney Jarvis

Synopsis: A group of Londoners gather at the home of their host in order to solve the murders of two company officers. Once assembled the host announces that half of one of the deceased's fortune will go to the guests and if anyone should die, that person's share would go to the others. Before any money is Read More

His Glorious Night

Crew: Composer (Music Score), Director

Actors: John Gilbert, Catherine Dale Owen, Nance O'Neil, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Hedda Hopper

Synopsis: Based on Olympia, a 1928 Ferenc Molnar stage soufflé, His Glorious Night has gone down in history as having more or less single-handedly caused the downfall of silent-screen matinee idol John Gilbert, whose ardent declarations of "I love you, I love you" to an overly inert Catherine Dale Owen Read More

Stark Mad

Actors: H.B. Warner, Louise Fazenda, Jacqueline Logan, Henry B. Walthall

Synopsis: In this adventure set in South America, the captain of a yacht moored there is really a fugitive criminal. The passengers are too busy trying to find the missing son of the boat's owner to pay the captain much mind. Later the hapless passengers find themselves having to deal with angry natives and Read More

Madame X

Crew: Director

Actors: Ruth Chatterton, Lewis Stone, Raymond Hackett, Holmes Herbert, John P. Edington, Ullrich Haupt, Sr.

Synopsis: Alexandre Brisson's weepy 1906 play had already been filmed three times when the 1929 talkie Madame X made its debut. Ruth Chatterton stars as a low-born wife of a socialite, whose aristocratic in-laws kick her out when she gives birth to a baby boy of dubious parentage. The boy, who has been led Read More

Sadie Thompson

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

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

Road House

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

The River Woman

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Jacqueline Logan, Charles Delaney

Drums of Love

Actors: Mary Philbin, Lionel Barrymore, Don Alvarado, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: Pioneering filmmaker D.W. Griffith's days of glory were well behind him when he agreed to direct Drums of Love. Indicative of his diminishing status in Hollywood was the fact that he was now merely a hired hand at United Artists, the company he'd helped to form in 1919. The film was based on the Read More

Alias Jimmy Valentine

Actors: William Haines, Lionel Barrymore, Leila Hyams, Karl Dane, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: After holding out for several months, MGM decided to take the talking-picture plunge with Alias Jimmy Valentine. Actually, the film is 90% silent, with a few arbitrarily inserted talkie sequences. Digressing but little from the oft-filmed O. Henry original, the plot concerns a reformed Read More

West of Zanzibar

Actors: Lon Chaney, Lionel Barrymore, Warner Baxter, Mary Nolan, Jacqueline Gadsdon

Synopsis: In this lurid Tod Browning melodrama, boasting a thoroughly creepy performance by Lon Chaney, Chaney plays Phroso, a limehouse magician who is thoroughly in love with his wife Anna (Jacquelin Gadsdon). Also in love with Phroso's wife is ivory-trader Crane (Lionel Barrymore). After a performance Read More

The Lion and the Mouse

Actors: May McAvoy, Lionel Barrymore, Alec B. Francis, Emmett Corrigan

Synopsis: The Lion and the Mouse was adapted from the well-worn stage play by Charles Klein. Lionel Barrymore stars as "Ready Money" Ryder, a ruthless businessman who destroys Judge Rossmore (Alec B. Francis), the father of heroine Shirley (May McAvoy). Soon thereafter, Ryder's weak-willed son Jefferson (William Collier Jr Read More

Body and Soul

Actors: Aileen Pringle, Norman Kerry, Lionel Barrymore, T. Roy Barnes

Synopsis: Body and Soul was a remake of the heavy-breathing 1920 melodrama The Branding Iron. Lionel Barrymore is shameless in his portrayal of double-dyed villain Dr. Leyden. After disgracing his profession, Leyden escapes to Switzerland, where he is smitten by inn servant Hilda (Aileen Pringle). Tricking Read More

Show

Actors: John Gilbert, Renée Adorée, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Connelly, Gertrude Short

Synopsis: Long believed to be a "lost" film, The Show resurfaced in the mid-1970s, proving to be a real treasure trove for aficionados of director Tod Browning. Ostensibly based on Tenney Jackson's novel The Day of Souls, the film also owes a great deal to Ferenc Molnar's Liliom. John Gilbert stars as Cock Read More

Love

Actors: Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, George Fawcett, Emily Fitzroy, Brandon Hurst

