Ned SparksFilmography

Stage Door Canteen

Actors: Cheryl Walker, William Terry, Marjorie Riordan, Lon McCallister, Margaret Early

Synopsis: This star-studded musical drama was largely financed by Theatre Guild, with all proceeds going to various wartime fundraising concerns. Most of the story takes place at the Stage Door Canteen, a Manhattan-based home away from home for soldiers, sailors and marines (the real-life Canteen on 44th Read More

For Beauty's Sake

Actors: Ned Sparks, Marjorie Weaver, Ted North, Joan Davis, Pierre Watkin

Synopsis: A Clarence Buddington Kelland story was the source for the mildly farcical For Beauty's Sake. If he wants to inherit a fortune, bookish astronomy professor B. E. Dillsome (Ted North) must operate his aunt's beauty parlor for a two-year period. Business is very, very slow, prompting Dillsome's Read More

The Star Maker

Actors: Dorothy Babbs, Bing Crosby, Louise Campbell, Linda Ware, Ned Sparks, Laura Hope Crewes

Synopsis: The Star Maker is the story (with variations) of vaudeville enterpreneur Gus Edwards, here played by Bing Crosby. Determining that he can attain the uppermost showbiz rungs by spotlighting new, untried talents, Edwards rises to fame by hiring preteen boys and girls for his touring acts, the most Read More

Hawaii Calls

Actors: Bobby Breen, Ned Sparks, Irvin S. Cobb, Warren Hull, Gloria Holden

Synopsis: Though it may be difficult for modern audiences to understand or appreciate the appeal of canary-voiced boy soprano Bobby Breen, the fact remains that he was one of the most popular box-office attractions of the 1930s. Adapted from Don Blandings' novel Stowaways in Paradise, Hawaii Calls stars Read More

This Way Please

Actors: Betty Grable, Ned Sparks, Marian Jordan

Synopsis: This Way Please marked Betty Grable's first appearance under her new Paramount contract. The fact that Grable plays the new bride of Charles "Buddy" Rogers takes on special significance when one realizes that Betty was two months away from her first marriage, to former child star Jackie Coogan. Read More

Wake up and Live

Actors: Walter Winchell, Ben Bernie, Alice Faye, Patsy Kelly, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: The hyped-up 1930s radio feud between bandleader Ben Bernie and columnist Walter Winchell is all but forgotten today, but that doesn't lessen the entertainment value of the Bernie/Winchell vehicle Wake Up and Live. Amidst the bickering of the two stars, the film traces the progress of mike-shy Read More

The Bride Walks Out

Actors: Barbara Stanwyck, Gene Raymond, Robert Young, Ned Sparks, Helen Broderick

Synopsis: Newlywed Carolyn Martin (Barbara Stanwyck) has been raised to expect the finer things in life, but these are things that can't be provided by her working-stiff husband Michael (Gene Raymond). Hoping to supplement the family coffers, Carolyn offers to take a job, but the chauvinistic Michael won't Read More

Collegiate

Actors: Joe Penner, Jack Oakie, Ned Sparks, Frances Langford, Betty Grable

Synopsis: In this musical comedy a Broadway playboy inherits an almost bankrupt girls' school from his late aunt. He breathes life into the school by giving song and dance lessons. The financially ailing school is funded by an odd, but rich man who becomes the main backer. Songs include: "I Feel Like a Read More

One in a Million

Actors: Sonja Henie, Adolphe Menjou, Jean Hersholt, Ned Sparks, Don Ameche

Synopsis: Norwegian skating sensation Sonja Henie made her Hollywood screen debut in the splashy 20th Century-Fox musical One in a Million. While preparing for the 1936 Winter Olympics, Swiss skater Greta Muller (Henie) is discovered by American theatrical entrepreneur Tad Spencer (Adolphe Menjou). This Read More

