Thomas InceFilmography

Enticement

Crew: Producer

Actors: Mary Astor, Ian Keith, Clive Brook, Louise Dresser

Synopsis: While it seems extremely tame now, Clive Arden's novel was considered quite racy in its day. While doing relief work in Belgium, Leonore Bewlay, a little American girl (Mary Astor), meets Richard Valyran, an opera singer (Ian Keith). After the war's end, they meet again in Switzerland. Leonore, or Read More

Idle Tongues

Crew: Producer, Supervisor/Manager

Actors: Percy Marmont, Doris Kenyon, Claude Gillingwater, Lucille Ricksen, David Torrence

Synopsis: This tale of small-town gossip and self-sacrifice was one of the last productions supervised by Thomas Ince (he died under mysterious circumstances while on a yachting party with newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst in November, 1924). When Faith Copeland (Lucille Ricksen) has a romance with Read More

Christine of the Hungry Heart

Crew: Producer

Actors: Florence Vidor, Warner Baxter, Clive Brook, Ian Keith, Walter Hiers

Synopsis: This adaptation of Kathleen Norris' best-selling novel came out just weeks before its producer, Thomas Ince, mysteriously died while on a cruise on William Randolph Hearst's yacht, the Oneida. The drama was a tour de force for Florence Vidor, who played the title character, Christine Read More

Soul of the Beast

Crew: Producer

Actors: Madge Bellamy, Cullen Landis, Noah Beery, Sr., Vola Vale

Synopsis: This comedy-drama featured Madge Bellamy's most unusual co-star -- an elephant named Oscar. Ruth Lorrimore (Bellamy) works at a circus where her only friend is Oscar. The cruel circus owner (Bert Sprouts) forces her to take the place of the "wild girl" and while she's locked in a side show cage, a Read More

Her Reputation

Crew: Producer

Actors: May McAvoy, Lloyd Hughes, Casson Ferguson, Eric Mayne, Winter Hall

Synopsis: Paramount loaned May McAvoy to producer Thomas Ince to star in this drama about yellow journalism. Jacqueline Lanier (McAvoy) and Andres Miro (Eric Mayne) are about to marry. But on the day of the wedding, Jack Calhoun, a jealous former suitor (Casson Ferguson), kills Miro and then shoots himself. Read More

Scars of Jealousy

Crew: Producer

Actors: Lloyd Hughes, Frank Keenan, James Mason

Synopsis: The handsome but uninspired Lloyd Hughes plays a young Cajun man in this drama produced by Thomas Ince. Jeff Newland (Edward Burns) is an unruly youth whose aristocratic Southern father, Colonel Newland (Frank Keenan), disowns him. In his place, the colonel adopts Coddy Jakes, a Cajun boy (Read More

Bell Boy 13

Crew: Producer

Actors: Douglas MacLean, Margaret Loomis, John Steppling

Synopsis: While this Douglas MacLean comedy was pleasant enough, it paled in comparison to his prior film, The Hottentot, which was released right before this one. Ellery Elrod (John Steppling) is fed up with his nephew, Harry (MacLean) -- he wants him to marry a rich spinster and get serious about Read More

What a Wife Learned

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: John Bowers, Milton Sills, Marguerite de la Motte, Harry Todd

Synopsis: While competently made and well cast, this drama still wasn't all that entertaining. Writer Sheila Dorne (Marguerite de la Motte) agrees to marry Westerner Jim Russell (John Bowers) only when he promises to allow her to pursue her career. But to his chagrin, her writing takes up all her time, and Read More

Lorna Doone

Crew: Producer

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

Hottentot

Crew: Producer

Actors: Douglas MacLean, Madge Bellamy, Lila Leslie, Truly Shattuck

Synopsis: Producer Thomas Ince brought the William Collier/Victor Mapes-penned stage farce to the screen for his light comedy star Douglas MacLean. A few changes were made -- in the play Sam Harrington was an adept horseman who shied away from the beasts after an accident. In the film, MacLean as Harrington Read More

