Robert EllisFilmography

If I'm Lucky

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Perry Como, Harry James, Carmen Miranda, Phil Silvers

Synopsis: The second of Perry Como's two starring vehicles for 20th Century-Fox, If I'm Lucky is an easygoing remake of 1937's Thanks a Million. Como plays the old Dick Powell role as Allan Clark, an entertainer who is maneuvered into politics by conniving manager Wally (Phil Silvers, in the role originated Read More

Do You Love Me?

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Maureen O'Hara, Dick Haymes, Harry James, Reginald Gardiner, Richard Gaines

Synopsis: That new-fangled swing music is the focus of this musical comedy. The trouble begins when a music school dean boards a train to meet her husband the symphony conductor. En route she meets Harry James, the big band leader. She is deeply impressed by the swingin' beat of the new music. It becomes Read More

Three Little Girls in Blue

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: June Haver, George Montgomery, Vivian Blaine, Celeste Holm

Synopsis: 20th Century-Fox pulled its script for Three Blind Mice out of mothballs once more for Three Little Girls in Blue. June Haver, Vera-Ellen and Vivian Blaine are the blue-clad trio, searching for wealthy husband in Atlantic City in 1905. As in all other versions of this Stephan Powys story, two of Read More

Something for the Boys

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Carmen Miranda, Michael O'Shea, Vivian Blaine, Phil Silvers, Perry Como, Sheila Ryan

Synopsis: The Cole Porter Broadway musical Something for the Boys was brought to the screen by 20th Century Fox with three new non-Porter tunes thrown in. The dated libretto (by Herbert and Dorothy Fields) involves a crumbling Southern plantation which is converted into a home for servicemen's wives. Read More

Pin-Up Girl

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Betty Grable, John Harvey, Martha Raye, Joe E. Brown, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: Despite the film's title, Pin-Up Girl offers surprisingly few glimpses of the famed Betty Grable "gams." This lively Technicolor musical casts Gable as Lorrie Jones, secretary at a USO canteen frequented by handsome servicemen. Falling in love with war hero Tommy Dooley (John Harvey), Lorrie Read More

Four Jills in a Jeep

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Kay Francis, Carole Landis, Martha Raye, Mitzi Mayfair

Synopsis: Four Jills in a Jeep is the (mostly) true story of a four-girl USO team, entertaining American troops overseas. Kay Francis, Martha Raye, Carole Landis and Mitzi Mayfair play "themselves," recreating their recent whirlwind tour of Europe and North Africa. This wisp of a plot takes a back seat to Read More

Hello, Frisco, Hello

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Alice Faye, John Payne, Jack Oakie, Lynn Bari, Laird Cregar

Synopsis: Though a lesser 20th Century-Fox musical, Hello, Frisco, Hello was one of the studio's most successful wartime efforts. John Payne plays Johnny Cornell, a sharp wheeler-dealer operating on the Barbary Coast at the turn of the century. With the help of his songstress girlfriend Trudy Evans (Alice Read More

Footlight Serenade

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: John Payne, Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Jane Wyman, Phil Silvers, James Gleason

Synopsis: Victor Mature plays an arrogant champion boxer who opts for an acting career on Broadway. He falls in love with his costar Betty Grable, who's secretly married to actor John Payne. Unwilling to make public her marriage lest it adversely affect her career, Grable is unsuccessful in fending off Read More

Song of the Islands

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Jack Oakie, Thomas Mitchell, Hilo Hattie, George Barbier

Synopsis: One of the shortest and sweetest of Betty Grable's Technicolor musicals, Song of the Islands casts the Leggy One as Eileen, the daughter of Hawaii-based Irish planter Dennis O'Brien (Thomas Mitchell). For many years, O'Brien has been carrying on a feud with local cattle baron Harper (George Read More

Iceland

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Sonja Henie, John Payne, Jack Oakie, Felix Bressart, Osa Massen

Synopsis: When the US marines land in Iceland during WW2, camp lothario John Payne wastes no time scoping out the local female population. He makes a casual pass at skating champ Sonja Henie, only to discover that she has taken his attentions as a marriage proposal! Unable to weasel out of his situation Read More

Sun Valley Serenade

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Sonja Henie, John Payne, Glenn Miller, Milton Berle, Lynn Bari

Synopsis: Skating star Sonja Henie and the Glenn Miller Orchestra share the spotlight in Sun Valley Serenade. Henie plays a Norwegian refugee adopted by band pianist John Payne, who mistakenly thought that the full-grown Miss Henie was a 10-year-old little girl. Payne's girlfriend, Lynn Bari, is a soloist Read More

The Great American Broadcast

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Alice Faye, Jack Oakie, John Payne, Cesar Romero, Four Ink Spots

Synopsis: On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of commercial radio, 20th Century-Fox cooked up the pageantlike entertainment The Great American Broadcast. Opening with clips of such airwaves favorites as Dick Powell and Fred Allen (courtesy of earlier Fox films like Thanks a Million), the picture Read More

Stardust

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Linda Darnell, John Payne, Roland Young, Charlotte Greenwood, William Gargan

Synopsis: 17-year-old Linda Darnell received her first big break in the appropriately titled 20th Century-Fox production Star Dust. Discovered by talent scout Thomas Brooke (Roland Young), teenager Carolyn Sayre (Darnell) is brought to Hollywood, where she is turned down for a contract because she is Read More

Lucky Cisco Kid

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Cesar Romero, Mary Beth Hughes, Dana Andrews, Evelyn Venable, Chris-Pin Martin

Synopsis: Despite the title, the Cisco Kid (Cesar Romero) doesn't feel too lucky at the beginning of this film. It seems that someone else has been committing crimes while passing himself off as Cisco. The scheme was cooked up by a corrupt judge (Willard Robertson), who hopes to drive the settlers off the Read More

The Man Who Wouldn't Talk

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Lloyd Nolan, Jean Rogers, Richard Clarke, Onslow Stevens, Eric Blore

Synopsis: The Valiant, a stage play by Holworthy Hall and Robert M. Middlemass, starred Paul Muni in the 1929 film version. The play was filmed a second time in 1940 as The Man Who Wouldn't Talk, this time with Lloyd Nolan in the lead. Nolan is peripherally involved in a crime; he accidentally kills the Read More

Tin Pan Alley

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Jack Oakie, John Payne, Allen Jenkins

Synopsis: To quell the rumors that musical stars Alice Faye and Betty Grable detested each other (actually they were fast friends, if not close buddies), 20th Century-Fox cast both ladies in their 1940 "inventory" musical Tin Pan Alley. Set in the years just prior to and during WW1, the film casts Faye and Read More

Charlie Chan in City of Darkness

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Sidney Toler, Richard Clarke, Harold Huber, Pedro de Cordoba

Synopsis: This timely entry in Fox's Charlie Chan series is set in Paris during the Munich Crisis of 1938. Charlie Chan (Sidney Toler) arrives in the City of Light for a reunion with his war buddies, only to find those lights dimmed by a city-wide blackout. The murder victim this time out is munitions Read More

Chasing Danger

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Preston S. Foster, Lynn Bari, Wally Vernon, Henry Wilcoxon, Joan Woodbury

Synopsis: Trouble follows an American photojournalist in Paris when he meets an exotic woman in Marseille. Initially he had come to France to chronicle an Arab rebellion masterminded by a jewel thief who was supposed to have died. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Pardon Our Nerve