Two's Company

Actors: Ned Sparks, Olive Blakeney, Mary Brian, Gibb McLaughlin

Synopsis: Two's Company was based on Sydney Horler's stage comedy Romeo and Julia. The film's storyline is developed in parallel fashion, with the antics of American businessman B. G. Madison (Henry Holman) and his family and associates mirrored and sometimes anticipated by the behavior of Madison's British Read More

George White's Scandals

Actors: George White, Alice Faye, James Dunn, Ned Sparks, Cliff Edwards, Lyda Roberti

Synopsis: Broadway producer George White, who was the title character of 1934's George White's Scandals, heads for Florida following his latest hit. He makes it to Georgia where he sees an advertisement for a show called White's Scandals. Suspicious, he attends and learns that it is a hodge-podge variety Read More

Sweet Music

Actors: Rudy Vallee, Ann Dvorak, Ned Sparks, Helen Morgan, Robert Armstrong

Synopsis: Rudy Vallee made his third feature-film starring appearance in the breezy Warner Bros. musical Sweet Music. Vallee is appropriately cast as singer-bandleader Skip Houston, who falls in love with aspiring dancer Bonnie Haydon (Ann Dvorak). Though Bonnie feels the same way about Skip, the two leads Read More

Sweet Adeline

Actors: Irene Dunne, Donald Woods, Hugh Herbert, Ned Sparks, Joseph Cawthorn

Synopsis: The 1929 Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein Broadway musical Sweet Adeline has generally been credited as the vanguard for the "Gay 90s" nostalgia fad of the early 1930s. By the time the film was adapted to the screen in 1935, that fad had pretty much played itself out, making the property seem more Read More

Hi, Nellie!

Actors: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Douglas Dumbrille, Robert H. Barrat, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: Nathaniel West's novel Miss Lonelyhearts inspired two films of the early 1930s: Advice to the Lovelorn (33) and Hi, Nellie! Paul Muni stars in the latter film as a big-city newspaper editor who gets in trouble for printing unsubstantiated information about a murder case. Muni is demoted and forced Read More

George White's Scandals

Actors: George White, Rudy Vallee, Alice Faye, Jimmy Durante, Gregory Ratoff, Dixie Dunbar, Adrienne Ames

Synopsis: Legendary Broadway impresario George White made his Hollywood debut with this musical, which he wrote, co-directed, and starred in as himself. Reporter Miss Lee (Gertrude Michael) is looking for a story and approaches White as he's assembling the latest edition of his famous revue. As it turns Read More

Down to Their Last Yacht

Actors: Mary Boland, Polly Moran, Ned Sparks, Sidney Fox, Sidney Blackmer

Synopsis: The musical picture that ended Lou Brock's career as an RKO Radio producer, Down to Their Last Yacht is almost festive in its awfulness. The nonsensical plot finds a group of impoverished socialites (including Sidney Blackmer and Marjorie Gateson) trying to raise money by renting out their yacht Read More

Private Scandal

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, Phillips Holmes, Mary Brian, Ned Sparks, Lew Cody

Synopsis: Usually consigned to the supporting cast, eccentric comic actress ZaSu Pitts was occasionally rewarded with a leading role. In Paramount's Private Scandal, Pitts is top-billed as Miss Coates, the fey secretary of hotshot young executive Cliff Barry (Philips Holmes). Accused of murdering his boss Read More

Sing and Like It

Actors: ZaSu Pitts, Pert Kelton, Edward Everett Horton, Nat Pendleton, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: Annie Snodgrass (ZaSu Pitts) has a voice that could shatter glass, but try telling that to moonstruck gangster boss Fenny (Nat Pendleton). So entranced is Fenny by Annie's rendition of a sentimental "Mother" song that he tries to force the public to accept her as a big star. He even pulls a gun on Read More

Marie Galante

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Ketti Gallian, Ned Sparks, Helen Morgan

Synopsis: Movie newcomer Ketti Gallian plays Marie Gallante, who is abducted by a most ungallant drunken sea captain. He leaves her stranded in Yucatan, where she gets a job as a cafe singer in hopes of paying her way to the Panama Canal zone. While en route, she meets the two-fisted Crawbett (Spencer Read More

