Maurice TourneurFilmography

Apres L'Amour

Crew: Director

Actors: Simone Renant, Gisèle Pascal, Pierre Blanchar, Fernand Fabre, Gabrielle Fontan

Synopsis: The troubled turn-of-the-century marriage of a Nobel Prize winner provides the basis of this complex French domestic drama. Neither husband nor wife have been faithful to each other. She is currently having a blatant affair with a drunken news reporter while the writer once had a mistress himself. Read More

La Main du Diable

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Pierre Fresnay, André Bacque, Antoine Balpêtré, René Blancard, Palau, Georges Chamarat, Noël Roquevert, Jean Coquelin

Synopsis: Despite the exigencies of the Nazi occupation of France, veteran filmmaker Maurice Tourneur managed to turn out a classic psychological horror film, La Main du Diable (The Devil's Hand). A variation of the Faust legend, the film's "Mephistopheles" is a smarmy Vichy-government civil servant Read More

Le Val d'enfer

Crew: Director

Actors: Ginette Leclerc, Gabriel Gabrio, Edouard Delmont

Cécile est morte

Crew: Director

Actors: Santa Relli, Germaine Kerjean, Albert Prejean, André Gabriello

Mam'zelle Bonaparte

Crew: Director

Actors: Edwige Feuillère, Raymond Rouleau

Peches De Jeunesse

Crew: Director

Actors: Lise Delamare, Harry Baur

Volpone

Crew: Director

Actors: Louis Jouvet, Harry Baur, Charles Dullin, Marlon Dorian, Fernand Ledoux, Jean Temerson

Synopsis: Though he died in 1943 at the hands of his Gestapo persecutors, the great French stage and screen actor Harry Baur was represented onscreen in 1947 by the first American release of his 1940 vehicle Volpone. Adapted from the Ben Jonson play of the same name, the story concerns a cynical Read More

Le Patriote

Crew: Director

Actors: Josette Day, Suzy Prim, Harry Baur, Pierre Renoir

Synopsis: Le Patriote (The Patriot) was the first of director Maurice Tourneur's two 1938 productions. The incomparable Harry Baur heads the cast as the demented Czar Paul I of Russia. Drunk with power, Paul becomes not only a detriment to his countrymen, but also a clear and present danger. Pahlen (Pierre Renoir Read More

Katia

Crew: Director

Actors: Danielle Darrieux, Marie-Helene Daste, John Loder, Aimé Clariond

Synopsis: Incredibly, Maurice Tourneur's 1938 romantic tragedy Katia has been designated as "delightful" by more than one film historian. Perhaps this description was meant to refer to Tourneur's leading lady, the undeniably delightful Danielle Darrieux. Set during the mid-19th century, the film dwells upon Read More

Samson

Crew: Director

Actors: Gaby Morlay, Gabrielle Dorziat, André Lefaur, Harry Baur, André Luguet, Suzy Prim

Synopsis: Sampson was the second of filmmaker Maurice Tourneur's three cinematic contributions to the calendar year 1936. Based on a play by Henry Bernstein, the film stars Harry Baur as ruthless stock-market manipulator Jacques Branchart. Feared by his enemies and mistrusted by his friends, Branchart hopes Read More

Avec Le Sourire

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Marie Glory, Milly Mathis, Maurice Chevalier, André Lefaur

Synopsis: Filmed in 1936, Maurice Tourneur's Avec le Sourire (With a Smile) finally attained an American release in 1939. The film represented the very first French starring vehicle for Gallic musical comedy favorite Maurice Chevalier, here cast as jaunty but penniless boulevardier Victor Larnois. In search Read More

Koenigsmark

Crew: Director

Actors: Pierre Fresnay, Elissa Landi, Jean Lodge, Marcelle Rogez

Synopsis: Koenigsmark was a French vehicle for Austro-Italian actress Elissa Landi, who'd just spent several years in Hollywood. Adapted from a novel by Pierre Benoit, the story, set in pre-WW I Austria, revolves around Princess Aurora (Elissa Landi), the wife of Grand Duke Frederick (American actor John Lodge Read More