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Lynn Bari, June Gale, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Michael Whalen, Edward S. Brophy

Synopsis: A sequel of sorts to 1938's Meet the Girls, Pardon Our Nerve stars as Lynn Bari and June Gale (replacing June Lang) as intrepid chorus girls Terry Wilson and Judy Davis. Unable to find any showbiz work, our heroines take jobs with a dating service. Before getting fired as usual, Terry and Judy Read More

Susannah of the Mounties

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Shirley Temple, Randolph Scott, Margaret Lockwood, John Farrell MacDonald

Synopsis: The sole survivor of an Indian attack, orphan girl Susannah Sheldon (Shirley Temple) becomes the mascot of the Canadian Mountie outpost headed by Superintendent Standing (Moroni Olsen). Mountie Angus "Monty" Montague (Randolph Scott) and his sweetheart (and Standing's daughter), Vicky (Margaret Lockwood Read More

Charlie Chan in the City of Darkness

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: In this episode of the popular detective series, Chan attends a WW I reunion in Paris. While catching up with his buddies, he gets entangled in the investigation of the murder of a munitions maker who sent arms to the other side. The film was created in response to the Munich crisis of 1938. At Read More

Too Busy to Work

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jed Prouty, Spring Byington, Ken Howell, George Ernest, June Carlson

Synopsis: Too Busy to Work is not a remake of the 1932 Will Rogers film of the same name-but it is a partial remake of Rogers' 1935 vehicle Doubting Thomas. This standard entry in the "Jones Family" series finds the Jones women trying to convince Pa Jones (Jed Prouty) that he's spending too much time at Read More

The Escape

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Kane Richmond, Amanda Duff, June Gale, Edward Norris, Henry Armetta

Synopsis: This drama chronicles the life and times of a notorious gangster. The story begins at his funeral. There a reporter, assigned to do a brief biography, interviews a doctor who tells the gangster's sad tale. In flashback, the crook is first seen getting released from prison. His father pleads with Read More

Speed to Burn

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Michael Whalen, Lynn Bari, Marvin Stephens, Henry Armetta, Chick Chandler

Synopsis: Horse racing provides the framework of this crime drama that centers on an orphan who has been raising a promising horse. The trouble begins when the trainer who employs him sells the beast to the police department and ends its racing career forever. The angry boy begins investigating and with the Read More

A Trip to Paris

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jed Prouty, Shirley Deane, Spring Byington, Russell Gleason, Ken Howell

Synopsis: The Jones Family heads to Gay Paree in celebration of the 25th wedding anniversary of Pa (Jed Prouty) and Ma (Spring Byington). It doesn't take long for the Joneses to be victimized by clever Parisian con artists. Nor do Jones kids Jack (Ken Howell) and Lucy (June Carlson) have time to unpack Read More

Sharp Shooters

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Brian Donlevy, Lynn Bari, Wally Vernon, Douglas Dumbrille

Synopsis: Sharpshooters was the initial entry in what was to have been a series of six "Camera Daredevils" adventures. Brian Donlevy and Wally Vernon star as Steve and Waldo, intrepid newsreel cameraman on assignment in the mythical kingdom of Mitovania. It isn't long before our heroes discover that Michael Read More

Rascals

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jane Withers, Rochelle Hudson, Robert Wilcox

Synopsis: Perhaps the best of Jane Withers' 20th Century-Fox vehicles, Rascals is also the one that pops up most frequently on televisoin. Withers plays Gypsy, the youthful queen of a band of wandering vagabonds. Joining Gypsy and her fellow gypsies is amnesia victim Margaret Adams (Rochelle Hudson), who Read More

Love on a Budget

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jed Prouty, Shirley Deane, Spring Byington, Russell Gleason, Ken Howell

Synopsis: 20th Century-Fox's first "Jones Family" series entry for 1938 was the six-reel Love on a Budget. Back in their usual screen roles are Jed Prouty (Pa Jones), Spring Byington (Ma Jones) and Florence Roberts (Granny Jones), together with Shirley Deane as the Jones' eldest daughter Bonnie, and Deane's Read More

Road Demon

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Henry Arthur, Joan Valerie, Henry Armetta, Thomas Beck

Synopsis: In this exciting action film, a young Indy driver endeavors to emulate his famous father, and restore his dad's good reputation after he was killed in a racing in an accident caused by ruthless racketeers who made it look as if the veteran driver was drunk. The young son is assisted by trucker and Read More

Down on the Farm

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jed Prouty, Spring Byington, Louise Fazenda, Russell Gleason, Ken Howell

Synopsis: Down on the Farm was yet another entry in the seemingly endless saga of the Jones Family. The plot is set in motion when the Joneses' Aunt Ida (Louise Fazenda) invites the family to spend the summer on her farm while their house is undergoing repairs (thanks to an unfortunate encouter with a fire Read More

Charlie Chan at the Olympics

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Allan Lane, Warner Oland, Katherine de Mille, Pauline Moore, Keye Luke, C. Henry Gordon

Synopsis: Actual footage of the 1936 Berlin Olympics is rabbeted into the action of this superior Charlie Chan entry. Assigned by the U.S. Navy to track down a gang of international spies, Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) heads to Berlin, where as luck would have it his son Lee (Keye Luke) is representing the Read More

Laughing at Trouble

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Allan Lane, Jane Darwell, Sara Haden, Lois Wilson, Margaret Hamilton, Delma Byron

Synopsis: The film is called Laughing at Trouble, but feisty female newspaper publisher Glory Bradford (Jane Darwell) doesn't waste much of her time laughing. Using her paper as a forum, Glory does her best to clear innocent John Campbell (Allan Lane) of a trumped-up murder charge. When John escapes from Read More

Charlie Chan on Broadway

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Warner Oland, Keye Luke, Joan Marsh, J. Edward Bromberg, Douglas Fowley

Synopsis: In New York to attend a police testimonial in his honor, Honolulu detective Charlie Chan runs smack dab into another murder. The victim is a blackmailing nightclub singer who had listed the names of all known criminals in Manhattan in her diary. The diary disappears, and Charlie joins a glib Read More

Off to the Races

Crew: Screen Story, Screenwriter

Actors: George "Slim" Summerville, Jed Prouty, Shirley Deane, Spring Byington, Russell Gleason

Synopsis: The Jones Family is Off to the Races in this peppy series entry. Though Jed Prouty and Spring Byington are ostensibly the stars as Mr. and Mrs. Jones, top billing is bestowed upon Slim Summerville as the family's horse-happy Uncle George. Hoping to enter his prize nag in an important trotting Read More

Big Business

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jed Prouty, Shirley Deane, Spring Byington, Russell Gleason, Ken Howell

Synopsis: Not a remake of the classic Laurel and Hardy 2-reel silent of the same name, Big Business was an early entry in 20th Century-Fox's Jones Family series. Mr. Jones (Jed Prouty) invests his life savings in an oil business, at the behest of football star Allan Lane. Neither Jones nor Lane are aware Read More

Big Town Girl

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Claire Trevor, Donald Woods, Alan Dinehart, Alan Baxter, Murray Alper

Synopsis: Big Town Girl is 20th-Century Fox's spin on Paramount's Carole Lombard vehicle The Princess Comes Across. Whereas Lombard played a Brooklyn girl posing as a Swedish princess, Big Town Girl's Claire Trevor plays a department store song plugger who becomes a radio singing sensation by posing as the Read More