Servants' Entrance

Actors: Janet Gaynor, Lew Ayres, Ned Sparks, Walter Connolly, Louise Dresser

Synopsis: Inasmuch as the film was based on a novel by Swedish author Sigrid Boo, Fox's Servant's Entrance is logically set in Sweden. Heiress Hedda Nillson (Janet Gaynor) certain that her family is about to lose all its money, takes a job as a maid. After the usual trials and tribulations, Hedda falls in Read More

Imitation of Life

Actors: Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Ned Sparks, Louise Beavers, Fredi Washington, Rochelle Hudson

Synopsis: The first of two film version of Fannie Hurst's novel, 1934's Imitation of Life chronicles the friendship between two women--one white (Claudette Colbert), one black (Louise Beavers). Colbert is a widow with a baby daughter who hires Beavers, who also has a daughter, as a housekeeper. Colbert is a Read More

Too Much Harmony

Actors: Bing Crosby, Jack Oakie, Judith Allen, Harry Green

Synopsis: There can never be Too Much Harmony in a Bing Crosby picture, not even in a bucolic backstage musical like this. Crosby plays Eddie Bronson, a big-time singing star stranded in a one-horse town. Refusing to let any grass grow under his feet, Eddie combs through the local talent, discovering Read More

Secrets

Actors: Mary Pickford, Leslie Howard, C. Aubrey Smith, Blanche Frederici, Doris Lloyd

Synopsis: Silent screen legend Mary Pickford makes her final movie appearance in Secrets, adapted from the play by Rudolph Besier and Mary Edgerton. Edgerton plays a 19th century New England belle who accompanies her husband Leslie Howard to the wilds of California. Pickford's first baby is killed when her Read More

42nd Street

Actors: Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Ruby Keeler, Una Merkel, Guy Kibbee, Ginger Rogers, Dick Powell

Synopsis: The quintessential "backstage" musical, 42nd Street traces the history of a Broadway musical comedy, from casting call to opening night. Warner Baxter plays famed director Julian Marsh, who despite failing health is determined to stage one last great production, "Pretty Lady." Others involved Read More

Going Hollywood

Actors: Marion Davies, Bing Crosby, Fifi D'Orsay, Stuart Erwin, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: Reportedly at the request of Marion Davies herself, Bing Crosby was borrowed from Paramount for the MGM Davies vehicle Going Hollywood. Der Bingle plays a struggling crooner who falls in love with Davies, a French teacher in a girl's school. He rises to fame and fortune in Hollywood, leaving Read More

Alice in Wonderland

Actors: Charlotte Henry, Richard Arlen, Roscoe Ates, William Austin, Billy Barty

Synopsis: This star-laden version of Lewis Carroll's novel combines elements of both the title novel and Carroll's sequel, Through the Looking Glass. In England of the 19th century, young Alice finds that the mirror over the library fireplace opens into a strange world. She has odd adventures and changes Read More

Lady for a Day

Actors: Warren William, May Robson, Guy Kibbee, Glenda Farrell, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: May Robson plays Apple Annie, a slatternly Broadway apple peddler. Annie has a curious setup whereby she is able to finagle other street merchants and beggars to pony up part of their weekly earnings to her--yet she never seems to spend any of the money on herself. This is because Annie has a Read More

Gold Diggers of 1933

Actors: Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell

Synopsis: The second talkie version of the Avery Hopwood's theatrical war-horse The Golddiggers of Broadway, Gold Diggers of 1933 was the second of three back-to-back 1933 Warner Bros. musicals benefiting from the genius of Busby Berkeley. The basic plot is retained from the Hopwood play: Showgirls Joan Blondell Read More

Big City Blues

Actors: Joan Blondell, Eric Linden, Inez Courtney, Evelyn Knapp, Guy Kibbee, Humphrey Bogart

Synopsis: Based on the play New York Town by Ward Morehouse, Mervyn LeRoy directs the black-and-white 1932 comedy drama Big City Blues. A small-town innocent from Indiana, Bud Reeves (Eric Linden) inherits money and goes to New York to get in all sorts of trouble. He meets up with his cousin Gibby (Walter Read More