Justin De Marseille

Crew: Director

Actors: Line Noro, Pierre Larquey

L'Homme Mysterieux

Crew: Director

Les Deux Orphelines

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Yvette Guilbert, Rosine Derean, Renée Saint-Cyr, Gabriel Gabrio, Pierre Magnier

Synopsis: This Maurice Tourneur production is based on the old theatrical warhorse The Two Orphans, previously (and more famously) filmed by D. W. Griffith as Orphans of the Storm. Rosaine Derain and Renne Saint-Cyr star as sister Louise and Henriette, cruelly separated early in the proceedings and kept Read More

Le Voleur

Crew: Director

Actors: Madeleine Renaud, Yolande Laffon, Victor Francen, Jean Worms

Lidoire

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Au Nom de la Loi

Crew: Director

Actors: Marcelle Chantal, Gabriel Gabrio, Charles Vanel, Jean Marchat

Synopsis: Indefatigable French director Maurice Tourneur launched his three-picture schedule for 1932 with Au Nom de la Toi (In the Name of the Law). Marcelle Chantal plays the lovely but lethal head of an opium-smuggling ring. When Chantal orders the murder of a detective, another sleuth, played by Charles Vanel Read More

Les Gaietes De L'Escadron

Crew: Director

Actors: Henry Roussell, Mady Berry, Fernandel, Raimu, Jean Gabin

Synopsis: Every so often, director Maurice Tourneur recharged his creative batteries with such trifles as Gaietes de L'Escadron. The title translates as Fun in the Barracks -- and yes, it is a military comedy. Based on the popular stage play by Georges Courteline, the story centers upon the relationship Read More

Partir

Crew: Director

Actors: Simone Cerdan, Jean Marchat, Charles Prince

Synopsis: The second of Maurice Tourneur's two 1931 productions, Partir (To Leave) was also released under the more emphatic title Partir!. The hero is a fugitive from French justice who hopes to escape to the Far East. To finance his exodus, the young man links up with the beautiful female star of a Read More

Accusee - Levez Vous

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles Vanel, Gaby Morlay, André Roanne, Jean Dax

Synopsis: Veteran filmmaker Maurice Tourneur made his talking-picture bow with 1930's Accusee - Levez Vous (Accused - Stand Up) The story opens during rehearsals of a Parisian musical revue. The star, a fading actress hoping for a comeback, inaugurates a romance with the male half of a knife-throwing act. Read More

Maison De Danses

Crew: Director

Actors: Charles Vanel, Gaby Morlay, Jose Noguero, Van Daele

Synopsis: The first of Maurice Tourneur's two 1931 films, Maison de Dance is the story of dime-a-dance girl Gaby Morlay. Plying her trade in a Spanish port town, Morlay is lustfully pursued by her boss, as well as by two brothers, both local fishermen. Eloping with one of the siblings, Morlay touches off a Read More

The Last Flight

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Jean Dax, Pierre de Guingand, Claire de Lorez

The Mysterious Island

Crew: Director

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

Das Schiff Der Verlorenen Menschen

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

L'Equipage

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Actors: Claire de Lorez, Georges Charlia, Jean Dax, Pierre de Guingand

Synopsis: This first film version of Joseph Kessel's wartime novel L'Equipage was adapted for the screen by its director, Maurice Tourneur. The story focuses on the exploits of a French flying squadron, commandeered by lieutenant Jean Dax. A hothead and a nonconformist, Dax is roundly disliked by everyone Read More

Aloma of the South Seas

Crew: Director

Actors: Gilda Gray, Percy Marmont, Warner Baxter, William Powell

Synopsis: Gilda Gray, best-known for inventing the shimmy, shows off her talents as a Hawaiian dancer in this South Seas drama, based on the play by John B. Hymer and LeRoy Clemens. Percy Marmont plays his usual role -- a man, who, after having his heart broken, degenerates into a drunken mess. Bob Holden Read More

Old Loves and New

Crew: Director

Actors: Barbara Bedford, Walter Pidgeon, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: Betrayed by his wife and disillusioned by the world in general, British nobleman Lord Gervas Carew heads to Algeria, there to tend to the needs of the impoverished Arab natives. As Carew's humanity and selflessness gives him a new lease on life -- as well as a new nickname, "The White Man of the Read More