Born Reckless

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Rochelle Hudson, Brian Donlevy, Barton MacLane, Robert Kent, Harry Carey

Synopsis: In this actioner, an auto racer becomes a cab driver for a company that is being strong-armed by avaricious gangsters trying to gain control of all of the city's taxi companies. Anyone opposing them is framed, but the brave racer isn't so easily intimidated and he decides to take on the crooks Read More

Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Warner Oland, Keye Luke, Virginia Field, Sidney Blackmer, Harold Huber

Synopsis: Charlie Chan was the Jessica Fletcher of the 1930s; no matter where he took a vacation, someone got murdered! This time, the wily Chan (Warner Oland) and son Lee (Keye Luke) are on holiday in Monte Carlo when a casino messenger is killed while en route to Paris. The messenger was carrying a Read More

Here Comes Trouble

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Paul Kelly, Arline Judge, Mona Barrie, Gregory Ratoff, Sammy Cohen

Synopsis: In this crime comedy, an ocean liner engineer messes up and ends up relegated to shoveling coal. Later he accepts a lovely cigarette lighter from a beautiful woman. He has no idea that it is chock full of purloined jewels and that she gave them to him to keep rival crooks from stealing them from Read More

Hitch Hike to Heaven

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Henrietta Crosman, Herbert Rawlinson, Russell Gleason, Polly Ann Young, Al Shean

Synopsis: Virtually all of the Chesterfield Pictures efforts of the 1930s served as starring vehicles for Hollywood's best character actors. It was Henrietta Crossman who headed the cast of the 1936 Chesterfield production Hitch Hike to Heaven, sharing star billing with former silent-movie matinee idol Herbert Rawlinson Read More

Charlie Chan at the Race Track

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Warner Oland

Synopsis: En route from Honolulu to Los Angeles by steamship, Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) is pressed into action when a fellow passenger is killed. The dead man was a prominent horse breeder, whose favorite stallion has been entered in the Santa Anita handicap. At first glance, it appears as though the Read More

Charlie Chan at the Circus

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Warner Oland, Keye Luke, J. Carrol Naish, Francis Ford, Maxine Reiner

Synopsis: Enjoying a break from crime-solving, oriental sleuth Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) takes his 12 children to the circus. It isn't long, however, before he's sucked into yet another murder case, with a more colorful array of suspects than usual. Meanwhile, Number One Son Lee Chan (Keye Luke) tries to Read More

Red Lights Ahead

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: A family loses its collective head going from rags to riches in this low-budget comedy from also-ran studio Chesterfield. Former slapstick comedian Andy Clyde starred as Grandpa Tom Hopkins who, after selling his junk business, moves in with daughter Molly (Lucille Gleason), her husband Ed (Roger Read More

Port of Lost Dreams

Crew: Screen Story

Actors: Lola Lane, George F. Marion

Synopsis: In this drama, a gun moll eludes the pursuing police by hiding out on a fishing vessel. There she meets and falls in love with captain. They get married, and she quietly--he knows nothing of her past--goes straight. Trouble ensues when the police finally capture her. Though she has a baby, they Read More

Happiness C.O.D.

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Maude Eburne, Donald Meek, Irene Ware, William Bakewell, Polly Ann Young

Synopsis: Happiness C.O.D was one of the last productions from flagging Chesterfield. Perennial supporting player Maude Eburne assumes the leading role as Aunt Addie, philosophical matriarch of a large, rambunctious brood. Dipping deep into her own pockets, Addie must constantly bail out her less-practical Read More

Captured in Chinatown

Actors: Tarzan the Horse, Marion Shilling, Charles Delaney, Philo McCullough, Paul Ellis

Synopsis: Tarzan, "The Police Dog," stars in this ultra low-budget thriller from independent producer Bert Sternbach. The human leads, Marion Shilling and Charles Delaney, play reporters assigned to cover the wedding between members of warring Tong families. Expected to end generations of feud between the Read More

One in a Million

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Dorothy Wilson, Charles Starrett, Gwen Lee, Holmes Herbert

Synopsis: No relation to the later Sonja Henie vehicle of the same name, 1935's One in a Million is another little chestnut from low-budget Invincible Pictures. Shopgirl Dorothy Brooks (Dorothy Wilson) becomes convinced that she's accidentally killed her overly amorous boss. Hiding out from the law, Dorothy Read More

Charlie Chan's Secret

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Warner Oland, Rosina Lawrence, Charles Quigley, Henrietta Crosman, Edward Trevor

Synopsis: A serial-like pace and some stylish directorial choices by Gordon Wiles distinguish this "Charlie Chan" entry. The reading of a will is delayed until one of the principal heirs to the fortune, can be located. He shows up at the family mansion, only to be promptly murdered. It is now up to Read More

Ladies Love Danger

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Mona Barrie, Gilbert Roland, Donald Cook, Adrienne Ames, Hardie Albright

Synopsis: Hoping to finish his latest play in peace, writer Ricardo Souchet (Gilbert Roland) loses his train of thought when dizzy blonde reporter Rita (Mona Barrie) invades his apartment. Before long, Rita has gotten Ricardo involved in a series of murders amongst the theater folk. When the police prove Read More

The Lady in Scarlet

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Reginald Denny, Patricia Farr, Claudia Dell, James Bush, Dorothy Revier

Synopsis: Lawyer Oliver Keith (Reginald Denny) in love with his secretary Ella Carey (Patricia Farr), but refuses to do anything about it during office hours. Thus, it's up to Ella to ardently pursue Oliver in her spare time. Their romance is temporarily shelved when Oliver and Ella combine forces to solve Read More

Charlie Chan in Egypt

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Warner Oland, Pat Paterson, Thomas Beck, Rita Hayworth, Stepin Fetchit

Synopsis: As much a horror film as a murder mystery, Charlie Chan in Egypt is one of the best entries in the "Chan" series. The story is motivated by a King Tut-like curse, which has apparently befallen the members of an archeological expedition. Charlie Chan (Warner Oland) is brought into the case when a Read More

Back to Nature

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Jed Prouty, Spring Byington, George Ernest, Shirley Deane, Dixie Dunbar

Synopsis: The rollicking Jones family buys a trailer and heads for Yosemite in this comedy. Along the way, the older children find romance. When the eldest daughter discovers that she has fallen for a crook, all kinds of trouble follows. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Fugitive Road

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Erich Von Stroheim, Vera Engels, Leslie Fenton, George Humbert

Synopsis: Down on his luck in 1934, Erich Von Stroheim accepted a leading role in the Chesterfield Pictures cheapie Fugitive Road, making lemonade from a lemon by offering his services as "supervisor of military detail" (according to some sources, he also contributed to the script). Set during WW I, the Read More

I've Got Your Number

Actors: Joan Blondell, Pat O'Brien, Glenda Farrell, Allen Jenkins, Eugene Pallette

Synopsis: Completed just before the Production Code went into effect, I've Got Your Number is delightfully racy, risque entertainment. Pat O'Brien is all wisecracks and left hooks as Terry, a troubleshooter for the New York telephone company. Terry puts his talents -- and his eavesdropping skill -- to good Read More

Twin Husbands

Crew: Screen Story, Screenwriter

Actors: John Miljan, Shirley Grey, Monroe Owsley, Hale Hamilton, Robert Elliott

Synopsis: The basic difference between the Chesterfield and Invincible productions of the 1930s is that most of the Chesterfields were directed by Richard Thorpe, while the Invincibles were helmed by Frank Strayer (in truth, both studios were one in the same!) It was Strayer at the controls for Twin Read More