The Crusader

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

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

Blessed Event

Actors: Lee Tracy, Mary Brian, Allen Jenkins, Ruth Donnelly, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: Blessed Event is one of several early-1930s films inspired by the meteoric rise to fame of gossip columnist Walter Winchell--and like most such films, its title is based on a Winchell tag line. Lee Tracy plays a glib-tongued reporter who is conducting a feud with popular singer Dick Powell (making Read More

The Miracle Man

Actors: Sylvia Sidney, Chester Morris, Irving Pichel, John Wray, Robert Coogan

Synopsis: A San Francisco gangster hot foots it out of town to cool down after his crime boss is suddenly killed. He ends up in a little coastal town where he begins devising one of the nastiest little con games around. It seems there is a faith healer in town with the ability to help the crippled walk Read More

The Iron Man

Actors: Lew Ayres, Robert Armstrong, Jean Harlow, John Miljan

Synopsis: In this boxing drama, a prizefighter is left by his money-grubbing showgirl wife who aspires to be a movie star. The fighter's manager is tickled by the turn of events and immediately snaps the boxer out of his love-struck funk and sets him a challenging training program. Sure enough the fighter Read More

Corsair

Actors: Chester Morris, William Austin, Frank McHugh, Emmett Corrigan

Synopsis: Of interest mainly because of the talent involved, this film remains a tepid bootleg melodrama about a small-town football hero attempting to prove that he is as ruthless as his rich girlfriend's father. Spoiled Alison Corning (Alison Loyd) persuades her Wall Street banker father (Emmett Corrigan) Read More

The Wide Open Spaces

The Secret Call

Actors: Richard Arlen, Peggy Shannon, William B. Davidson, Charles Trowbridge, Jane Keith

Synopsis: The Secret Call is adapted from The Woman, a play by William C. DeMille (brother of Cecil B.) Peggy Shannon plays Wanda Kelly, the daughter of a disgraced politician. Reduced to working as a switchboard operator, Wanda is privy to the many secrets and indiscretions of the clients of a big-city Read More

Kept Husbands

Actors: Dorothy Mackaill, Joel McCrea, Robert McWade, Florence Roberts, Clara Kimball Young

Synopsis: In this drama, a blue collar steelworker marries a wealthy socialite. It all begins after he saves two workers during a factory accident. To thank him, the boss invites him to dinner where he meets the boss's lovely daughter. She is so impressed by him that she vows that he will be hers in one 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

Leathernecking

Actors: Irene Dunne, Ken Murray, Louise Fazenda, Ned Sparks, Lilyan Tashman

Synopsis: In this musical, adapted from the earlier Musical Present Arms, a Marine private falls in love with a socialite and is willing to do anything to win her affections--even if it means stealing his captain's uniform and posing as an officer. When that doesn't work, he tries faking a shipwreck that Read More

Conspiracy

Actors: Bessie Love, Ned Sparks, Hugh Trevor, Rita La Roy

Synopsis: The "conspiracy" of the title refers not only to a deadly narcotics ring, but also the combined efforts by the good guys to capture the villains. Margaret Holt (Bessie Love) and her brother Victor (Bert Morehouse) team up to destroy the drug peddlers responsible for their father's death. They are Read More

The Fall Guy

Actors: Jack Mulhall, Mae Clarke, Ned Sparks, Pat O'Malley

Synopsis: The Fall Guy isn't Lee Majors in this 1930 RKO Radio programmer but instead a hapless druggist played by Jack Mulhall. Upon losing his job, Johnny Quinlan (Mulhall) falls in with underworld chieftain Nifty Herman (played by Thomas Jackson, usually cast as dedicated detectives). Hoping to use Read More

