Mack SwainFilmography

The Funniest Man in the World

Synopsis: A video compilation of cutting-room-floor footage from the works of Charles Chaplin. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. narrates. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Down Memory Lane

Actors: Steve Allen, Bing Crosby, W.C. Fields, Donald Novis, Gloria Swanson, Mabel Normand

Synopsis: Down Memory Lane is a pastiche film comprised of old comedy footage from the Mack Sennett studios. The vintage clips are tied together by a thin continuity wherein TV host Steve Allen hopes to boost his ratings by screening excerpts from Sennett's silent and talkie two-reel comedies. Among the Read More

Two Reelers: Comedy Classics 8

Synopsis: This volume includes three separate shorts of comedy from the '30s. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide Read More

Lighthouse Love

The Midnight Patrol

Actors: Regis Toomey, Betty Bronson, Edwina Booth, Mary Nolan, Earl Foxe

Synopsis: Upon her release from prison, Joyce Greeley (Edwina Booth) is promptly and mysteriously murdered. Fledgling crime reporter John Martin (Regis Toomey) wants to find out why and also wants to discern the role of Joyce's lawyer Judson (Earl Foxe) in this whole sordid mess. Martin befriends the dead Read More

Finn and Hattie

Actors: Leon Errol, Mitzi Green, ZaSu Pitts, Jackie Searl, Lilyan Tashman

Synopsis: In this youthful comedy, a child genius has fun getting her cousin into trouble. The bright girl's parents take her and her nephew on a sea cruise to Paris. En route, the girl treats the boy abominably. First she pushes him over the boat, then she stuffs him down an airshaft. Later she sticks his Read More

The Wide Open Spaces

The Sea Bat

Actors: Charles Bickford, Raquel Torres, Nils Asther, George F. Marion, John Miljan

Synopsis: "Sea Bat" is another name for the poisonous sting rays that trouble swimmers in warmer ocean climes. The story is set upon a tropical island and centers on the sister of a reef diver who was attacked under water by another diver and left to be eaten by an enormous sea bat (in reality the rays eat Read More

Redemption

Actors: John Gilbert, Conrad Nagel, Eleanor Boardman, Renée Adorée, Claire McDowell

Synopsis: Based on Leo Tolstoy's The Living Corpse, Redemption was originally scheduled as John Gilbert's first talkie, but was held from release until distribution of his second, One Glorious Night. The official reason, as handed down by the MGM publicity hacks, was that Gilbert's efforts to tackle a role Read More

The Locked Door

Actors: Rod La Rocque, Barbara Stanwyck, William "Stage" Boyd, Betty Bronson, Harry Stubbs

Synopsis: In this drama, which marks Barbara Stawyck's Hollywood film debut, a woman is taken to an illegal cabaret set aboard a wealthy man's yacht. Her captor, the owner, then locks her in a stateroom. When the cops raid the joint, she is photographed with the wealthy cad. Time passes and the woman ends Read More

The Cohens and Kellys in Atlantic City

Actors: George Sidney, Mack Swain, Kate Price, Vera Gordon, Tom Kennedy

Synopsis: This comedy is the first episode of the five-movie series "The Cohens and Kellys." In each movie the rivalry between the Jewish and Irish business owners is chronicled. This time they play competing manufacturers of bathing suits. The story centers upon their children, a son and a daughter who Read More

The Last Warning

Actors: Laura La Plante, Montagu Love, Mack Swain, Roy D'Arcy, Tom O'Brien

Synopsis: In this mystery, a producer reopens a theater where five years before, a lead actor was killed on stage during a performance. The murder remained unsolved. To solve the mystery, the producer stages the same play with the same cast. As the play is performed, the same series of events occurs and the Read More

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Actors: Ruth Taylor, Alice White, Ford Sterling, Holmes Herbert, Mack Swain

Synopsis: The present unavailability of 1928's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is especially frustrating for those who'd like to compare this first version of the classic Anita Loos comic novel to the 1953 Marilyn Monroe-Jane Russell remake. The blonde in question is Miss Lorelei Lee, a dumb-like-a-fox golddigger Read More