Sporting Life

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: There are only two ways the Earl of Woodstock (Ralph Graves) can get out of debt -- either his horse Lady Love wins the Derby or his protégé, boxer Joe Lee (Warner Richmond), wins his next fight. Malet de Carteret (Charles Craig) and his wife Olive (Willette Kershaw), enemies of Woodstock Read More

Never the Twain Shall Meet

Crew: Director

Actors: Anita Stewart, Bert Lytell, Huntly Gordon, Justine Johnston, George Siegmann

Synopsis: The title to this picture came from a Rudyard Kipling poem, and accurately reflected the attitude of Victorian and post-Victorian white people toward cultures different from their own -- they didn't understand them, and there's an underlying sense of superiority. Obviously, that attitude was still Read More

Clothes Make the Pirate

Crew: Director

Actors: Leon Errol, Dorothy Gish, Nita Naldi, Tully Marshall, James Rennie

Synopsis: After his impressive screen debut in Sally, stage comedian Leon Errol became a full-fledged film star with this picture, set in New England's colonial days. Tidd (Errol) is a henpecked tailor who secretly dreams of being a pirate. In fact, he even makes himself a pirate costume, which unnerves his Read More

Torment

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: This tale of international thievery was rather an odd film for director Maurice Tourneur, and it wasn't up to his usual standard. In fact, the climax--a Japanese earthquake--is obviously a combination of newsreel footage and movie sets. When it is discovered that he has the crown jewels, Count Read More

White Moth

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Barbara La Marr, Conway Tearle, Charles de Roche, Ben Lyon, Edna Murphy

Synopsis: This Maurice Tourneur production was a tour de force for mid-'20s era vamp Barbara LaMarr. When a girl (LaMarr) tries to drown herself in the Seine, she is rescued by dancer Gonzalo Montrez (Charles de Roche). She then becomes a famous dancer known as the White Moth. Douglas Vantine (Ben Lyon Read More

Christian

Crew: Director

Actors: Richard Dix, Mae Busch, Gareth Hughes, Phyllis Haver, Cyril Chadwick

Synopsis: Childhood sweethearts with lofty goals do not a good Christian lifetime make, in this doomed romance directed by Maurice Tourneur. Glory Quayle (Mae Busch) and John Storm (Richard Dix) have been in love since their youth. Now, all grown up, they decide to travel to London -- John to enter a Read More

L'Ile des Navires Perdus

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Anna Q. Nilsson, Milton Sills, Frank Campeau, Walter Long, Bert Woodruff

Synopsis: Crittendon Mariott's vivid story formed a wonderful basis for the atmospheric filmmaking talents of Maurice Tourneur. The "isle of lost ships," at least in Tourneur's interpretation, isn't an island at all, but a cluster of derelict ships, from ancient to modern times, floating together on a bed Read More

Jealous Husbands

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: People do all kinds of nutty things in this silent melodrama from producer/director Maurice Tourneur. Take Ramon Martinez (Earle Williams) for example: When Ramon's wife Alice (Jane Novak) is accused of adultery, the jealous husband simply hands over their young son Bobbie (Ben Alexander) to a Read More

Brass Bottle

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Maurice Tourneur directed this colorful Arabian Nights-type fantasy in his usual picturesque style. After attempting to kill his master, the genie Fakresh (Ernest Torrence in an excellent performance) is imprisoned in a brass bottle. There he stays for some 6,000 years until the bottle is acquired Read More

Lorna Doone

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Madge Bellamy, John Bowers, Frank Keenan

Synopsis: This adaptation of the R.D. Blackmore novel won acclaim for Madge Bellamy, and helped bring her stardom. Sir Charles Ensor (Frank Keenan), leader of the Doones, a notorious gang of bandits, adopts and raises Lorna (Bellamy) as his own. Growing up along with her was John Ridd (John Bowers), and he Read More

Foolish Matrons

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Hobart Bosworth, Doris May, Mildred Manning, Kathleen Kirkham, Betty Schade

Synopsis: Although Erich von Stroheim's Foolish Wives had been released only a few short months earlier, the title to this drama actually came from the Donn Byrne novel on which it was based. Doris May plays Georgia Wayne, a young woman from the South who is stagestruck and convinces her husband Lafayette Read More