The Bronze Bell

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: A major -- and rare -- failure from legendary producer Thomas H. Ince, The Bronze Bell starred British-born stage idol Courtenay Foote as a Long Island socialite doubling as an Far Eastern revolutionary. As the title indicated, the story hinged upon a huge bell, the possession of which could shake Read More

Chickens

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Actors: Douglas MacLean, Gladys George, Edith Yorke

Synopsis: This so-so light comedy vehicle for Douglas MacLean was based on the Saturday Evening Post story, "Yancona Yillies," by Herschel Hall. Because of a provision in his uncle's will, wealthy Deems Stanwood (MacLean) is forced to go live in the country. He starts liking it there when he meets the Read More

One a Minute

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Actors: Douglas MacLean, Marian de Beck, Victor Potel, Frances Raymond, Andrew Robson

Synopsis: Jimmy Knight (Douglas MacLean) inherits a drug store that's not doing very well; his rival, Silas P. Rogers (Andrew Robson), is tough competition. Knight is in love with Rogers' daughter, Miriam (Marian de Beck), and he knows she prefers a fighter, so when her father offers to buy him out, he Read More

The Rookie's Return

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Actors: Douglas MacLean, Doris May, Frank Currier, Leo White, Kathleen Key

Synopsis: Douglas MacLean and Doris May made a number of popular light comedies in the late 1910s and early '20s. In the spirit of their first hit 23 1/2 Hours Leave, MacLean once again plays an army sergeant, only this picture shows his adventures after he has returned home from France. James Stewart Lee Read More

Lying Lips

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Actors: House Peters, Florence Vidor, Margaret Livingston, Margaret Campbell

Synopsis: Nancy Abbott (Florence Vidor) and her mother (Margaret Campbell) are British ladies of high society. She falls in love with the Canadian rancher Blair (House Peters), but when the family fortunes are reversed, she agrees to marry the wealthy Joseph Kilgour (William Chase) at her mother's request. Read More

Cup of Life

Crew: Producer

Actors: Hobart Bosworth, Madge Bellamy, Tully Marshall, Niles Welch

Synopsis: This picturesque silent adventure was produced by Thomas Ince. Roy Bradley (Niles Welch) grows up in the United States, completely unaware that his father is notorious pearl smuggler "Bully" Brand (Hobart Bosworth). When the young man finishes his education, Brand sends for him but pretends to be Read More

Hail the Woman

Crew: Producer

Actors: Florence Vidor, Lloyd Hughes, Theodore Roberts, Gertrude Claire, Madge Bellamy

Synopsis: This drama, produced by Thomas Ince, featured an excellent cast and a powerful story. Although she only had a second lead, Madge Bellamy felt her role was the best one she was ever given. Oliver Beresford (top character actor Theodore Roberts) is a bigoted, chauvinistic, New England farmer. His Read More

Beau Revel

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Actors: Florence Vidor, Lloyd Hughes, Kathleen Kirkham, Richard Ryan

Synopsis: Louis Joseph Vance, creator of the fictional detective hero The Lone Wolf, wrote the story upon which Beau Revel was based. The film was no whodunnit, but instead a romantic triangle, given additional dramatic impact by pitting a father against a son. Lewis Stone plays Lawrence "Beau" Revel, an Read More

The Home Stretch

Crew: Producer

Actors: Walt Whitman, Margaret Livingston, Wade Boteler

Synopsis: Johnny Hardwick (Douglas MacLean) is the owner of the fastest horse in the next race. Although it's almost guaranteed that he will win big, Hardwick ruins his chance by saving a little girl who has run out onto the track. The child's father shows his gratitude later on when he offers Hardwick a Read More

The Dark Mirror

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: The Dark Mirror is the first of two Hollywood films of that title dealing with "doppelganger" twin sisters. The later film, made in 1946, concerns a murder committed by one of the siblings. The earlier Dark Mirror, lensed in 1920, is constructed more along Count of Monte Cristo or Prince and the Read More