Caught in the Fog

Actors: May McAvoy, Conrad Nagel, Mack Swain, Charles Gerrard, Ruth Cherrington

Synopsis: This late silent effort from Warner Bros. stars Conrad Nagel and May McAvoy. Nagel plays a wealthy young sprout who makes an unannounced visit to his mother's houseboat. Here he confronts a gang of thieves, including the lovely McAvoy. Somewhat amused, Nagel offers no protest when the crooks Read More

The Girl from Nowhere

Tillie's Punctured Romance

Actors: W.C. Fields, Chester Conklin, Mack Swain, Louise Fazenda

Tired Business Man

Actors: Raymond Hitchcock, Farina Hoskins, Blanche Mehaffey, Joe Cobb, Jackie Condon, Mack Swain, Jay R. Smith, Charles Delaney, Margaret Quimby, Bobby Young

Synopsis: Charlie Oelze, the Hal Roach Studio's special effects and "gadget" maestro, was given co-director credit on the silent, two-reel Our Gang comedy Tired Business Men. New kid in town Joe Cobb is initiated into the gang's new "Manhattan Club," a social center dedicated to the relaxation of youngsters Read More

See You in Jail

Actors: Jack Mulhall, Alice Day, Mack Swain, George Fawcett, Crauford Kent

Synopsis: Jack Mulhall stars as Jerry Marsden, the wastrelly son of millionaire milk wholesaler J. Marsden Sr. (George Fawcett). After bailing Jerry out of one scrape too many, the elder Marsden cuts off the boy's allowance and tells him he's on his own. While looking for work, Jerry is hired by wealthy Read More

The Girl From Everywhere

Synopsis: Although it ran a very scant four reels (it was actually 3,303 feet in length), comedy producer Mack Sennett marketed this film as a feature. In spite of its short length, it did have quite a bit going for it, not the least being the scenes of the Sennett bathing beauties, which were shot in Read More

A Texas Steer

Actors: Will Rogers, Louise Fazenda, Sam Hardy, Ann Rork, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Synopsis: Though Will Rogers was still packing 'em in on Broadway, he was considered a Hollywood has-been when he starred in the independently produced A Texas Steer. Rogers also wrote the screenplay of this "topical comedy," in which he plays Texas rancher Maverick Brander, who is maneuvered into politics Read More

The Beloved Rogue

Actors: John Barrymore, Conrad Veidt, Marceline Day, Lawson Butt, Henry Victor

Synopsis: Beloved Rogue stars John Barrymore as legendary Parisian poet/vagabond Francois Villon. The film follows the basic chronology of all Villon dramatizations (If I Were King, The Vagabond King etc.): To ensure the loyalty of his subjects, crotchety King Louis XI (Conrad Veidt) appoints the waggish Read More

Finnegan's Ball

Actors: Blanche Mehaffey, Aggie Herring, Charles P. McHugh, Mack Swain

Synopsis: Finnegan's Ball was typical of the low-comedy ethnic shenanigans common to films of the 1920s. The warm relationship between the Finnegan family and the Flannigan clan gets warmer when Patrick Flannigan (Mack Swain) becomes Danny Finnegan's (Charles P. McHugh) boss. Things get ice cold, however Read More

Mockery

Actors: Lon Chaney, Ricardo Cortez, Barbara Bedford, Mack Swain, Emily Fitzroy

Synopsis: One of the rare American films directed by Danish auteur Benjamin Christensen, Mockery stars Lon Chaney Sr. as a half-witted Russian peasant. On the verge of starvation, Chaney is hired to guide a beautiful countess (Barbara Bedford) through the treacherous Siberian wastes. Once he arrives Read More

My Best Girl

Actors: Mary Pickford, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Sunshine Hart, Lucien Littlefield, Hobart Bosworth, Carmelita Geraghty