Synopsis: This MGM-ized adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina was originally titled Heat but was changed to Love when someone at the studio pointed out the possible implications of having the opening title read "John Gilbert and Greta Garbo in Heat." Heavily updated and revised, the film bore scant Read More

Thirteenth Hour

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Jacqueline Gadsden, Charles Delaney, Fred Kelsey, Polly Moran

Synopsis: The whole cast looks like they're enjoying themselves in this spoof on crime melodramas. A series of thefts are being committed nightly at the thirteenth hour (i.e., 1 A.M.), the latest resulting in a murder, and detective Matt Gray (Charles Delaney) is convinced he can find the perpetrator with Read More

Women Love Diamonds

Actors: Pauline Starke, Owen Moore, Lionel Barrymore, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Synopsis: Also known as Women Love Diamonds, this MGM picture was to have been a Greta Garbo vehicle, but when Garbo went on strike for a higher salary the film was deferred to contractee Pauline Starke. The story concerns the beautiful mistress (Starke) of an elderly millionaire (Lionel Barrymore), who Read More

The Bells

Synopsis: The play The Bells (based on the French Le Juif Polonais) was brought to the screen in 1926. Lionel Barrymore plays a merchant who murders a Jewish entrepreneur and appropriates the dead man's fortune. Though no evidence exists to convict him, Barrymore cannot escape his own conscience due to the Read More

The Temptress

Actors: Greta Garbo, Antonio Moreno, Roy D'Arcy, Marc MacDermott, Lionel Barrymore

Synopsis: The Temptress was Greta Garbo's second American film, and while it may strike modern viewers as excessively melodramatic, Garbo is always worth watching. The star plays Elena, the wife of Monsieur Canterac (Lionel Barrymore) -- and the mistress of rich Parisian banker Monsieur Fontenoy (Marc MacDermott Read More

The Barrier

Actors: Norman Kerry, Henry B. Walthall, Lionel Barrymore, Marceline Day, George Cooper

Synopsis: MGM's silent programmers were often more elaborate than the "A" product from most other studios, and The Barrier was no exception. Norman Kerry plays a Virginian blueblood who comes to the North Woods. Here he falls in love with Marceline Day, the daughter of Henry B. Walthall. Only she's not Read More

Brooding Eyes

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Robert Ellis, Ruth Clifford, Montagu Love, Lucien Littlefield

Synopsis: Lionel Barrymore was at a low career ebb when he agreed to appear in the independently produced Brooding Eyes. Barrymore emulates his brother John in the role of Slim Jim Carey, the "black sheep" of an aristocratic British family. A professional blackmailer, Carey suddenly and mysteriously Read More

Paris at Midnight

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Mary Brian, Edmund Burns

Synopsis: Paris at Midnight was freely adapted from Pere Goriot, a novel by Honore de Balzac. Lionel Barrymore stars as the "Robin Hood of Paris," who robs from the rich and keeps it all for himself. When his best friend dies in a shabby boarding house, Barrymore promises to look after the friend's Read More

Lucky Lady

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Greta Nissen, William Collier, Jr., Marc MacDermott

Synopsis: Another of Raoul Walsh's "lost" silent films, Lucky Lady stars Gretta Niessen as the title character. Convent-bred to assume her position of nobility when the time comes, Princess Antoinette (Niessen) plays hooky from school one day to attend a theatrical performance. Here she meets a handsome Read More

The Iron Man

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Mildred Harris, Dorothy Kingdon

Synopsis: Produced and directed by Whitman Bennett, this minor society melodrama features Mildred Harris as Claire Bowdoin, whose blue-collar mother (Dorothy Kingdon) is arranging for her to marry handsome Prince Novokian (Jean del Val). The prince, alas, is grabbed instead by a certain Miss Callahan Read More

The Wrongdoers

Synopsis: In spite of the presence of Lionel Barrymore, this old-fashioned drama was nothing more than mediocre program fare. Daniel Abbott (Barrymore) is a druggist and philanthropist. One day, while visiting court with his adopted son, Jimmy (Tom Brown), he finds a certain Mrs. Warren being charged with Read More

Children of the Whirlwind

Synopsis: Johnny Walker stars in this routine, independently made crime drama. After serving a stretch in jail, Larry Brainerd (Walker) returns to his old gang to tell them that he plans to go straight. This doesn't sit well with his former colleagues, and they call him a coward. As if this humiliation Read More

The Splendid Road

Actors: Anna Q. Nilsson, Robert W. Frazer, Lionel Barrymore, Roy Laidlaw, DeWitt Jennings