Double Cross Roads

Actors: Robert Ames, Lila Lee, Montagu Love, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: In this crime drama a reformed safecracker is pressured by his ex-cellmate to pull off one last job. The cellmate gives the safecracker a chance for peace and happiness on an isolated farm. There he meets a pretty woman and her grandmother. He falls in love with the young woman. Unfortunately, he Read More

The Devil's Holiday

Actors: Nancy Carroll, Phillips Holmes, James Kirkwood, Hobart Bosworth, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: Nancy Carroll brings a touch of freshness to the well-worn plot convolutions of Devil's Holiday. Ms. Carroll plays a manicurist who woos and weds wealthy Phillips Holmes. She tells herself that she harbors no mercenary notions, but when Holmes' family offers to buy her off if she'll leave, Carroll Read More

Nothing But the Truth

Actors: Richard Dix, Berton Churchill, Louis John Bartels, Ned Sparks, Helen Kane

Synopsis: This second of three film versions of the durable James Montgomery stage farce Nothing But the Truth was also the first "talkie" version. Richard Dix stars as Robert Bennett, a rising young stockbroker who bets $10,000 that he can go 24 hours without telling a fib. Bennett's prospective Read More

The Canary Murder Case

Actors: William Powell, James Hall, Louise Brooks, Jean Arthur, Gustav von Seyffertitz

Synopsis: This early talkie is the film that destroyed the career of popular silent leading lady Louise Brooks. A detective story, it centers upon a conniving "canary" (a nightclub singer) who takes on wealthy lovers and then blackmails them into giving her money. If they don't cooperate, she will tell Read More

Street Girl

Actors: John Harron, Ned Sparks, Jack Oakie, Guy Buccola, Betty Compson, Ivan Lebedeff

Synopsis: The first official release from RKO Productions (previous films from this company had been produced by RKO antecedent FBO Pictures), Street Girl afforded Betty Compson to exhibit her considerable skills as a violinist. Compson is cast as Frederika "Freddy" Joyzelle, manager and principal Read More

Strange Cargo

Actors: Claude King, Warner P. Richmond

Synopsis: No relation to the mystical 1940 Clark Gable-Joan Crawford vehicle of the same name, the early Pathe talkie Strange Cargo stars Lee Patrick, a lively actress better known for such later character roles as Effie Perrine in The Maltese Falcon (1941). The titular "cargo" is the body of a murder Read More

The Big Noise

Actors: Chester Conklin, Alice White, Bodil Rosing, Sam Hardy, Jack Egan

Synopsis: Comic Chester Conklin stars in this sparkling comedy directed by Allan Dwan. John Sloval (Conklin), a New York City transit security officer, would love to see his daughter Sophie (Alice White) marry Philip Hurd (Sam Hardy), who works at a Coney Island concession stand. But Sophie is in love with Read More

On to Reno

Actors: Marie Prevost, Cullen Landis, Ned Sparks, Ethel Wales

The Magnificent Flirt

Actors: Florence Vidor, Albert Conti, Loretta Young, Matty Kemp, Mariella Millner

Secret Studio

Actors: Olive Borden, Clifford Holland, Ben Bard, Kate Bruce

Synopsis: The "secret studio" is squirreled away somewhere in the artist's colony in Greenwich Village. It is kept a secret so that curious rubberneckers won't try to get a glimpse of the female nude models. Small-town girl Rosemary Marton (Olive Borden) agrees to pose for one of the studio's artists, but Read More

Alias the Lone Wolf

Actors: Bert Lytell, Lois Wilson, Ned Sparks, Paulette Duval, William V. Mong

Synopsis: Although this was only the second "Lone Wolf" film produced by Columbia, Bert Lytell had already played Louis Joseph Vance's gentleman crook in several prior films, the first dating back to 1917. Michael Lanyard, aka the Lone Wolf, is sailing to America when he meets pretty Eve de Montalais (Lois Wilson Read More

Alias the Deacon

Actors: Jean Hersholt, June Marlowe, Ralph Graves, Myrtle Stedman, Lincoln Plummer