The Bait

Crew: Director

Actors: Hope Hampton, Harry James Woodward, Jack McDonald, James Gordon

Synopsis: The poetic work of director Maurice Tourneur was highly respected during the silent era. Producer Jules Brulatour was anxious to have Tourneur direct his fiancée, Hope Hampton. Unfortunately, the girl's talents were limited at best, and Tourneur finally agreed only because of Brulatour's Read More

While Paris Sleeps

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Lon Chaney, Mildred Manning

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

White Circle

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: After he has gambled away money belonging to a secret Italian society called "the White Circle," banker Bernard Huddlestone (Spottiswoode Aitken) exits London to go into hiding. Accompanying him to the Scottish coast are his daughter Clara (Janice Wilson, sister of Lois) and Northmour (Harry B. Read More

County Fair

Crew: Director

Synopsis: 1920's County Fair was the first of three filmizations of Neil Burgess' popular story. The plot centers around a discredited jockey who tries to redeem himself. With the help of the daughter of his employer, our hero exposes the genuine villains and wins the Big Race. Future director David Butler Read More

Deep Waters

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: While this drama has all the earmarks of director Maurice Tourneur, he had quite a bit of help from future silent idol John Gilbert. At the time, Gilbert was his assistant who adapted the screenplay from the novel Caleb West, Master Diver, by F. Hopkinson Smith, and he played one of the important Read More

Treasure Island

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Treasure Island was the third of Fox's "Sunshine Kiddies" series, a group of literary adaptations starring child actors in adult roles. Little Francis Carpenter was cast as Robert Louis Stevenson's youthful hero Jim Hawkins, who after coming into possession of a valuable map embarks upon a Read More

The Last of the Mohicans

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Wallace Beery, Barbara Bedford, Albert Roscoe, Lillian Hall, Henry Woodward

Synopsis: Maurice Tourneur was the original director on the 1920 silent version of James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans, but he fell ill during production, obliging his talented assistant Clarence Brown to finish the job. Though contractually Tourneur could have taken full credit for the finished Read More

Great Redeemer

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Outlaw Dan Malloy (House Peters) is notorious throughout the West. After his latest train robbery, he seeks refuge in a cabin in the mountains. There's a girl (Marjorie Daw) living there, and when Dan tries to attack her, she wounds him. Nevertheless, she admires his bravery and they become Read More

My Lady's Garter

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: A priceless jeweled garter is stolen from a British museum, and the thief is assumed to be the Hawk, an infamous criminal whose true identity remains a mystery. He is trailed to America, and detectives suspect that he is Bruce Calhoun (Wyndham Standing) because he is seen with the garter. Read More

Life Line

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Jack Hearns (Jack Holt), aka the Romany Rye, is the son of a Gypsy mother and a wealthy English father. But instead of claiming his fair share of the estate, he prefers to roam freely. His half brother Philip Royston (Lew Cody) finds out about the Romany Rye's existence and hunts for the family Read More

Broken Butterfly

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Although the poetic approach of director Maurice Tourneur was right for this lyrical drama, it couldn't hide an illogical story and poorly thought-out characterizations. Marcene Elliot (Pauline Starke) is an innocent girl of the woods who falls in love with a man, Darrell Thorne (Lew Cody), who Read More

White Heather

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Lord Angus Cameron (H.E. Herbert), a Scottish nobleman, becomes tired of his common-law wife Marion (Mabel Ballin) and tries to deny the marriage. He thinks he can get away with it since the ship on which they were wed has sunk. Alec McClintock (Ralph Graves) comes to help her prove the marriage. Read More

Victory

Crew: Director, Producer

Synopsis: Axel Heyst (Jack Holt) is taught bitter lessons by his father -- that pity is contemptible and sympathy is useless. So the young man intends to exile himself to an island, but he winds up bringing along Alma (Seena Owen), who he has saved from unhappy circumstances. Even more complications arise Read More

Prunella

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The directorial genius of Maurice Tourneur and the ageless beauty of Marguerite Clark combined to make Prunella a winner all down the line. Based on a play by Granville Barker and Laurence Houseman, the film found Clark repeating her stage role as Prunella, an idealistic country girl who is swept Read More