Synopsis: Mary Pickford stars as the "Miss Fix-it" for her eccentric family. Pickford's job at a dime-store keeps her postman dad (Lucien Littlefield), addlepated mom (Sunshine Hart) and loose-living sister (Carmelita Geraghty) from going under. She falls in love with handsome Charles "Buddy" Rogers, never Read More

Becky

Actors: Sally O'Neil, Owen Moore, Gertrude Olmstead, Mack Swain

Synopsis: Despite its posh MGM trappings, Becky is at heart a "B" picture, sacrificing pretentiousness in favor of good, solid entertainment values. Sally O'Neil stars as the title character, a pretty New York salesgirl who aspires to a stage career. She gets her chance when she's hired for a Broadway show Read More

Shamrock and the Rose

Actors: Mack Swain, Olive Hasbrouck, Edmund Burns, Maurice Costello, William Strauss

Synopsis: One of the better "Abie's Irish Rose" derivations of the late 1920s, The Shamrock and the Rose was adapted from a play by Owen Davis Sr. Set in New York's Lower East Side, "where the melting pot boils over," it's the story of a Jewish girl (Olive Hasbrouck) who falls in love with an Irish boy (Edmund Burns Read More

Sea Horses

Actors: Jack Holt, Florence Vidor, William Powell, George Bancroft, Mack Swain

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Francis Brett Young, Sea Horses stars Florence Vidor as Helen Salvia, who is deserted early on by her no-good husband Lorenzo (William Powell). With her 4-year-old daughter Cina (Mary Dow) in tow, Helen heads to a sinister African port town in search of her husband. During the Read More

Whispering Wires

Synopsis: With Mack Swain and Arthur Houseman in the cast, it's obvious that this murder mystery-melodrama has a lot of comic relief. There are murders being committed, and each one is foretold by a phone call in which a whispering voice relates the hour it will happen. After two of these strange deaths Read More

The Nervous Wreck

Actors: Harrison Ford, Phyllis Haver, Chester Conklin, Mack Swain, Hobart Bosworth

Synopsis: Harrison Ford (no, not that Harrison Ford) plays a hypochondriac who heads to an Arizona health farm to regain his strength. En route, he meets pert Phyllis Haver, engaged to marry the sheriff in the western community where Ford is headed. She hitches a ride-an innocent gesture that leads to a Read More

The Torrent

Actors: Ricardo Cortez, Greta Garbo, Gertrude Olmstead, Edward Connelly, Lucien Littlefield, Martha Mattox

Synopsis: The Vincent Blasco-Ibanez novel Entre Naranjos served as the inspiration for Greta Garbo's first American film, The Torrent. Garbo plays Leonora, a full-bodied Spanish peasant girl who falls in love with her landlord's son Don Rafael Bull (Ricardo Cortez). To prevent his son from marrying beneath Read More

Hands Up

Actors: Raymond Griffith, Marian Nixon, Virginia Lee Corbin, Mack Swain, Montagu Love

Synopsis: Sophisticated, silk-hatted silent-film comedian Raymond Griffith had at least one classic in him, and Hands Up was that film. Griffith plays a Southern spy during the Civil War, sent West to retrieve a vital gold shipment. Along the way, he meets boisterous Mack Swain (who was nearly booted from Read More

Her Big Night

Actors: Laura La Plante, ZaSu Pitts, Tully Marshall, Lee Moran

Synopsis: A minor silent comedy-drama, Her Big Night featured Grace Darmond, a blond former serial queen, as the secretary of a millionaire who, on her vacation, checks into a hotel posing as Countess Fontaine. She manages to ensnare her employer's handsome son (Herbert Rawlinson), but the situation becomes Read More

Kiki

Actors: Norma Talmadge, Ronald Colman, Gertrude Astor, Marc MacDermott, George K. Arthur

Synopsis: This first film version of Andre Picard's stage success Kiki stars Norma Talmadge in the title role. A saucy Parisian dancer, Kiki begins keeping time with theatrical manager Victor Renal (Ronald Colman). Her rival for Renal's affections is icy "legitimate" actress Paulette (Gertrude Astor), but Read More