The Jailbird

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: Douglas MacLean, one of the best of the straight comedians of the 1920s ("straight" in those days referred to actors who eschewed slapstick and wild costumes), stars in 1920's The Jailbird. With only six months left to serve, likable crook Shakespeare Clancy (MacLean) decides to take an early Read More

Alarm Clock Andy

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: For the thousandth time (or so it seemed to non-fans), Charles Ray plays a bashful bucolic in Alarm Clock Andy. A humble clerk, Ray would like to propose to boss' daughter Millicent Fisher. It's just that he has this nervous stammer-and besides, city slicker George Webb is always beating his time. Read More

Hairpins

Crew: Producer, Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: Hairpins stars Enid Bennett as Muriel Rossmore, a housewife who has let her appearance go to seed. Muriel's husband Rex (Matt Moore), turned off by his wife's dowdy appearance, begins casting about for newer, prettier female companionship. At this point, the audience is way ahead of the game Read More

An Old Fashioned Boy

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: With a title like this one, it's practically a given that this silent picture starred Charles Ray. But this time around, instead of being a homespun rural boy, he's a city guy with homespun ideals. His dream of a home in the suburbs is so strong that he has one built before he tells his fiancee Read More

Red Hot Dollars

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: When machinist Tod Burke (Charles Ray) heroically saves the company's owner, Peter Garton (William Conklin), from being crushed by a falling crane, the grateful old man adopts him. Garton's sister Cornelia (Mollie McConnell) tries to introduce the unrefined young man into society, with the kind of Read More

False Faces

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: This is yet another picture claiming to be something other than a war film in the days immediately post-World War I. Its makers preferred to think of it as a "spy melodrama" since interest in the war was decreasing practically by the hour. False Faces began life as a story in the Saturday Evening Read More

Haunted Bedroom

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: Newspaperwoman Betsy Thorne (Enid Bennett) is sent to investigate a mysterious situation -- a woman, Dolores Arnold (Dorcas Mathews), has rented a supposedly haunted mansion, and her brother Daniel (Jack Nelson) has vanished. Disguised as a maid, Betsy finds out that Dolores is supposed to marry Read More

Breed of Men

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: Boss rider "Careless" Carmody (William S. Hart) is made sheriff of an Arizona frontier town by Chicago swindler Prentice (Bert Sprotte). The naive Carmody actually believes Prentice to be on the up and up and vouches for him in a land deal with Ruth Fellowes (Seena Owen). Taken to the cleaners, so Read More

The Poppy Girl's Husband

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: Cowboy hero William S. Hart tries something altogether different in this film. He plays Hairpin Harry Dutton, a burglar who is sent to prison. He spends his incarceration dreaming of his pretty young wife (Juanita Hansen) and son and making firm resolutions for the day he gets released. But when Read More

The Midnight Patrol

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: Long before he became Hollywood's favorite blustery blowhard, Thuston Hall enjoyed a substantial leading-man career. In Midnight Patrol, Hall stars as Officer Terence Shannon, head man of the Los Angeles Flying Squadron. In this capacity, Shannon does battles with ruthless opium smugglers in LA's Read More

A Nine O'Clock Town

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: David Clary (Charles Ray), fed up with the old-fashioned way his father is running the family dry-goods store, decides to go to New York to make good. Although he is but a tie clerk naive enough to be victimized by a burlesque actress (Catherine Young), he brags that he is a success and that his Read More

The Kaiser's Shadow

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: Although WWI was clearly winding down in the Summer of 1918, the same could not be said of the cycle of anti-German films coming out of Hollywood. In Thomas H. Ince's The Kaiser's Shadow, an inventor named Boyd (Edward Cecil) develops a super-weapon on behalf of the Allies. The plans for the Read More

Naughty, Naughty

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: When heroine Enid Bennett leaves the small rural community of her birth, she is the epitome of sweet innocence. When she returns home after four months in the Big City, she is something else again. The girl's newfound poise and sophistication throws the community into a tizzy; after all, anyone so Read More

When Do We Eat?