Notorious But Nice

Actors: Marian Marsh, Betty Compson, Rochelle Hudson

Synopsis: A lover selflessly dumps her boy friend so that he will obey the wishes of his wealthy benefactor and marry someone more suitable. If he fails to marry an approved woman, his wealthy guardian will no longer pair for his support. Meanwhile, the heartbroken lover ends up marrying a creepy gambler. Read More

Dancing Man

Actors: Judith Allen, Reginald Denny, Edmund Breese, Edwin Maxwell

Synopsis: A love triangle amidst the world of musical entertainment provides the basis for this drama. The trouble begins when a gigolo begins wooing a mother and daughter simultaneously. This creates family disharmony as the mother begins resenting her daughter who resents the gigolo himself. The mother is Read More

Kid Millions

Actors: Eddie Cantor, Stanley Fields, Ann Sothern, Ethel Merman, Doris Davenport, George Murphy, Otto Hoffman, Paul Harvey, Eve Sully

Synopsis: Brooklyn tugboat worker Eddie (Eddie Cantor), bullied and cowed by his tough-guy stepfather and stepbrothers (a la Harold Lloyd's The Kid Brother), inherits $77 million from his uncle, an Egyptologist. Con artist Dot (Ethel Merman) wants to get her lunchhooks on the money, and to this end offers Read More

In the Money

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Lois Wilson, Warren Hymer, Sally Starr, Arthur Hoyt

Synopsis: Evidently inspired by Paramount's screwball comedy Three Cornered Moon, Chesterfield-Invincible Studio's In the Money is actually more entertaining than its costlier predecessor. The main characters are members of a zany, perpetually improvident family, all of whom take polite little bows as Read More

In Love with Life

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Lila Lee, Dickie Moore, Onslow Stevens, Rosita Marstini

Synopsis: Like many Chesterfield-Invincible films of the era, In Love with Life is built around the talents of a prominent character -- in this case, curmudgeonly Claude Gillingwater Sr. Having disowned his daughter Sharon (Lila Lee), mean old millionaire Morley adopts his grandson (Dickie Moore), the only Read More

Madame Spy

Actors: Fay Wray, Nils Asther, Edward Arnold, John Miljan, David Torrence

Synopsis: One of several variations of the "Mata Hari" and "Fraulein Doktor" legends, Universal's Madame Spy is set during WW I. Fay Wray stars as Maria, the wife of Austrian diplomat Captain Franck (Nils Asther). What Franck doesn't know is that Maria is a Russian secret agent, assigned to spy on her own Read More

The Quitters

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Charles Grapewin, Emma Dunn, William Bakewell, Glen Boles, Barbara Weeks

Synopsis: The Quitters was typical of the curiously uninviting titles frequently bestowed upon the Chesterfield-Invincible productions of the mid-1930s (other examples include Cross Streets, Stolen Sweets and Fugitive Road). The grand old trouper Charles Grapewin heads the cast as vagabond journalist Ed Read More

Officer 13

Actors: Charles Delaney, Robert Ellis, Frances Rich, Joseph W. Girard, Jackie Searl

Synopsis: Police officer Tom Malone is the only honest man left who can salvage his crooked city after his partner is killed on his motorcycle by a wealthy playboy on a careless joyride. With criminals and crooked city officials at every turn, it will take courage, duty, and decency for Tom to make right Read More

Dance, Girl, Dance

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Alan Dinehart, Evelyn Knapp, Eddie Nugent, Gloria Shea

Synopsis: Two-bit hoofer Joe (Edward Norris) hires starry-eyed Sally (Evelyn Knapp) for his vaudeville act. They marry, but the pressures of show business, coupled with Joe's irresponsibility, leads to a breakup. Lou Kenton (Mae Busch), a tough broad with a heart of gold, decides to help the pregnant Sally Read More

Treason

Synopsis: In this unusual Western, Buck Jones is not only branded for being a "squaw stealer" (i.e. rapist) but his prey is a woman vigilante attempting to establish a republic in Kansas. The woman, Joan Randall (Shirley Grey), is determined to reclaim land she believes was stolen by the U.S. government. Read More

By Appointment Only

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Lew Cody, Aileen Pringle, Sally O'Neil, Edward Morgan, Edward Martindel

Synopsis: When a patient dies of heart failure, society doctor Michael Travers (Lew Cody), takes an interest in her 14-year-old daughter Judy (Sally O'Neil), whom he makes his ward. Against the wishes of his fiancée, socialite Diane Manners (Aileen Pringle), Michael leaves for an extended business trip to Read More

Speed Demon

A Man of Sentiment

Crew: Dialogue Writer, Screenwriter

Actors: Marian Marsh, Owen Moore, Christian Rub, William Bakewell, Emma Dunn

Synopsis: In this romance, an ambitious young career woman is slated to marry a wealth man until she gets into a fender-bender and meets a poor fellow with whom she falls instantly in love. She soon jilts her fiance in favor of him. She later discovers that her new love is the errant son of a wealthy family Read More

The Important Witness

Actors: Noel Francis, Donald Dillaway, Dorothy Burgess, Noel Madison, Sarah Padden

Synopsis: In this crime comedy, a stenographer is kidnapped after she witnesses a mob hit. The hostage soon finds herself the object of the crime lord's affections. She earns his trust and then escapes. She hops a bus and heads for L.A. where she plans on clearing the name of her girlfriend, the prime Read More

The Penal Code

Actors: Regis Toomey, Helen Cohan, Pat O'Malley, Robert Ellis, Virginia True Boardman

Synopsis: New York Police Commissioner Mulroney opens Penal Code with a stern warning for parents about keeping the children off the streets and out of gangs. The rest of the film provides a grim example of what could happen if they do not heed him as it tells the tale of a young man's descent into Read More

The Thrill Hunter

Actors: Buck Jones, Dorothy Revier, Edward J. Le Saint, Eddie Kane, Arthur Rankin

Synopsis: Columbia's The Thrill Hunter is more of straight action film than a western, though leading man Buck Jones still wears his traditional cowboy garb. Jones plays a small-town spinner of tall tales who claims to be a top-notch stuntman. He's forced to put up or shut up when a movie company, filming Read More

Police Call

Actors: Nick Stuart, Merna Kennedy, Roberta Gale, Mary Carr, Warner P. Richmond

Synopsis: Just because Police Call was cheaply made doesn't mean it isn't fun to watch. Nick Stuart stars as Danny, a champion boxer who hopes to make enough money to support his lovin' ma and his kid sister. This accomplished, Danny begins working towards saving for his college education. These plans are Read More

The Sphinx

Actors: Lionel Atwill, Sheila Terry, Theodore Newton, Paul Hurst, Luis Alberni

Synopsis: A brutal murder has been committed, and an eyewitness has placed wealthy philanthropist Jerome Breen (Lionel Atwill) at the scene of the crime. The prosecution's case hinges on the witness's insistence that Breen approached him and asked for the correct time. But the defense proves beyond a shadow Read More

Reform Girl

Actors: Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, Hale Hamilton, Robert Ellis, Dorothy Peterson