Synopsis: Jean Hersholt stars in this Universal "jewel," which was based on the Broadway success by John B. Hymer and Leroy Clemens. A professional gambler (Hersholt) comes to a small town and is mistaken for the new deacon. He decides that this is as good a front as any, and sticks around to swindle the Read More

Small Bachelor

When the Wife's Away

Actors: George K. Arthur, Dorothy Revier, Ina Rorke, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: To impress his wealthy uncle Hiram (Tom Ricketts), Billy Winthrop (George K. Arthur) and his wife Ethel (Dorothy Revier) overextend their bank account and rent a posh apartment. Knowing full well that he will inherit Uncle's fortune provided he has become a success in life, Billy puts on quite a Read More

Love's Blindness

Actors: Pauline Starke, Antonio Moreno, Lilyan Tashman, Sam de Grasse, Douglas Gilmore

Synopsis: Love's Blindness was another bit of hothouse exotica from romance novelist and self-appointed social arbiter Madame Elinor Glyn. This is the story of Jewish maiden Vanessa Levy (Pauline Starke), the daughter of a somewhat disreputable moneylender (Sam De Grasse). Deeply in debt to Vanessa's Read More

The Auction Block

Actors: Charles Ray, Eleanor Boardman, Sally O'Neil, Ernest Gillen, Charles Clary

Synopsis: The career of Charles Ray was on a downhill slide by the time he made this picture, based on a novel by Rex Beach. It had been filmed once before, in 1917, but this version, made by MGM, played up its comedy aspects. As wealthy city boy Bob Wharton, Ray goes against his usual rube type with mixed Read More

Oh, What a Night

Actors: Raymond McKee, Edna Murphy, Ned Sparks, Charles French

Synopsis: Playwright Bob Brady (Raymond McKee) sequesters himself in his producer's apartment to pound out the last act of his newest stage melodrama. Working under extreme pressure -- after all, tomorrow is opening night! -- Brady does not welcome the endless parade of mysterious characters who stream Read More

Mike

Actors: Sally O'Neil, William Haines, Charlie Murray, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: Sally O'Neil is "Mike," the hoydenish daughter of railroad-construction foreman Charles Murray. Our heroine tries to help out Harlan (William Haines), who's been having trouble finding work since serving a prison term for a crime he didn't commit. She arranges for Harlan to get a job on her dad's Read More

Hidden Way

Actors: Mary Carr, Gloria Grey, Tom Santschi, Arthur Rankin, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: Mary Carr is once more cast as a saintly matriarch in The Hidden Way. This time she plays the sweet, grey-haired mother of Mary (Gloria Grey), a wide-eyed young innocent who brings three hoboes home for a nice dinner. What Mary doesn't know is that two of her new "friends," Bill (Tom Santschi) and Read More

Money Talks

Actors: Claire Windsor, Owen Moore, Bert Roach, Ned Sparks, Phillips Smalley

Synopsis: Long before becoming the talkie era's foremost screen sourpuss, Ned Sparks was seen as a double-dyed villain in such films as Money Talks. Sparks is cast as Lucius Fenton, a vicious rum-runner who meets his Waterloo in the form of go-getting advertising man Sam Starling (Owen Moore). Hoping to Read More

Faint Perfume

Synopsis: A cuckolded husband discovers that he is in love with his ex-wife's cousin in this domestic melodrama from independent producer B. P. Schulberg. Although agreeing at first to give up custody of their child, the ex-wife changes her mind when she discovers the truth. But the child is almost killed Read More

Bright Lights

Actors: Charles Ray, Pauline Starke, Lilyan Tashman, Lawford Davidson, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: Charles Ray's career had been declining for some time when he made this comedy-drama. Unfortunately, this attempt to return to the characterization that brought him fame -- that of an unsophisticated country boy -- didn't win him back the fans he had lost. Actress Pansi Delaney (Pauline Starke) is Read More

Boomerang

Actors: Anita Stewart, Bert Lytell, Donald Keith, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Mary McAllister