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: In this comedy/melodrama, Enid Bennett plays Nora, an actress with a struggling touring company. While they are performing Uncle Tom's Cabin in a horrible little Texas town, the sheriff comes in with an attachment against the show. Nora, dressed as Little Eva, escapes and hops a freight train. An Read More

Playing the Game

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: One of the great stars of the early silent era, Charles Ray, starred in this mild oater about an Eastern wastrel taking a job on a Western ranch. There are a couple of ruffians to take care of and a pretty girl (Doris Lee) to romance for the youngster, who, in accordance with Hollywood rules Read More

Branding Broadway

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: Drunk and disorderly cowpoke Robert Sands (William S. Hart) is banished from an Arizona frontier town and hops on a freight train heading for New York. Arriving in Manhattan, the rough-and-tumble cowboy obtains a position as "physical guardian" to a spoiled member of the social register (Arthur Shirley Read More

Quicksands

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: Mary (Dorothy Dalton) and Jim Bowen (Edward Coxen) are happily married. Jim works as a cashier for an insurance brokerage. The boss's wastrel son Alan Perry (Philo McCullough) takes advantage of Bowen's trusted position at the company and forges some checks. Bowen is accused of the fraud and is Read More

The Family Skeleton

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: Young millionaire Billy Bates (Charles Ray) is led to believe that he's inherited the family curse of alcoholism. His Follies-dancer girlfriend Poppy Drayton (Sylvia Bremer) cooks up a scheme to prove that Billy isn't a hereditary tosspot. She stages her own kidnapping to show Billy that he Read More

Truthful Tulliver

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: In this typically moralistic silent western, newspaperman "Truthful" Tulliver (William S. Hart) rescues sisters Grace (Alma Rubens) and Daisy (Nina Byron) Burton from lewd remarks and the unwanted attention of rube townsmen, thereby incurring the enmity of dance-hall operator "Deacon" Doyle (Milton Ross Read More

Ashes of Hope

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Belle Bennett, who later achieved big-time stardom in the title role of Stella Dallas, is the leading lady in Ince's Ashes of Hope. Set in the Great White North, the film stars Bennett as the object of affections for several rugged northerners, including a couple of disreputable gamblers. Well Read More

Wolf Lowry

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: Wolf Lowry (William S. Hart) owns the Bar Z Ranch. He gets worked up when he finds a squatter on his land, but after he discovers that the settler is a woman, Mary Davis (Margery Wilson), he quickly warms to her. The pair grow even closer when Mary is attacked by real estate agent Buck Fanning (Aaron Edwards Read More

Golden Rule Kate

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: Louise Glaum, one of the premier vamps of the 1910s, plays Mercedes Murphy, the tough, but good-hearted, proprietor of a dance hall and saloon in a Western town. Two men, Mercedes' right-hand, "Slick" Blaney (Jack Richardson) and a drifter (also with a heart of gold) called "the Heller" (John Read More

The Price Mark

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: Broke and stranded in the Big City, Paula Lee (Dorothy Dalton) willingly becomes the mistress of "love 'em and leave 'em" playboy Fielding Powell (William Conklin). In spite of himself, Powell falls in love with Paula, and just before leaving on a business trip, he promises to marry her upon his Read More

Civilization

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Howard Hickman, Enid Markey, Herschel Mayall, George Fisher, Frank J. Burke

Synopsis: With American opinion divided over the European war in 1915, no fewer than three major motion pictures were conceived with anti-war messages in mind: J. Stuart Blackton's The Battle Cry of Peace, D.W. Griffith's Intolerance and Thomas Ince's Civilization. Set in the mythical kingdom of Wredpryd Read More

The Patriot

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: A veteran of the Spanish-American War and a proud patriot, Bob Wiley (William S. Hart) finds himself swindled out of a fortune by a corrupt local politician. Hart's Wiley goes to Washington to complain but proves unsuccessful. Returning to the homestead, he finds his little son (Georgie, later George E. Stone Read More