A Doll's House

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Film star Dorothy Phillips courageously tackled one of the most complex roles ever written when she starred in this 1917 adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's The Doll's House. That Phillips was not quite up to the challenge was readily apparent to the critics, but fans of the actress were willing to give Read More

Woman

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This somewhat pretentious film by director Maurice Tourneur shows the ambivalence his era had toward the female gender. Told in five episodes (plus prologue and epilogue), it begins with a wife (Florence Billings) nagging her husband (Warren Cook), who blithely ignores her. After she leaves in a Read More

The Blue Bird

Crew: Director

Synopsis: While most of the plays and novels of Maurice Maeterlinck have proved virtually impossible to film, the author's allegorical fantasy The Blue Bird has been translated to the screen no fewer than three times. The first version, directed by Maurice Tourneur and designed by Tourneur's favorite art Read More

Rose of the World

Crew: Director

Synopsis: No relation to the Kathleen Norris best-seller of the same name, the 1918 production Rose of the World was based on a novel by Agnes and Edgerton Castle. Elsie Ferguson stars as Rosamond English, the widow of India-based British officer Capt. Harry English (Wyndham Standing). Not long after Read More

Whip

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Director Maurice Tourneur left in all the thrills of this Drury Lane melodrama, originally written by Cecil Raleigh and Henry Hamilton, and added some of his own. All the classic elements are here -- there's the villainous bookmaker (Alfred Hemming) who wants to fix a horse race and ruin the Read More

Undying Flame

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This drama involving reincarnation is told in two halves. A princess of ancient Egypt (Madame Olga Petrova) is in love with a shepherd (Mahlon Hamilton), but her father, the King (Edward Mordant) wants her to marry the Builder of the Temple (Herbert Evans). He orders the shepherd to be buried Read More

Barbary Sheep

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Based on a novel by Robert Hitchen, Barbary Sheep was set in Algiers. The heroine, Lady Katherine Wyverne (Elsie Ferguson), forsakes her neglectful sportsman husband (Lumsden Hare) in favor of a handsome and charismatic Arab chieftain named Benchaalal (Pedro de Cordoba). Though nothing of an Read More

The Rise of Jennie Cushing

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Jennie Cushing (Elsie Ferguson), a girl of the slums, decides to get even with the world after undeservedly spending several years in reform school. Casting convention to the winds, she becomes the live-in lover of aristocratic artist Donelson Meigs (Elliot Dexter). He wants to make their Read More

The Law of the Land

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Law of the Land was a showcase for Olga Petrova, who did some of her best screen work under the guidance of director Maurice Tourneur. Cursed with a sadistic brute of a husband, Margaret Harding (Petrova) is driven to murder the man. Police inspector Brockland (J. D. Haragan) suspects that Read More

A Girl's Folly

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Director Maurice Tourneur transformed Frances Marion's perfunctory scenario Girl's Folly into a visual delight that resulted in not a few oohs and ahhs from 1917 audiences. June Elvidge plays an impressionable country lass who is thrilled when a movie company sets up camp near her home. She falls Read More

The Poor Little Rich Girl

Crew: Director

Synopsis: A bittersweet tale of a little rich girl so sheltered by the parents she hardly ever sees that she has no idea of what is going on in the real world sounds like the quintessential Mary Pickford movie. In reality, after 23 films, Pickford had never before played a girl so young -- Gwendolyn, the Read More

The Pride of the Clan

Crew: Director

Synopsis: The title may have been designed to cash in on the success of Griffith's Birth of a Nation (wherein the Ku Klux Klan were the heroes!), but Maurice Tourneur's Pride of the Clan was set not in the American South but in Scotland. Mary Pickford plays the daughter of a Scottish seaman. When her dad is Read More

Hand of Peril

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: The second of Maurice Tourneur's five directorial efforts for the year 1916 was the crime melodrama The Hand of Peril. House Peters stars as James Kestner, American Secret Service agent. Assigned to locate a band of counterfeiters, Kestner stumbles into the villains' lair by accident. To keep Read More