Honesty - The Best Policy

Actors: Johnny Walker, Pauline Starke, Rockliffe Fellowes, Grace Darmond

Synopsis: Howard Hawks' final effort as a screenwriter before becoming a full-time director was the trifling comedy Honesty -- The Best Policy. The hero, an author of comic stories who yearns to write mysteries, brings his latest work to a publisher. Said publisher agrees to buy the story if it is approved Read More

The Gold Rush

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Georgia Hale, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman, Malcolm Waite

Synopsis: He may be called "The Lone Prospector" in The Gold Rush, but the character played by Charlie Chaplin is the same wistful, resourceful Little Tramp that had been entertaining the world and its brother since 1914. A most unlikely participant in the 1898 Yukon gold rush, Charlie finds himself sharing Read More

The Pilgrim

Actors: Phyllis Allen, Monta Bell, Henry Bergman, Edith Bostwick, Mack Swain, Loyal Underwood, Kitty Bradbury, Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance

Synopsis: In the final film of his First National contract (an early working title was The Tail End), Charlie Chaplin spoofs small-town life and morality. Chaplin is an escaped convict who steals the clothes of a swimming minister. At the railroad station he nearly gives himself away by guiltily running Read More

Pay Day

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Phyllis Allen, Mack Swain, Edna Purviance, Sidney Chaplin

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's last two reeler recalls earlier comedies such as the Essanay Work, with Chaplin casting himself as a worker rather than a Tramp, but the film shows great advances in film technique. Chaplin is a construction worker, who arrives late for work, bringing a flower as peace offering Read More

The Torrent

Actors: Eva Novak, Jack Perrin, Jack Curtis

Synopsis: Velma (Eva Novak) is unhappily married to Sam (Leonard Shumway), a user of demon alcohol and a notorious womanizer. He invites Velma and his mistress to take an afternoon trip on his sailboat. Sam tries to force Velma to drink a cocktail, and the virtuous Velma recoils in horror. Sam suffers a Read More

The Idle Class

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Mack Swain

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's eighth film under his million dollar contract with First National is a return to the two reel form, and to the lightness of the Mutual style. Chaplin plays dual role, that of a vacationing Tramp, and a high society inebriate husband.

Arriving in Miami on the same train Read More

Early Cinema Vol. 1

Synopsis: This volume on the history of cinema contains early, short, silent films - mostly before 1920 - including: Melies' Conquest of the North Pole; Linder's Man and the Statue and Max's Mother In Law; Drew's Auntie's Portrait; Normand's Mabel's Dramatic Career; Mix's An Angelic Attitude Sennett and Read More

Yankee Doodle in Berlin

Actors: Bothwell Browne, Ford Sterling, Malcolm St. Clair, Bert Roach, Eva Thatcher

Synopsis: Instead of his usual two-reel format, Mack Sennett made a five-reel, feature-length film to spoof the recently ended World War. The Americans use the Kaiser's penchant for a pretty face to steal some secret plans from him. They disguise one of their captains, Bob (Bothwell Browne), as a seductress Read More

The Rink

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 2-reel laugh parade The Rink was based on "Skating," a sketch Chaplin had previously performed while a member of the Fred Karno stage troupe. Chaplin plays a waiter who determines what his customers have had for dinner by checking the food spots on their clothes. After quitting Read More

A Movie Star

Actors: Mack Swain

Love, Speed and Thrills

Synopsis: Love, Speed and Thrills is about a loving husband and a wife-stealing wolf, both after the same woman. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Lizzies of Mack Sennett

Cave Man

Synopsis: In his 35th and last Keystone comedy, Charlie Chaplin parodied the recent hit, D.W. Griffith's stone-age drama, Man's Genesis. Charlie is caveman Weakchin, dressed in derby, cane and bearskin. He plucks some fur from his bearskin and fills his pipe with it, lighting the pipe by picking up a stone Read More