The Primal Lure

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: This William S. Hart adventure opus is currently unavailable for reappraisal, though all evidence indicates that it is no great loss. Hart, who also directed, plays Angus McConnell, the disgraced and discharged manager of a Canadian trading post. He is reinstated when his replacement Richard Read More

The Aryan

Crew: Producer

Actors: William S. Hart

Synopsis: With the assistant of his trusted associate Clifford Smith (who handled most of the second-unit stuff), William S. Hart directed his own starring vehicle The Aryan. Hart plays a westerner who suffers betrayal at the hands of seductive Louise Glaum. Seeking revenge, he resorts to robbery and Read More

Dawn Maker

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: This William S. Hart film would never pass muster with present day Native Americans! Hart plays half-breed Joe Elk who wavers between the "civilized" nature of his white father and the passion of his Indian mother. He falls in love with Alice McRae (Blanche White), but Alice is in love with fellow Read More

Deserter

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: The Deserter bore traces of the earlier Charles Ray vehicle The Coward. This time around, Ray is cast as Lieutenant Parker, a hotheaded U.S. Cavalry officer. After getting into a fight and indulging in a drunken spree when he is spurned by Barbara Taylor (Rita Stanwood), the daughter of his Read More

Between Men

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: Between Men was not your typical William S. Hart western. The story begins on Wall Street, as a stockbroker faces ruin at the hands of his romantic rival. Preparing himself for the worst, the broker reflects on a happier time two years earlier, when while stopping over in a frontier town he earned Read More

Bullets and Brown Eyes

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: This Thomas H. Ince production contained enough plot, incidents and characters for three pictures. William Desmond stars as Prince Carl, ruler of a war-ravaged European kingdom. On the orders of pretender-to-the-throne Michael (Wyndham Standing), Carl is lured into a dank dungeon by Michael's Read More

The Captive God

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: This early epic is set in 16th-century Mexico amidst a carefully researched and painstakingly detailed recreation of an East coast Aztec village. The people there are peaceful and when a Spanish child washes up half-drowned upon the shore, they adopt him. Years pass and as he was raised by the Read More

Stepping Stone

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In her third starring film, Mary Boland was cast as Mary Beresford, the wife of unambitious law clerk Al Beresford (Robert McKim). Thanks to Mary's tenacity and carefully calculated social-climbing, Al is promoted to the position of personal secretary of prominent financier Elihu Knowland (Frank Keenan Read More

The Return of Draw Egan

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: With a price on his head, the notorious bandit "Draw" Egan (William S. Hart) is hired to bring law and order to the lawless frontier town of Yellow Dog by reformist Mat Buckton (J.P. Lockney). Hiding his criminal past, Egan rules the town with an iron hand until, that is, a former collaborator Read More

Jim Grimsby's Boy

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: In this silent comedy drama, a grizzled mountain man tries to make the best of a disappointing situation when his wife bears him a girl rather than the much-hoped for son. Rather than be all depressed, the feller names the baby "Bill" and raises her as a boy. That's all fine and dandy until the Read More

Hell's Hinges

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: The quintessential William S. Hart western, Hell's Hinges stars two-gun Bill as gunslinger Blaze Tracy, "a man wholly evil." When a new preacher (Jack Standing) comes to town, Tracy and saloon proprietor Silk Miller (Alfred Hollingsworth) prepare to kick the "sky pilot" out of town. But while the Read More

Devil's Double

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: "Bowie" Blake (William S. Hart) is a gambler in a mining camp. One day, an artist, Van Dyke Tarleton (Robert McKim) comes to town with his wife, Naomi (Enid Markey). He sees Bowie and decides he is perfect as a model for Lucifer in his latest painting. At first he refuses to pose, but Naomi talks Read More

The Three Musketeers

Crew: Director

Synopsis: D'Artagnan was yet another version of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, de-emphasizing Athos, Porthos and Aramis and concentrating almost exlusively on the title character. Once he has been accepted into the Musketeers, young D'Artagnan (Orrin Johnson) dedicates himself to protecting France's Read More