Synopsis: Veteran silent screen actress Anita Stewart starred in this silent comedy-drama based on a 1915 play by Winchell Smith and Victor Mapes. Wanting to get in on what she sees as a racket, clairvoyant Virginia Zelva (Stewart) signs on as a nurse at a new sanitarium founded by idealistic psychologist Read More

Seven Keys to Baldpate

Actors: Douglas MacLean, Edith Roberts, Crauford Kent, Ned Sparks

Synopsis: Earl Derr Biggers' novel was made into a play by George M. Cohan and had already come to the screen twice before (once with Cohan himself in the lead role) when this silent version was made. Light comedy star Douglas MacLean was a good choice for the role of William Magee, and the plot was changed Read More

His Supreme Moment

Actors: Blanche Sweet, Ronald Colman, Belle Bennett, Cyril Chadwick

Synopsis: John Douglas, a down-on-his-luck engineer (Ronald Coleman), takes his sweetheart, Sara Deeping (Kathleen Myers), to a play starring Carla King (Blanche Sweet), and he falls in love with the actress. Douglas proposes to Carla but, wary of marriage, she hesitates. Instead she proposes that she Read More

Only Thing

Actors: Eleanor Boardman, Conrad Nagel, Edward Connelly, Louis Payne, Arthur Edmund Carewe

Synopsis: This is yet another costume drama written and supervised by the eccentric Elinor Glyn, who was a Hollywood tastemaker during the silent era. Harry Vane, the Duke of Chevenix (Conrad Nagel), travels from England to the mythical kingdom of Chekia, where he falls in love with Princess Thyra (Eleanor Read More

Soul Mates

Actors: Aileen Pringle, Edmund Lowe, Phillips Smalley, Antonio D'Algy, Edythe Chapman

Synopsis: Based on a 1911 novel by Elinor Glyn, this melodrama seems at first to focus on the dilemma of whether to marry for material gain or for love. This choice is put before the young heroine Velma (Aileen Pringle). For Velma, it is no choice at all. She steadfastly refuses an arranged marriage to a Read More

A Wide-Open Town

Synopsis: Handsome Conway Tearle stars in this crime drama. Even from childhood, Billy Clifford (Jerry Devine) has shown a streak of good -- he saved another boy (Bobby Connelly) by taking the rap for a crime and wound up in reform school himself. Now, as an adult (played by Tearle), Clifford is a gambler Read More

Bond Boy

Actors: Richard Barthelmess, Charles Hill Mailes, Ned Sparks, Lawrence D'Orsay, Robert Williamson

Synopsis: Neither director Henry King nor star Richard Barthelmess could do much with the cliched situations of this dark melodrama. Joe Newbolt (Barthelmess) goes to work for farmer Isom Chase (Charles Hill Mailes) to save his mother (Mary Alden) from the poorhouse. Chase is a cruel taskmaster and he also Read More

In Search of a Sinner

Synopsis: Constance Talmadge dominates this comedy in her usual, mischievous manner. She's Georgiana Chadbourne, a young widow. Her dead husband was such a straight arrow that it bored her, and after a proper enough mourning period, she goes out in search of adventure. She gets in trouble for picking Read More

Perfect Woman

Synopsis: Even people as talented as scenarists Anita Loos and John Emerson and film star Constance Talmadge had their off days, as this picture illustrated. Mary Blake (Talmadge) can charm any man, young or old, with her winning ways -- except for the one she really wants. James Stanhope (Charles Meredith) Read More

Good References

Synopsis: Constance Talmadge's partners-in-comedy -- the writing team of Anita Loos and John Emerson -- were sorely missed in this anemic picture. Mary Wayne (Talmadge) can't get a job because she lacks references. But she finally lands a position when her friend Nell Norcross (the amusingly-named Mona Read More

A Virtuous Vamp

Synopsis: Anita Loos penned this screenplay about a young girl who is an incurable flirt. Gwen (Constance Talmadge), the lady in question, comes from a society family that has fallen on hard times. She goes to work to support her mother and younger brother, but she has a hard time hanging onto the job she's Read More