George O'Brien Movies

Moran of the Lady Letty was a successful attempt to establish "Latin Lover" Rudolph Valentino as a brawling he-man hero (both this film and Valentino's breakthrough picture The Sheik were directed by George Melford). Rudy plays a Spanish aristocrat who is shanghaied by burly ship's captain Walter Long, the head of a smuggling gang. While at sea, Valentino rescues a young man from a burning vessel. The young man turns out to be a young woman (Dorothy Dalton), who had earlier spurned Valentino in his pampered-aristocrat days. Rudy tries to conceal the girl's identity from the lustful Long, but soon the truth is out, setting the stage for a bloody mano-y-mano battle between hero and villain. Moran of the Lady Letty was based on a novel by Frank Norris, whose best-known work McTeague was filmed by Erich Von Stroheim as Greed (1924). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

When wealthy Rockwood dies, he wills his fortune to his four grown children, providing they're all married by a certain date. Failing that, the money will go to charity. Three of the Rockwood siblings are quick to find matches but Tom Rockwood (Thomas Meighan) is determined to wait for true love. At last he finds it with Louise Halliday (Lila Lee), but her guardian is Milo Bleech (John Sainpolis) who is the family lawyer. Bleech would benefit if the fortune went to charity, so he tries to sabotage the relationship. He is nearly successful, and Tom leaves for Europe. Also on the boat is the unhappy English sweetheart of his brother Dick (Robert Agnew). Louise is there to see the girl off, but isn't able to disembark before the ship leaves port. She and Tom meet up and straighten out their differences. Then, when Dick is discovered on board as a stowaway, a double wedding is in order. Meanwhile, the sisters back home quickly marry their beaus and the fortune remains in the family. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

This Fox melodrama features Dorothy Mackaill and George O'Brien. Out of love for her foster mother, Violet (Mackaill) takes the blame for a burglary actually perpetrated by the woman's daughter. She goes to prison and when she is released, the police terrorize her to the extent that she is unable to hold down a job. As a result, she becomes a prostitute. She vacations in the South Seas with one of her clients, where she meets Luther Smith (O'Brien). Smith, a sailor, had come home to find his sister (Lucille Ricksen) was murdered. He is now searching for her killer, but this doesn't stop him from falling in love with Violet. Violet doesn't feel worthy of Smith's love, so she leaves the island. Smith, meanwhile, has discovered that Sutton (Harry T. Morey), the captain of the ship he is on, is his sister's assailant. During a storm, their ship collides with the one carrying Violet. Sutton rescues Violet and tries to have his way with her. When she proves uncooperative, he takes her back to the island, where he begins to auction her off to a group of coke fiends. But Smith rescues her and gives Sutton what's coming to him. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

The mother of Henry Potter (George O'Brien) died when he was born, and his father, Thomas (Ralph Lewis), spoiled him with wealth and luxury. As a result, Henry has become a wild, out-of-control young man. After he is hit with a breach of promise suit and caught in a drunken brawl, Henry is sent to San Francisco, where he falls in love with Marcelle, a dancer (Dorothy Mackaill). Although Marcelle tries to straighten him out, he proves to be as reckless as ever, and Thomas orders him shanghaied and shipped off to -- where else? -- Shanghai. There he continues his drunken ways and once again runs into Marcelle, who has become a morphine addict. Together, they battle to overcome their addictions. After getting married, the couple moves to Hawaii, where an aunt (Emily Fitzroy) tries to make Henry choose between Marcelle and his sick father. Marcelle pretends to go back on the dope so that Henry will go to his father, but he refuses to leave her. Finally she convinces him to reconcile with Thomas, who comes to accept Marcelle as part of the family. This picture was remade as talkie in 1931 as an unlikely vehicle for Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