Honor's Altar

Crew: Director

Synopsis: C. Gardner Sullivan's screenplay for the Ince production Honor's Altar borrowed liberally from several then-popular Broadway domestic dramas. Upon achieving great wealth in his middle years, Frederick Mallery decides that he has outgrown his faithful wife and begins playing around with a younger Read More

Home

Crew: Director

The Italian

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter, Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: A remarkably naturalistic and sophisticated film for its time, The Italian stars George Beban as a dirt-poor Italian farmer. He heads to America to "make good," armed with the knowledge that he will lose the girl of his dreams if he doesn't succeed within a year. Once in New York, Beban gets a job Read More

The Alien

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Whenever producer Thomas H. Ince took directorial credit on one of his films, one always suspected that someone else really called the shots. As of this writing, however, we have no evidence suggesting that Ince was not the director of The Alien. Stage star George Beban, who'd previously played a Read More

Bargain

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: William S. Hart's third film and his first multi-reel western, The Bargain tells a familiar Hart tale of a good-bad man redeemed by the love of a woman -- in this case the sturdy-looking Clara Williams. When stage robber "Two-Gun" Jim Stokes (Hart) is wounded during a heist, he finds a willing Read More

The Disciple

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: A typically moralistic William S. Hart western, The Disciple tells the story of preacher Jim Houston (Hart) who, while ministering to the Godforsaken frontier town of Barren Gulch, loses his wanton wife Dorothy Dalton to the local doctor and gambling-hall proprietor (Robert McKim). Forsaking the Read More

Barbara Frietchie

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: Based on the poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, this five-reel Civil War melodrama starred the later controversial Mary Miles Minter. Minter played the title-role, a Yankee-hating Southern belle who nevertheless falls in love with a Union captain. The girl's affection is so great that she takes a Read More

The Reward

Crew: Screenwriter

Synopsis: Chorus girl Jane Wallace (Bessie Barriscale) has earned the soubriquet "Iceberg" because of her refusal to compromise her values by leading the libertine lifestyle of her co-workers. Eventually, however, Jane begins to weaken and at one point nearly allows herself to be the "kept woman" of a Read More

The Despoiler

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Movie mogul Thomas H. Ince may well have been the director of The Despoiler as indicated by the credits; but since Ince was known far and wide as a glory-hogger, it's also possible that one of his talented lieutenants wielded the megaphone. A Civil War drama, The Despoiler refuses to take sides Read More

The Last of the Line

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In-between his star-making turn in The Typhoon (1914) and his unforgettable Tori in The Cheat (1915), Japanese-born Sessue Hayakawa played Gray Otter, "the last of the great Sioux chiefs," in this two-reel Western produced by Thomas H. Ince and directed by actor Jay Hunt. Gladys Brockwell and Tsuru Aoki Read More

His Hour of Manhood

Crew: Producer

Synopsis: Having signed with producer Thomas Ince as a director, formidable stage actor William S. Hart learned the ropes of filmmaking by appearing in a couple of Western two-reelers such as this one. Hart played Pete Larson, a brute whose battered wife, Anne (Clara Williams), finally finds courage to Read More

Battle of Gettysburg

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Noted silent film mogul Thomas Ince made his directorial debut in this epic, silent Civil War drama (Charles Giblyn co-directed). Though there is a love story in the film, most of the scenes depict the terrible, bloody hand-to-hand battles. The Gettysburg conflict lasted three days and in the end Read More

The Wrath of the Gods

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Produced and co-written by Thomas H. Ince, The Wrath of the Gods (aka The Destruction of Sakura-Jima) was a major undertaking that included a shipwreck (filmed off the coast of Santa Monica) and an erupting volcano. The five-reel melodrama starred future director Frank Borzage, blond Gladys Brockwell Read More