Synopsis: This typically overblown Frank Lloyd-directed western takes place in the days of the California Gold Rush. Anna Q. Nilsson stars as Sandra De Hault, who heads to California in the company of three orphaned children she has adopted along the way. Taking up residence in a squalid shack, Sandra falls Read More

Wildfire

Actors: Aileen Pringle, Edna Murphy, Holmes Herbert, Edmund Breese, Mary Thurman

Synopsis: This horse racing meller was based on the play by George V. Hobart and George Broadhurst. Claire Barrington (Aileen Pringle) wants to see her sister, Myrtle (Edna Murphy), make a fortuitous marriage to Ralph Woodhurst (Antrim Short). Woodhurst's father opposes horse racing, so Claire keeps it a Read More

The Girl Who Wouldn't Work

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Marguerite de la Motte, Henry B. Walthall, Lilyan Tashman, Forrest Stanley

Synopsis: Mary Hale (Marguerite de la Motte) hates her job in a department store, and when wealthy Gordon Kent (Lionel Barrymore) comes around, she flirts with him and is fired. Because she is mad at her fiancé, William Norworth (Forrest Stanley), Mary takes off in Kent's car and she doesn't come home until Read More

Decameron Nights

Actors: Werner Krauss, Lionel Barrymore, Albert Steinruck, Ivy Duke, Bernhard Goetzke

Synopsis: During the 1920s, it was a common occurrence for British filmmakers to lense their productions in Germany, and vice versa. Thus it was that Herbert Wilcox travelled to Deutschland to film his lavish Decameron Nights. The film was based on a play by McLoughlin and Lawrence, which in turn was Read More

America / The Fall of Babylon

Synopsis: This video contains two abridged version films: America, in which a Boston patriot and the daughter of a Tory fall in love during the Revolutionary War; and the silent film, The Fall of Babylon, which is one of the stories told in D. W. Griffith's Intolerance. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Meddling Women

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Sigrid Holmquist, Dagmar Godowsky, Hugh Thompson, Ida Darling

Synopsis: Lionel Barrymore has a dual role in this play-within-a picture. Grace Ainsworth (Sigrid Holmquist) wants to return to her career as an opera singer, and her mother-in-law (Ida Darling) supports her. Grace's husband, Edwin (Barrymore), wants her to stay at home and to convince her, he relates the Read More

America

Actors: Neil Hamilton, Erville Alderson, Carol Dempster, Arthur Dewey

Synopsis: This epic tale about the American Revolution broke the bank for filmmaker D.W. Griffith. Robert W. Chambers loosely adapted his novel, The Reckoning, which focuses on the battles in New York state. Griffith however, found it necessary to add a romance, so Chambers obligingly added one for him. Read More

I Am the Man

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Seena Owen, Gaston Glass, Flora Le Breton

Synopsis: Lionel Barrymore stars as an evil political boss in this heavy drama. James McQuade (Barrymore) is infatuated with Julia Calvert (Seena Owen), who is engaged to district attorney Daniel Harrington (Gaston Glass). To get her away from Harrington, McQuade frames her father for a crime. The only way Read More

Unseeing Eyes

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Seena Owen, Louis Wolheim, Gustav von Seyffertitz, Walter Miller

Synopsis: This predictable Northwest melodrama was one of the first made by William Randolph Hearst's film company, Cosmopolitan, for the Goldwyn studios. It was adapted from a story that appeared in Hearst's International Magazine and much of it was shot on-location in the Columbia Valley and around Quebec Read More

A Lady of Quality

Actors: Virginia Valli, Lionel Barrymore, Margaret Seddon, Peggy Cartwright, Milton Sills

Synopsis: Running five reels, Famous Players' The Lady of Quality was a faithful adaptation of the same-named theatrical drama. Repeating her stage role of Clorinda was the magnificent Cecilia Loftus, while Geraldine O'Brien, House Peters, Hal Clarendon, Peter Lang and Dave Wall offered excellent support. Read More

Eternal City

Actors: Barbara La Marr, Lionel Barrymore, Bert Lytell, Richard Bennett, Montagu Love

Synopsis: Bruno, a tramp (Richard Bennett), takes in a waif, David, who is later adopted by a man whose daughter, Roma, wants a playmate. The children grow up (to be played by Bert Lytell and Barbara LaMarr), and when World War I breaks out, David and Bruno enlist. David is reported dead and Roma, who is a Read More

The Enemies of Women

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Alma Rubens, William Collier, Jr., Pedro de Cordoba, Gladys Hulette