Velvet Paw

Crew: Director

Synopsis: After the suicide of her inventor husband, Mary Dexter (Gail Kane) becomes involved with some grafters in D.C. Foolishly, she believes she is fighting for what's right and ruins the career of Congressman Drake (Frank Goldsmith). Next, she is asked to work on another congressman, Robert Moorhead (House Peters Read More

Pawn of Fate

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Most closely associated with "Italian" characterizations, George Beban switched nationalities to play a Frenchman in director Maurice Tourneur's The Pawn of Fate. Set in Normandy, the story concerns peasant farmer Pierre Dufresne (Beban), who discovers almost by accident that he is a brilliant Read More

Rail Rider

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Jim Lewis (House Peters) is an engineer on the D. & O. railroad. The line's employees get frequent, brusque telegrams from the offices back East, signed with only the initial "B." They assume the sender to be railroad president Theodore C. Barker. When Jim is reprimanded without reason via one of Read More

Closed Road

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Filmgoers in 1916 needed only to see the name of director Maurice Tourneur in the credits to know that they were in for five reels of solid entertainment and magnificent cinematography. Tourneur's The Closed Road was set in motion by the efforts of Dr. Hugh Tannersly (Lionel Adams) to discover a Read More

The Eternal Grind

Crew: Director

Synopsis: "Capital vs. Labor" was the theme of the Mary Pickford vehicle The Eternal Grind. One of several films inspired by the tragic Triangle Factory Fire of 1911, the film casts Pickford as a spunky sweatshop worker who butts heads with her bosses over her miserable working conditions. Rather than Read More

The Ivory Snuff Box

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Ivory Snuff Box was based on an espionage novel by Frederick Arnold Kummer. Stage star Holbrook Blinn plays an American spy who is dispatched to save the French from defeat at the hands of the Germans. The "maguffin" in the proceedings is the titular snuff box, which contains Read More

The Cub

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Johnny Hines was a popular light comedian of the teens and twenties. One of Hines' earliest star vehicles was The Cub, directed by no less than Maurice Tourneur. Our hero plays a cub reporter (no lie!), sent to Mountain Country to cover a hillbilly feud (the Hatfield-McCoy contretemps was still Read More

Alias Jimmy Valentine

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Lee Randall (Robert Warwick) is a man who leads a double life. By day he is a respectable person; by night he robs banks. His gang stages an elaborate break-in at a bank, but they are discovered while fleeing the scene of the crime, and the gang is captured. (During their stay in jail, real shots Read More

Trilby

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Produced entirely at the World Film Company's studios in Fort Lee, NJ, and on location in Greenwich Village's MacDougal Alley, this faithful rendition of George du Maurier's tale of mesmerism stars Clara Kimball Young in the title role and stage actor Wilton Lackaye as the monstrous Svengali. The Read More

Man of the Hour

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Director Maurice Tourneur's second American film was this five-reel adaptation of George Broadhurst's play The Man of the Hour. Robert Warwick, who appeared in several early Tourneur productions, stars as a mysterious stranger who arrives unannounced in New York -- and within two months is elected Read More

Mother

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: French filmmaker Maurice Tourneur was already an internationally recognized cinematic artist when, in 1914, he made his American debut with Mother. Produced at the New Jersey-based World Film Company, the film was based on a stage play by Jules Eckert Goodman. Repeating her star-making stage role, Emma Dunn Read More

The Wishing Ring

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: According to film historian William K. Everson, to offer a fully detailed synopsis of Maurice Tourneur's delightful period piece The Wishing Ring "would do a disservice to its charm." Suffice to say that the film's wide-eyed heroine Vivian Martin comes into possession of a ring which she believes Read More

La Dame de Montsoreau

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Soeurette

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: French director Maurice Tourneur's final film before relocating to America, this two-reel drama featured vaudeville star Polaire in the title role, a foundling who grows up to become a milliner. She falls in love with an idealistic young doctor, Paul (Henri Roussell), but their romance is Read More

Le Friquet

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Probably the earliest surviving film of French-American director Maurice Tourneur, this discovered three-reel melodrama features Polaire in the title role, an impoverished waif turned circus performer. She is adopted by Mayor Hubert de Ganges (Henri Roussell), with whom she falls in love, but when Read More