The Typhoon

Crew: Supervisor/Manager

Synopsis: The Typhoon was not Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa's first film, as has frequently been reported, but it was the film that vaulted him into stardom. In a momentary fit of jealous rage, a Japanese diplomat murders his mistress. By rights, he should be arrested for his crime, but in the greater Read More

The Drummer of the 8th

Crew: Director, Producer

Days of '49

Crew: Director

The Favorite Son

Crew: Director

Synopsis: A typical early silent Civil War melodrama, this one-reeler featured the team of Grace Cunard and Francis Ford, the older brother of director John Ford. Cunard played a Southern girl in love with two brothers, both of whom enlist in the Union army. The younger of the brother was played by Charles Ray Read More

The Hateful God

Crew: Director

With Lee in Virginia

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Next to D.W. Griffith, no film producers made more Civil War dramas than Thomas H. Ince. Previewed in March of 1913 and released nationally in April, Ince's With Lee in Virginia was one of the producer's most ambitious efforts to date. Over 100 individual "takes" were used to illustrate this story Read More

On Fortune's Wheel

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Reviewed by Variety some three weeks before its "official" release, On Fortune's Wheel was a characteristically grim Thomas Ince production. Arrested for a robbery committed by his employer, a young bank clerk is bundled off to prison. While he is incarcerated, his wife dies and their baby Read More

The Gray Sentinel

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Running all of two reels (approximately 30 minutes), The Gray Sentinel was produced by the Broncho production unit of Thomas H. Ince Productions. Like many Ince films of the era, this is a Civil War drama, focusing on the exploits of a Union spy. Opposing the spy at every turn is a handsome Read More

Granddad

Crew: Director, Producer

Pride of the South

Crew: Director

Synopsis: Pride of the South was produced by Broncho films, a feisty little subsidiary of Thomas Ince Productions which specialized in action pictures. A proud Confederate colonel disowns his daughter when she marries a "Damn Yankee." Years later, the heroine lies dying, calling out for her father. It is up Read More

Sinews of War

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In his first year in films, Charles Ray starred in this two-reel Civil War melodrama as a Confederate soldier whose life is saved by his sister's Yankee sweetheart (Joe King). Ray, who would become one of Hollywood's greatest stars of the 1910s, mainly in pastoral romances, began his career with Read More

Custer's Last Raid

Crew: Director

The Colonel's Ward

Crew: Director

The Colonel's Peril

Crew: Director

The Colonel's Son

Crew: Director

A Double Reward

Crew: Director

A Mexican Tragedy

Crew: Director

The Invaders

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Francis Ford

For the Cause

Crew: Director

Synopsis: In his final film for Thomas H. Ince's New York Motion Picture Company, Harold Lockwood played a young man who enlists in the Confederate Army, along with rival Ray Myers. Though mortally wounded during a skirmish, Lockwood manages to heroically save his rival's life. Following this film, Lockwood Read More

The Law of the West

Crew: Director

Clod

Crew: Director

The Altar of Death

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Written and directed by scenarist C. Gardner Sullivan and (he claimed) producer Thomas H. Ince, this typical two-reel Western melodrama featured Ann Little as an Indian maiden sacrificing her own life to save the cavalry lieutenant (Harold Lockwood) she loves. Little, perhaps Hollywood's finest Read More

The Battle of the Red Men

Crew: Director

For Her Brother's Sake

Crew: Director

Dream

Crew: Director

His Message

Crew: Director

The Hidden Trail

Crew: Director

A Dog's Tale

Crew: Director

The Aggressor

Crew: Director

Across the Plains

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Behind the Stockade

Crew: Director

Artful Kate

Crew: Director

His Nemesis

Crew: Director

The New Cook

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

The Message in the Bottle

Crew: Director

Their First Misunderstanding

Crew: Director

Over the Hills

Crew: Director

A Manly Man

Crew: Director

In Old Madrid

Crew: Director

The House That Jack Built

Crew: Director

Little Nell's Tobacco

Crew: Director

In the Sultan's Garden

Crew: Director