Synopsis: This epic production was the last film that producer and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst produced for Paramount (after that, his production company, Cosmopolitan, went over to Goldwyn, which later merged with MGM). It was based on a novel by Vicenti Blasco Ibanez, who also wrote The Four Read More

Boomerang Bill

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Marguerite Marsh, Margaret Seddon, Frank Shannon, Matthew Betts

Synopsis: Although Lionel Barrymore was miscast as a gunman, he overcame this drawback by giving the role of Boomerang Bill an intensely human quality. The story opens with a young man about to leave the world of the straight and narrow. A detective approaches him and points out a broken-down soul Read More

The Face in the Fog

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Seena Owen, Lowell Sherman, George Nash, Louis Wolheim

Synopsis: Writer Jack Boyle created a timely adventure for the character of Boston Blackie Dawson in this mystery (at least it was timely in 1922) -- here the reformed crook gets tangled up in the affairs of a Grand Duchess who has escaped from Soviet Russia with some of the Romanoff jewels. A blind beggar Read More

Great Adventure

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Diana Manners, Gerald Lawrence, Octavia Broske, Alice Crawford, Cecil Humphreys, Doris Rankin, William Luff, Ivo Dawson

Synopsis: Comedy was not the forte of great character actor Lionel Barrymore, and this picture, based on the novel by Arnold Bennett, suffers as a result. When his valet, Henry Leek (Thomas Braidon) dies, famed English artist Priam Farll (Barrymore) takes on his identity to escape the grasping romantic Read More

Jim the Penman

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, Doris Rankin, Douglas MacPherson, Gladys Leslie

Synopsis: Lionel Barrymore stars in this melodrama, based on the play by Sir James L. Young. Jim Ralston (Barrymore) is a country bank clerk who has a talent for forging signatures. He's in love with Nina Bronson (Doris Rankin, Barrymore's real life wife) and saves her father (Ned Burton) from financial Read More

Devil's Garden

Synopsis: William Dale (Lionel Barrymore), a servant for Lord Barradine (H. Cooper Cliffe), marries Mavis, a maid (Doris Rankin, Barrymore's real-life wife). Dale wants to move up in life, and with Lord Barradine's influence, becomes district postmaster. When he vents his anger at a soldier however, Dale is Read More

The Master Mind

Synopsis: Henry Allen (Lionel Barrymore) swears revenge when attorney Cortland Wainwright (Ralph Kellard) sends his innocent brother to the electric chair. After becoming an underworld bigwig, Allen discovers that Wainwright worships a girl he met only briefly, Maggie Flint (Gypsy O'Brien). The girl has a Read More

Copperhead

Synopsis: Lionel Barrymore played Milt Shanks, the "Copperhead" of the title, on stage and repeated the role for this Paramount studios release. The patriotic story of Civil War days (originally a novel by Frederick Landis) involves Shanks' tenure as President Lincoln's most dedicated secret service man. Read More

The Penalty

Synopsis: Among Lon Chaney's early villainous roles was Blizzard, the criminal mastermind of this melodrama set in San Francisco's Barbary Coast neighborhood. As a young man, Blizzard was the victim of an auto accident, and a quack doctor had mistakenly ordered his legs amputated at the knees. He grows up Read More

Life's Whirlpool

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: One would liked to have been a fly on the wall of the set of Life's Whirlpool. Its leading lady was the imperious Ethel Barrymore, while the director was her brother Lionel Barrymore -- and, though sister and brother were devoted to each other, they were unsparing in their mutual criticism Read More

His Father's Son

Synopsis: In the later stages of his career, Lionel Barrymore was often cast as an irascible millionaire plagued with irresponsible children. In 1917's His Father's Son, it was Barrymore who played the ne'er-do-well offspring, while Charles Eldridge portrayed his father. Thrown out of his dad's house Read More

Quitter

Synopsis: Although Lionel Barrymore is the star of this picture, his role sounds better suited for his brother Jack, who specialized in wacky comedies of this sort during the mid-1910s. When his friends decide that "Happy Jack" Lewis (Barrymore) needs a wife, they place an ad in the paper for one. Glad Read More

The Brand of Cowardice

Synopsis: Hard to think of Lionel Barrymore as a romantic lead, much less a young coward who makes good. Yet Barrymore plays both in the 1916 silent production Brand of Cowardice. Barrymore plays Cyril Hamilton, a chicken-hearted easterner who heads west. He makes up for his past misdeeds by rescuing a Read More