Synopsis: The most exciting thing about Reform Girl is its title. Released from prison, hard-boiled Lydia Johnson (Noel Francis) immediately returns to her old lifestyle. In concert with a gang of crooks, Lydia tries to frame Senator Putnam (Hale Hamilton), a reform candidate. But when she falls in love Read More

Soldiers of the Storm

Actors: Regis Toomey, Anita Page, Barbara Weeks, Robert Ellis, Wheeler Oakman

Synopsis: Much of this exciting crime drama is set aboard an airplane in which a brave hero does battle with a gang of smugglers. Meanwhile, the hero's girl friend joins the gang, but later quits before they are arrested and imprisoned. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Only Yesterday

Actors: Margaret Sullavan, John Boles, Edna May Oliver, Billie Burke, Jimmy Butler, Benita Hume, Reginald Denny

Synopsis: Distantly related to Frederick Lewis Allen's non-fiction book of the same name, Only Yesterday uses fictional characters to trace the years between 1917 and 1929. Wealthy New Yorker John Boles recalls a long-ago affair with southern belle Margaret Sullavan. She gave birth to his child without ever Read More

Slightly Married

Synopsis: In this drama, an unmarried pregnant woman is forced to marry a complete stranger to maintain a sense of propriety. The man who helps her is opposed by his mother who wants him to marry someone else. He is preparing to divorce, but suddenly finds himself bonding to the baby and decides to stay Read More

Women Won't Tell

Actors: Sarah Padden, Otis Harlan, Gloria Shea, Larry Kent, Edmund Breese

The Deadline

Actors: Buck Jones, Loretta Sayers, Robert Ellis, G. Raymond Nye

Synopsis: In this western a falsely accused convict is paroled. He goes home and finds himself ostracized by his neighbors who believe he killed a detective. The detective had been looking for a rustler. Only two people, a little boy, and his ex-girlfriend, believe the parolee is telling the truth. The Read More

One-Man Law

Actors: Buck Jones, Robert Ellis, Harry Todd

Synopsis: In this western, a Chicago slicker begins grabbing land and using it to scam city dwellers by selling it first to locals, and then, once it is developed by selling it again to city folk desiring to come West. Naturally there are conflicts when the owners meet up. Fortunately, the town sheriff gets Read More

Come On, Danger!

Synopsis: In this western, a Texas Ranger is assigned to bring in a woman who is causing trouble in a nearby town. He soon comes to suspect, however, that she is being set up to deflect attention away from a gang of cattle thieves and bandits led by a man whom the Ranger believes killed his brother. ~ Brian Read More

The Phantom Express

Synopsis: It is all but impossible to dislike a film as gloriously corny as The Phantom Express. The title is derived from an early scene in which veteran engineer Smokey North (J. Farrell McDonald) wrecks his own train while trying to avoid a head-on collision with another. Suddenly, the other train Read More

A Man's Land

Actors: Ethel Wales, Robert Ellis, Al Bridge

Synopsis: In his fourth of six inexpensive Westerns for Allied Pictures in 1932, veteran cowboy ace Hoot Gibson played a foreman inheriting his place of employment along with the late owner's daughter (Marion Shilling). She finds him uncouth and not worth her while at first, but hatred of a common enemy Read More

The Monster Walks

Crew: Screenwriter

Actors: Vera Reynolds, Sheldon Lewis, Sleep 'n' Eat, Mischa Auer, Martha Mattox

Synopsis: It is difficult to believe that this ultra-cheapie ever actually scared anyone; it's just possible that audiences laughed as loudly at the film in 1932 as they do today. On a dark and stormy night, Hero and heroine Rex Lease and Vera Reynolds head to Reynolds's ancestral mansion to claim her Read More

White Eagle

Actors: Buck Jones, Barbara Weeks, Robert Ellis, Jason Robards, Sr., Robert Elliott

Synopsis: In this western, a Pony Express rider believes himself to be a Native American. The trouble begins when an Anglo outlaw begins stealing the fastest horses from the organization. The outlaw then blames the local Indians for the thefts. The gallant young rider learns of the scheme and rounds up the Read More

Broadway to Cheyenne

Actors: Marceline Day, Matthew Betz, Huntly Gordon, Roy D'Arcy, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: Also known as From Broadway to Cheyenne, this Rex Bell vehicle is an excellent amalgam of the western and gangster genres. Bell stars as a frontier detective who finds out that the territory has been invaded by a mob of New York gangsters. Displaying their usual strong-arm tactics, the villains Read More

Daring Danger

Actors: Alberta Vaughn, Edward J. Le Saint, Bobby Nelson

Synopsis: Although based on a story by William Colt McDonald, the creator of The Three Mesqueteers, this Tim McCoy effort from Columbia was a conventional Western at best. McCoy played Tim Madigan, a cowpoke coming to the aid of Jerry Norris (Alberta Vaughn), whose father (Murdock MacQuarrie) is in trouble Read More

The Fighting Fool

Actors: Tim McCoy, Marceline Day, William V. Mong, Robert Ellis, Arthur Rankin

Synopsis: In his fourth Western for Columbia Pictures, Tim McCoy played a lawman chasing a masked villain known only as "the Shadow." The would-be express office robber proves to be Grip Mason (Robert Ellis), who mistakenly blames Tim for his brother's death. There is a treacherous saloon femme fatale Read More

The Devil Pays

Actors: Richard Tucker, Lillian Rich, Robert Ellis, Lew Kelly, Carmelita Geraghty

Synopsis: Short story writer Thomas attempts to solve a murder involving blackmail, stabbings and mysterious notes. Another interesting aspect is the police department that caters to the rich. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

The Last Man

Actors: Charles Bickford, Constance Cummings, Alec B. Francis, Alan Roscoe, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: In this mystery, a detective is called in to investigate the fate of a derelict ship that was found floating off the coast of Port Said. But for a madman and a woman, the ship is empty. The investigator soon reveals a plot involving the destruction of the vessel and insurance money. When the crew Read More

Behind Stone Walls

Actors: Robert Elliott, Priscilla Dean, Eddie Nugent, Ann Christy, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: Priscilla Dean was one of the major star names of the early 1920s. By the time the all-talking quickie Behind Stone Walls was made, however, Ms. Dean was taking any job she could get. Here she plays an adulterous wife who kills her lover. Eddie Nugent, Dean's loyal stepson, confesses to the crime Read More

American Madness

Actors: Walter Huston, Pat O'Brien, Kay Johnson, Constance Cummings, Gavin Gordon, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: Bank president Thomas Dickson (Walter Huston) has instituted a lending policy that shows great faith in ordinary people but which also irritates his board of directors, as does his claim that an increased money supply will help end the Depression. Elsewhere in the bank, criminal Dude Finlay (Robert Ellis Read More

The Fighting Sheriff

Actors: Buck Jones, Loretta Sayers, Robert Ellis, Harlan Knight

Synopsis: Buck Jones falls in love with the sister of the outlaw he has just killed in this superior B-Western from independent producer Sol Lesser. Jones plays Bob Terry, the sheriff of Red River, a town bedeviled by a series of holdups. Bob suspects that the local saloon proprietor, Flash Halloway (Robert Read More

Desert Vengeance

Actors: Buck Jones, Barbara Bedford, Douglas Gilmore, Ed Brady

Synopsis: In this western, the leader of an outlaw band gets conned on a steamship voyage. To get revenge he holds the con man's fearless sister hostage in the mining town he calls home base. The two fall in love. Another band of desperados attacks the town. A shoot-out ensues and only the gang leader and Read More