Keystone Comedies, Vol. 6

Keystone Comedies, Vol. 7

Laughing Gas

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 20th film for Keystone marks a turning point in his career. From this point on, with one exception, he was to write and direct all his future films. In Laughing Gas Chaplin plays a dentist's assistant who is first seen entering the office officiously. The patients are fooled into Read More

Mabel at the Wheel

Actors: Charles Chaplin, Mabel Normand, Chester Conklin, Mack Sennett, Harry McCoy

Synopsis: Mabel Normand wrote, directed and starred in Charlie Chaplin's 10th film for Keystone. After disagreements with the directors of his previous films, Sennett assigned him to Normand, but Chaplin was chomping at the bit to direct his own films so for this film at least, the Chaplin/Normand Read More

Mabel's Married Life

Synopsis: In his 19th film for Keystone, Charlie Chaplin plays a somewhat more sympathetic role as the husband of comedienne Mabel Normand. As so many of his Keystone comedies do, it begins in a park where Mack Swain, dressed in a sporty outfit and carrying a tennis racquet, leaves his wife seated on a Read More

The Knockout

Actors: Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Minta Durfee, Edgar Kennedy, Charles Chaplin, Joe Bordeaux

Synopsis: Although better known as Charlie Chaplin's 17th appearance in a Keystone comedy, The Knockout is really a Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle film. The big event in Fatty's town is a prizefight in which champ Cyclone Flynn will meet all comers. Fatty is tricked into accepting the fight by two hobos who are Read More

Tillie's Punctured Romance

Actors: Marie Dressler, Charles Chaplin, Mabel Normand, Mack Sennett, Mack Swain

Synopsis: This Keystone comedy, Charlie Chaplin's 33rd, is the first feature-length comedy ever made and contributed to making Chaplin and his co-star Marie Dressler major stars. Chaplin plays a con artist (not the Tramp) who talks Tillie, an innocent country lass, into taking her father's savings and Read More

His Trysting Place

Synopsis: In his 32nd film for Keystone, Charlie Chaplin is a married man, an unusual state for his film character. His wife, played by Mabel Normand, complains that they have no money for new shoes for her or food for their baby. They have a fight and Charlie leaves, promising to bring a present home for Read More

The Fatal Mallet

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 15th comedy for Keystone is another violent park farce. It is the only teaming of this quartet of Keystone stars. Chaplin, Mack Sennett and Mack Swain are all suitors for the attentions of Mabel Normand. Charlie comes upon Sennett (playing his "dumb rube" character) and Normand Read More

Caught in the Rain

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 13th film for Keystone marked his first solo effort as writer and director. It follows the well-trodden path of the classic Keystone park/hotel farces with a few twists added in. The film opens in Westlake Park where a couple (Mack Swain and Alice Davenport) are seated on a Read More

A Busy Day

Synopsis: Notable as Charlie Chaplin's first female impersonation film, the half-reel A Busy Day is another of the Keystone shorts in which a film crew was dispatched to improvise a comedy at the site of a public event, in this case a parade celebrating the opening of a new harbor in San Pedro, California. Chaplin Read More

His Musical Career

Actors: Fritz Schade

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's musical career is as a piano mover for a music store in this, his 31st comedy for Keystone. The film was a direct inspiration for Laurel and Hardy's 1932 short, The Music Box. His Little Fellow is not a tramp but a hard-working laborer. Charlie is first seen applying for his job Read More

Getting Acquainted

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's penultimate Keystone comedy takes us back to the scene of so many of his Keystones, Westlake Park. It is unusual in that it is a story of two married couples with wandering husbands: Charlie and battle-ax Phyllis Allen, and Mack Swain and Mabel Normand. Mack and Mabel, taking the Read More

Gentlemen of Nerve

Synopsis: Charlie Chaplin's 30th Keystone comedy is again set at the auto races, as were his earlier films, Kid's Auto Race, Mabel at the Wheel and Mabel's Busy Day. However this time, as Chaplin scholar Harry Geduld suggests, it was likely shot at the Keystone studios with shots of the race intercut. Read More