Dorian's Divorce

Synopsis: Wealthy clubman Richard Dorian (Lionel Barrymore) is a lighthearted soul who can't seem to take anything seriously, including his wife (Grace Valentine). Even when they decide to divorce, he meets the lawyers with a smile. When one of the attorneys suggests a charge of brutality, Mrs. Dorian Read More

Yellow Streak

Synopsis: Wall street broker Barry Dale (Lionel Barrymore) is systematically ruined financially by his alleged best friend Richard Marvin (J. H. Goldsworthy). This Marvin does so that he can win Dale's wife Virginia (Dorothy Gwynne) away from the discredited broker. Dispirited and disillusioned, Dale heads Read More

The Exploits of Elaine

Synopsis: Although not as remembered as The Perils of Pauline (also 1914), The Exploits of Elaine was by all accounts the superior serial, grossing over $1 million dollars and further establishing its athletic leading lady Pearl White as the serial queen to beat. White played Elaine Dodge, whose father Read More

Classmates

Synopsis: Forced by the dictates of his Biograph contract to give up directing in favor of "supervising," D.W. Griffith left the studio as soon as possible. Thus, though Griffith is credited as supervisor of the 4-reel Classmates, he actually had very little to do with the production. The story concerns Read More

Judith of Bethulia

Actors: Blanche Sweet, Henry B. Walthall, Robert Harron, Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish

Synopsis: Conservative Biograph Studios, having galloped to prominence on the coattails of their star director D.W. Griffith, refused to allow Griffith to make any film longer than two reels. Ignoring this edict, Griffith permitted his Biblical epic Judith of Bethulia to stretch to four reels; Biograph's Read More

The Seats of the Mighty

Synopsis: Produced by Colonial productions and released by the World Film Company, the six-reel Seats of the Mighty was based on the same-named novel by Sir Gilbert Parker. Though a prologue is set in the royal court of France (with such "celebrities" as Madames Pompadour and DuBarry in attendance) most of Read More

Power of the Press

Actors: Lionel Barrymore, William Russell, Alan Hale, Vivien Prescott, Betty Gray

Synopsis: Turner Morgan (William Russell) is discharged from his job as foreman at a shipyard, and Steve Carson (Lionel Barrymore) is appointed to replace him. Morgan falls in with a criminal element and gets involved with a plot to steal the legacy bequeathed to Steve's new bride. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Read More

Oil and Water

A Misunderstood Boy

The Perfidy of Mary

Near to Earth

The House of Darkness

A Girl's Stratagem

The House of Discord

The Lady and the Mouse

Just Gold

A Timely Interception

Three Friends

Synopsis: The "three friends" in this sentimental Gaumont effort are an elderly cab driver, his faithful horse and his pet dog. Early on, it is established that both horse and dog have suffered unspeakable cruelties at the hands of their previous owners. The kindhearted cabbie rescues the two animals Read More

The Vengeance of Galora

Crew: Screenwriter

The Wanderer

The Yaqui Cur

The Sheriff's Baby

The Ranchero's Revenge

So Runs the Way

The Tender Hearted Boy

Crew: Screenwriter

The Telephone Girl and the Lady

Fate

The Enemy's Baby

The Battle at Elderbush Gulch

Synopsis: A besieged blockhouse containing a frightened Lillian Gish, marauding Indians, and a Mexican who heroically brings the cavalry to the rescue, are the none-too-original components of D.W. Griffith's endurable 2-reeler The Battle at Elderbush Gulch, made during the director's final year with Read More

An Adventure in the Autumn Woods

Brute Force

Death's Marathon

The Chief's Blanket

A Cry for Help

The God Within

The Burglar's Dilemma

Crew: Screenwriter

The Musketeers of Pig Alley

Friends

Brutality

My Hero

So Near, Yet So Far

The One She Loved

The New York Hat

Synopsis: The last film Mary Pickford did for director D.W. Griffith was made from the first scenario Anita Loos ever submitted to a movie studio. The young writer's story showed her to be clever beyond her years and experience. In a small Vermont town, a dying mother hands over her small savings to a Read More

My Baby

The Informer

Home Folks

Gold and Glitter

The Massacre

Synopsis: A wagon train is attacked by marauding Indians in this typically grisly Biograph one-reel western melodrama preserved in the print collection of the Library of Congress. After the massacre of the title, a soldier searches for his wife and child. He finds them -- under a pile of dead soldiers. Read More

The Miser's Heart

The Battle

Fighting Blood