The Good Bad Girl

Actors: Mae Clarke, James Hall, Marie Prevost, Robert Ellis, Nance O'Neil

Synopsis: In this crime drama, a moll tells her imprisoned gangster lover that she is leaving him for another whom she really loves. He is a wealthy boy who marries her without knowledge of her past life. The happy couple soon has a baby. Their happiness is destroyed when the gangster escapes from prison Read More

Murder at Midnight

Actors: Aileen Pringle, Alice White, Hale Hamilton, Robert Elliott, Clara Blandick

Synopsis: A sophisticated, expensively-dressed group of people gather in a spooky old mansion to watch the first performance of a play. The highlight of the production is a realistic on-stage murder, wherein the victim is shot point-blank, right through the heart, as the clock strikes 12. The audience Read More

Mounted Fury

Actors: John Bowers, Blanche Mehaffey, Robert Ellis, Frank Rice

Synopsis: Alcoholic John Bowers heads to the Great Northwest, hoping that the fresh air and exercise will help him swear off booze. Joining Bowers in his northward journey is his beleaguered wife, played by Blanche Mehaffy. Unfortunately, our "hero" is unable to take the pledge, and soon he's drinking Read More

Caught Cheating

Actors: George Sidney, Nita Martan, Robert Ellis, Dorothy Christy

Synopsis: Charlie Murray and George Sidney, the Irish-Jewish duo who'd starred in so many The Cohens and the Kellys comedies of the silent era, team up again for Tiffany Studios' Caught Cheating. The burden of the plot falls on the shoulders of the portly Sidney, who is mistakenly put "on the spot" by a Read More

The Last Parade

Actors: Jack Holt, Tom Moore, Constance Cummings, Gaylord "Steve" Pendleton, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: In this war drama, two buddies in WW I return stateside. One of them becomes a police sergeant, but the other cannot find work and begins running booze for a small-time bootlegger. He gets greedy and sets up his own operation, thereby enraging his former employer. When the young smuggler's brother Read More

Aloha

Actors: Ben Lyon, Raquel Torres, Robert Edeson, Alan Hale, Thelma Todd

Synopsis: In the South Seas, half-caste Ilanu (Raquel Torres) refuses to marry Kahea (Donald Reed), as she loves Jimmy Bradford (Ben Lyon), heir to an American fortune; her grandfather warns her that her own mother's marriage to a white man was so unhappy that she'd leaped into a volcano. Despite misgivings Read More

Is There Justice?

Actors: Henry B. Walthall

Synopsis: The answer to the question asked by small-scale Sono Art/World Wide Pictures in this minor crime drama was a resounding -- only if the screenwriters pulled a couple of fast ones. All-purpose leading man Red Lease starred as Jerry Heath, an intrepid reporter whose sister, June (Helen Foster), goes Read More

Dancing Dynamite

Actors: Richard Talmadge, Blanche Mehaffey, Robert Ellis, Rychard Cramer, Harvey Clark

Synopsis: Billed as "The Ace of Screen Dare-Devils," stuntman Richard Talmadge usually starred in films that suffered from strained or nonexistent budgets. Dancing Dynamite seems to be a bit more expensive than the usual Talmadge vehicle, but only by a few bucks. The star plays Dick Barton, a Catalina Read More

Undertow

Actors: Mary Nolan, Johnny Mack Brown, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: Johnny Mack Brown stars as Paul, who wants nothing more out of life than to take charge of a lighthouse. Falling in love with Sally (Mary Nolan), Paul talks her into sharing his life as a lighthouse keeper. Evidently staring into the beacon once too often, Paul goes blind, and it's quite a chore Read More

The Squealer

Actors: Dorothy Revier, Jack Holt, Davey Lee, Matt Moore, ZaSu Pitts

Synopsis: In this crime melodrama, a bootlegger orders the death of his rival. Meanwhile the bootlegger's wife dallies with his best friend. Following the hit, the gangster is arrested. Believing that his best pal ratted on him, he busts out of jail and goes looking for revenge. It is then he discovers that Read More

What Men Want

Synopsis: In this drama, a suave playboy gets jealous when his lover falls for a new man. Then the mistress' sister comes to town and real trouble begins. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Night Parade

Actors: Hugh Trevor, Lloyd Ingraham, Dorothy Gulliver, Aileen Pringle, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: A young boxer on his way to the top is scheduled for an important championship fight in this sports melodrama. He meets a beautiful woman and, wanting to impress her but not having any money, finds himself being pressured to throw the fight for a huge bribe. What he doesn't know, though, is that Read More

The Love Trap

Actors: Neil Hamilton, Norman Trevor, Jocelyn Lee, Laura La Plante

Synopsis: Directed by William Wyler, The Love Trap centers around a chorus girl whose sudden job termination (on the day of her eviction, no less) leads her to a hasty decision -- she would attend a party and make money by whatever means necessary, however dubious those means may be. It isn't long before Read More

Tonight at Twelve

Actors: Madge Bellamy, Robert Ellis, Madeline Seymour, Margaret Livingston

Synopsis: In this comedy drama, a married man finds himself in philanderer's heaven when he gets involved with three local women. Fortunately, before it all goes too far, his son confesses that one of the letters his father found was really meant for him. Romantic mayhem ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Read More

Reckless Youth

Actors: Marceline Day, Ralph Forbes, Norman Trevor, Robert Ellis, Mairy Mabery

Synopsis: Not a remake of the 1922 film of the same name, Reckless Youth takes place in a college town where everybody parties on and no one comes home before dawn. Footloose co-ed Dixie Calhoun (Marceline Day) is lured into the dorm room of campus lothario George Baxter (Gordon Elliot), but before anything Read More

Broadway

Actors: Glenn Tryon, Evelyn Brent, Merna Kennedy, Thomas E. Jackson, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: This early musical features several song-and-dance numbers in the midst of a story about underworld criminals. Nick (Paul Porcasi), who runs the Paradise Night Club, is murdered by Steve (Robert Ellis), a bootlegger. Billie Moore (Merna Kennedy), a hoofer at the club, witnesses the killing but Read More

Freedom of the Press

Actors: Malcolm McGregor, Henry B. Walthall, Marceline Day, Hayden Stevenson

Synopsis: Lewis Stone, best known to modern viewers as kindly Judge Hardy from the "Andy Hardy" series, was on occasion not so kindly in films. In Freedom of the Press, Stone plays a thoroughly corrupt politician named Daniel Steele. Embarking upon a mayoral campaign, Steele sets about to destroy his Read More

Restless Youth

Marry the Girl

Actors: Barbara Bedford

Synopsis: The crooked butler (Paul Weigel) and maid (Florence Turner) of wealthy Martin Wayland (DeWitt Jennings) concoct an elaborate scam to separate the old man from his dough. First, they frame Wayland's son Harry (Freddie Frederick) on a charge of theft and force the lad to leave the premises. Then Read More

Varsity

Actors: Charles Rogers, Mary Brian, Chester Conklin, Phillips Holmes

Synopsis: Charles Rogers and Mary Brian, Paramount Pictures' cutest couple, are starred in the collegiate drama Varsity. Amazingly, the film does not include a football game, or even a football team. The story concerns the romance between college boy Jimmy Duffy (Arlen) and carnival girl Fay (Mary Brian). Read More

Law and the Man

Actors: Tom Santschi, Gladys Brockwell, Robert Ellis, Tom Ricketts, Florence Turner

Synopsis: Law and the Man is based on a story by Roy Octavus Cohen, then popular for his magazine yarns about "Negro" life. This time, however, the audience is spared Mr. Cohen's outrageous approximations of "authentic" African American dialects and customs. Instead, the story concerns crooked small-town Read More

Ragtime

Actors: John Bowers, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: John Bowers, the actor whose roller-coaster career and tragic death allegedly inspired the movie A Star is Born, heads the cast of 1927's Ragtime. Bowers plays Ted Mason, a tin-pan-alley songwriter who composes a love ballad dedicated to debutante Beth Barton (played by Bowers' real-life wife Read More

Ladies of Leisure

Actors: Elaine Hammerstein, T. Roy Barnes, Gertrude Short

Synopsis: This early Columbia production stars Elaine Hammerstein as the best friend of Gertrude Short, a predatory society girl who intends to trap wealthy T. Roy Barnes into marriage. Instead, Hammerstein and Barnes fall in love with each other. The nonplused Short persists in trying to force Barnes to 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

Girl from Montmartre

Actors: Barbara La Marr, Lewis Stone, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: The tragic Barbara LaMarr made her final film appearance in The Girl From Montmartre. LaMarr is cast as Parisian cabaret dancer Emilia, who finds herself under the scrutiny of aristocratic British military officer Jerome Hautrix (Lewis Stone), who catches her act while on furlough during WWI. Read More

Part Time Wife

Actors: Alice Calhoun, Robert Ellis, Freeman Wood, Edwards Davis, Charles H. West

Synopsis: Part Time Wife was inspired by a racy novelette originally seen in the pages of Spicy Stories magazine. The happy marriage between novelist Kenneth Scott (Robert Ellis) and his wife Doris (Alice Calhoun) is nearly rent asunder when Doris decides she wants to become a movie star. She achieves her Read More

Forbidden Cargo

Actors: Evelyn Brent, Robert Ellis, Boris Karloff

Synopsis: The United States had just finished building a fleet of very fast ships to catch the rumrunners that brought prohibition liquor to the mainland. The plot to this melodrama cashed in on that event. Because her father, a navy captain, has been unfairly disgraced, Josephine Drake (Evelyn Brent) Read More

S.O.S. Perils of the Sea

Actors: Robert Ellis

Synopsis: This Columbia "special" begins as a little girl is rescued from a sinking ocean liner by a pair of seafaring brothers. The girl grows up to become the beautiful Elaine Hammerstein, while her two saviors battle over her affections. She falls in love with the "good" brother (Robert Ellis) while the Read More

Speed

Actors: Betty Blythe, Pauline Garon, William V. Mong, Arthur Rankin, Alfred Allen

Synopsis: This jazzy comedy-drama was based on the Saturday Evening Post story by Grace Sartwell Mason. Wiletta Whipple (Pauline Garon) and her brother, Dick (Arthur Rankin), are a little on the wild side, and they believe their easy-going parents, Sam (William V. Mong) and Mary (Betty Blythe), are old Read More

Northern Code

Synopsis: As its title implies, this independently made, routine melodrama takes place in the Canadian North Woods. Raoul LaFane (Francis McDonald) is a brutal, hard-drinking trapper who abuses his wife, Marie (Eva Novak), on a regular basis. During one attack, she shoots him and he falls. Marie is Read More

Capital Punishment

Actors: Clara Bow, George Hackathorne, Elliott Dexter, Margaret Livingston, Robert Ellis

Synopsis: The drama opens with a prologue in which an innocent boy (Eddie Phillips) is sent to the electric chair and executed before the governor (Joseph Kilgour) can get through to save him. The actual story involves a contention by George Harrington (Elliott Dexter) that he can have an innocent man Read More

Lady Robin Hood

Actors: Evelyn Brent, Robert Ellis, Boris Karloff, William Humphrey, D'Arcy Corrigan

Synopsis: Evelyn Brent takes on a Douglas Fairbanks Sr.-type role in this action-adventure film. Senorita Catalina (Brent), the ward of a cruel Spanish governor (William Humphrey) pretends to be an invalid, but in secret she plans a revolution, disguised as a notorious masked bandit, La Ortega. She captures Read More

For Sale

Actors: Claire Windsor, Adolphe Menjou, Robert Ellis, Mary Carr, Tully Marshall

Synopsis: First National dressed up this routine society melodrama with a good cast and a decently written story line. Harrison Bates (Tully Marshall) and his wife (Mary Carr) are leaders in society. Their daughter, Eleanor (Claire Windsor), agrees to hold off marriage until her sweetheart, Allan Penfield (Robert Ellis Read More

Lover's Lane

Actors: Robert Ellis, Gertrude Olmstead, Maxine Hicks, Norval MacGregor

Synopsis: This romantic comedy from Warner Bros. was based on the stage play by Clyde Fitch. Although Mary Larkin (Gertrude Olmstead) loves Tom Singleton (Robert Ellis), she can't see herself as the wife of a country doctor. Since Singleton won't leave the little New England town where they live, Mary Read More

Cafe in Cairo

Actors: Priscilla Dean, Robert Ellis, Carl Stockdale, Evelyn Selbie, Harry Woods

Synopsis: Filmgoers must have been sick of desert romances by the time this one came out. About the only thing it had in its favor was the presence of fading star Priscilla Dean. She is Naida, who has been raised in an Arab family, completely ignorant of the fact that she is actually white. She has been Read More

The Law Forbids

Synopsis: Baby Peggy, a popular child star of the 1920s who grew up to become film historian Peggy Carey, who stars in The Law Forbids. This time around, little-miss-fix-it Carey prevents her mother (Elinor Fair) from making a big mistake by divorcing Daddy (Robert Remsen). Separated from her husband Read More

On Probation

Actors: Robert Ellis, Joseph Kilgour, Wilfred Lucas, Helen Lynch

Synopsis: Former serial star Charles Hutchison went behind the camera to direct his real-life wife, Edith Thornton, in this little romantic melodrama. Edith played Mary Forrest, a reckless socialite arrested for speeding by Detective Reilly (Wilfred Lucas). Brought before stern Judge Winter (Joseph Read More

Dark Secrets

Actors: Dorothy Dalton, Robert Ellis, Ellen Cassity, Pat Hartigan

Synopsis: The plot to this routine Paramount drama was apparently inspired by current interest in the work of Emile Coue, a hypnotist and pioneer in autosuggestion (he's the one responsible for the quote, "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better"). The talents of lively Dorothy Dalton are Read More

The Flame of Life

Actors: Priscilla Dean, Robert Ellis, Kathryn McGuire, Wallace Beery, Fred Kohler

Synopsis: This is not the 1919 Swedish picture, but an adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel, That Lass o' Lowrie's. It takes place in the English coal mines of the 1870s and revolves around Joan Lowrie (Priscilla Dean), who works as a pit girl. Fergus Derrick (Robert Ellis) is the son of the mine's Read More

Mark of the Beast

Actors: Robert Ellis, Warner P. Richmond, Madelyn Clare, Helen Ware

Synopsis: Thomas Dixon, who wrote The Clansmen (which became Birth of a Nation), wrote and directed this melodrama. Dr. David Hale (Robert Ellis) is a student of psychoanalysis fascinated by the sleepwalking habits of his sweetheart, Ann Page (Madelyn Clare). Page comes under the power of her subconscious Read More

Wild Party

Actors: Gladys Walton, Lewis Sargent, Robert Ellis, Sidney Bracey

Synopsis: Gladys Walton plays an inept newspaper reporter in this mediocre farce comedy. Leslie Adams (Walton) is secretary to the city editor of a newspaper, but she longs to write. She begs her boss for a chance, so he sends her out to cover a crowd of society people who throw wild parties. Her assignment Read More

The Wanters

Synopsis: A young and still inexperienced Norma Shearer was originally cast in the lead role of Myra Hastings in this society drama -- it was her first film for Metro, and Irving Thalberg, vice president and Louis B. Mayer's right hand man, had high hopes for her. But director John M. Stahl didn't see much Read More

Infidel

Synopsis: The career of actress Katherine MacDonald was already suffering when she starred as the unappealing title character of this drama. Lola Daintry (MacDonald) is an actress who's mad at the world, and especially ministers, one of whom -- her father -- was so cruel that he drove her mother out of the Read More

Hurricane's Gal

Actors: Dorothy Phillips, Robert Ellis, Wallace Beery, James O. Barrows, Gertrude Astor

Synopsis: Dorothy Phillips stars in this tale of the sea, which was directed by her husband, Alan Holubar. Lola (Phillips) is the daughter of a smuggler, and after his death, she follows in his footsteps, taking command of a contraband ship. During one voyage, government agent Steele O'Conner (Robert Ellis) Read More

Wild Honey

Actors: Priscilla Dean, Noah Beery, Sr., Raymond Blathwayt, Helen Raymond

Synopsis: This melodrama bears no relation to the 1919 Doris Kenyon Western of the same name. It is based on the Cynthia Stockley novel and instead of the Wild West, it takes place in London and South Africa. Sir Hugh (Raymond Blathwayt) wants his daughter, Lady Vivienne (Priscilla Dean), to marry nouveau Read More

The Dangerous Little Demon

Actors: Marie Prevost, Robert Ellis, Herbert Prior, Edward Martindel

Synopsis: Before her nasally voice was exposed, making her a more appropriate choice as a working class girl, Marie Prevost achieved stardom by playing young society lovelies. This one, Teddy Marmon, is a party-loving flapper who is loathe to settle down. Two of her suitors are Graham, her father's Read More

Anna Ascends

Actors: Alice Brady, Robert Ellis, Dave Powell, Nita Naldi, Charles Gerrard

Synopsis: Victor Fleming was still a relatively new director when he helmed this melodrama, an adaptation of the stage play by Harry Chapman Ford. Alice Brady starred on Broadway, and she stars here, too, as Anna Ayyob, a Syrian immigrant living in New York and working at a coffee house owned by Siad Coury (Edouard Durand Read More

A Tailor Made Man

Crew: Art Director

Actors: Charles Ray, Thomas Ricketts, Ethel Grandin, Stanton Heck, Edythe Chapman

Synopsis: Although {Charles Ray doesn't play one of his country boy roles in his first picture for United Artists, John Paul Bart could be considered the city cousin -- he's a poor pants presser who believes that clothes really can make the man and sets out to prove it. He "borrows" a dress suit from the Read More

The Woman Who Fooled Herself

Crew: Director

Actors: May Allison, Robert Ellis, Frank Currier, Robert Schable, Louis Dean

Synopsis: May Allison was making something of a comeback in this picture -- she'd been away from the screen for some time. Unfortunately there was nothing particularly original about this romance, even though her co-star was her then-husband, Robert Ellis, and he helped direct it. Allison plays Eva Lee Read More

Ladies Must Live

Actors: Betty Compson, Robert Ellis, Mahlon Hamilton, Leatrice Joy, Hardee Kirkland

Synopsis: This drama was director George Loane Tucker's last film; in fact his health was failing as he completed it. Too bad the maker of 1919's The Miracle Man didn't leave a better picture than this mediocrity as his final legacy. Christine (Betty Compson) and Barbara (Leatrice Joy) are two women who Read More

Handcuffs or Kisses?

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

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

The Daughter Pays

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Elaine Hammerstein stars in this soap opera-like drama. Mrs. Mynor (Theresa Maxwell) encourages her daughter Virginia (Hammerstein) to become involved with Osber Gault (Norman Trevor), even though he is old enough to be her father. Virginia realizes that her mother's motives are selfish, but she Read More

Imp

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Elsie Janis not only starred in this mystery film, she also co-wrote the screenplay along with Edmund Goulding. Although Jane Morgan (Janis) comes from a wealthy family, she has a fascination with crime and criminals. One of her prized possessions is a purse that once belonged to Annie Adams, aka Read More

The Tiger's Trail

Crew: Director

Synopsis: A young girl is almost cheated out of her inheritance (a valuable mine) by a gang of cutthroats who had once befriended her father in this well-remembered serial starring Ruth Roland. Incorporating Hindu mysticism and Old West shenanigans, The Tiger's Trail was filmed at Long Beach, CA, and at Los Read More

In for Thirty Days

Synopsis: In this charming comedy, May Allison plays Helen Corning, the speed demon daughter of a rich widow. She dashes around the roads of the small Southern town where she lives, upsetting an easy-driving young author, Brett Page (Robert Ellis) and knocking the tire off the buckboard of an auto belonging Read More

Louisiana

Synopsis: Louisiana Rogers (Vivian Martin) lives in the mountains of rural North Carolina with her father Lew (Noah Beery). Pa Rogers wants his daughter to become cultured so he sends her to the city to get an education. Her old-fashioned ways charm the townsfolk, especially playwright Laurence Ferol (Robert Ellis Read More

The Trunk Mystery

Crew: Director

Synopsis: When Mrs. Montt (Mary Taylor Ross) finds a skull in an old trunk while rummaging through the attic of her boarding house, police reporter Tommy Grant (George Larkin) comes to investigate. Digging further, he discovers that Mrs. Montt bought the house from Henri Theophile (William McKey), and also Read More

A Double Elopement

Crew: Director

Actors: Rose Melville, Henry Murdock

Synopsis: Stage actress Rose Melville was famous for portraying the character of Sis Hopkins in the F. McGrew Willis play, and she eventually made a comedy series for Kalem featuring the quirky little slavey. In this entry, Sis lives next door to Professor Doolittle (Henry Murdock), a "physical culturist." Read More

The Girl and the Tenor

Crew: Director

Synopsis: This Kalem comedy marked the screen debut of English actress Ivy Close. Theatrical magnate Gotrox (William McKay) wants to engage a famed tenor, Signor Bologna (Henry Murdock), but doesn't want to pay the hefty five-thousand-dollar fee. His daughter Nell (Close) believes she can get him the tenor Read More

The Ventures of Marguerite [Serial]

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Released in 16 chapters, one reel each, this series of society melodramas had more in common with the earlier What Happened to Mary? (1912) than blood-and-thunder serials such as The Perils of Pauline (1914) and The Exploits of Elaine (1915). Marguerite Courtot starred in the title role, a society Read More

Apaches of Paris

Crew: Director

Secret Room

The Glory of Youth

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Cyrus Cairns, a crippled old invalid (Walter McEwen), hires Hal Crofton, a young athlete (Robert Ellis, who also directed), to live at his mansion and help with his physical therapy. Gay Raydon (Inez Bauer) is invited to come dance for Cairns and both he and Crofton fall in love with her. Gay is Read More