John Ford directed this epic-scale silent western, which was one of his first major successes and was hugely influential on outdoor films that followed. David Brandon (James Gordon) is a surveyor in the Old West who dreams that one day the entire North American continent will be linked by railroads. However, to make this dream a reality, a clear trail must be found through the Rocky Mountains. With his boy Davy (Winston Miller), David sets out to find such a path, but he's ambushed by a tribe of Indians led by a white savage, Peter Jesson (Cyril Chadwick); while the boy manages to escape, David is killed. Years later, the adult Davy Brandon (George O'Brien) still believes in his father's dream of a transcontinental railroad, and legislation signed by President Abraham Lincoln has made it an official mandate. Davy is hired on as a railroad surveyor by Thomas Marsh (Will R. Walling), the father of his childhood sweetheart Miriam (Madge Bellamy). While Davy hopes to win Miriam's heart as he helps to find the trail that led to his father's death years ago, he's disappointed to discover that Miriam is already married -- and shocked to discover her husband is Peter Jesson, now working with the railroad as a civil engineer. As the Union Pacific crew presses on to their historic meeting at Promitory Point, Davy must find a way to earn Miriam's love and uncover Peter's murderous past. Shot on location in Arizona in Ford's beloved Monument Valley, The Iron Horse was a massive production that employed over 6,000 people; two temporary cities were built to accommodate them, with 100 cooks on hand to serve meals. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This drama (adapted from the play by Gerald du Maurier and Viola Tree) was typical for its era: a jazz baby parties up a storm and pays the price for her sins. Tony (George O'Brien) and Una (Madge Bellamy) are childhood sweethearts who promise to marry when they grow up. Tony travels to South America, where he opens up a successful saloon and dance hall. One of the dancers, Maxine (Alma Rubens), falls in love with him, but he remains true to Una. Una, however, has immersed herself in a round of wild parties and she totally forgets Tony. She allows one of her admirers, Evan Carruthers (Freeman Wood), to take advantage of her. Tony becomes very wealthy upon his uncle's death, and he returns home to settle his affairs and marry Una. Although Una's aunt insists that she keep her affair with Evan a secret, Una's guilt is overwhelming. Finally, as they are about to be married, she confesses all to Tony. He forgives her, but she takes poison and dies anyhow. Tony returns to South America and weds Maxine. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

Based on a magazine serial by the prolific Peter B. Kyne, this silent Western featured rising star George O'Brien as Bradley Blatchford, a college graduate who returns to the old homestead only to find that his father (Russell Simpson) is engaging in a bit of cattle rustling. This unpleasant discovery threatens to put a halt to Bradley's engagement to schoolmarm Sybil Hamilton (Anita Stewart), but then Sybil is also accused of rustling. Sybil, however, was framed by a real cattle rustler and the lovers are reunited. Veteran Vitagraph ingénue Anita Stewart played one of her very last romantic leads in this Western whereas young George O'Brien went on to immortality opposite Janet Gaynor in the beautiful Sunrise (1927), and, later still, B-Western stardom at RKO. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Fig Leaves is historically important as the earliest extant film of director Howard Hawks. A partial parody of the Cecil B. DeMille historical spectacles, the film opens in the Garden of Eden, where Adam (George O'Brien) tries to read his morning paper (a stone tablet, a la The Flintstones) while Eve (Olive Borden) complains that she has nothing to wear. As Adam goes to work on the 9:15 dinosaur, Eve is led down the road to perdition by a friendly snake. Flash forward to 1926: Eve Smith (Borden again) complains that she has no decent clothes, whereupon her best friend Alice (the "snake" counterpart, played by Phyllis Haver) suggests that the heroine take a job as fashion model, thereby securing herself a free wardrobe. Catching his wife in a state of dishabille at a fancy dress shop, Adam Smith (O'Brien again) angrily declares that he never wants to see her again. Adam forgives Eve after witnessing a cat-fight between his wife and the troublesome Alice. Critics in 1926 were amused by the "prehistoric" contraptions in the opening scenes and enthralled by the film's Technicolor fashion-show sequence. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Long thought lost, the silent Three Bad Men is an vital ingredient in the cinematic canon of director John Ford. Often described as a film version of Peter B. Kyne's Three Godfathers (which Ford would direct in 1948), Three Bad Men is actually based on Over the Border, a novel by Herman Whitaker. The plot, which spans several years, is set in motion when three bandits appoint themselves protectors of the heroine, whose settler father is killed early in the proceedings. A subplot involves bandit Tom Santschi's efforts to wreak vengeance on the man who seduced and abandoned his sister. The film was originally supposed to star George O'Brien, Tom Mix and Buck Jones as the title characters, but since the plot required the Three Bad Men to be killed off long before the fadeout, and since all three proposed stars had large and loyal kiddie followings, the roles were recast, with character actors Santschi, Frank Campeau and J. Farrell McDonald. O'Brien was retained, albeit relegated to a less colorful heroic role. Three Bad Men should be seen in its original release form; most commercial prints are chopped up and woefully washed out. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Not a remake of the 1923 film of the same name, East Side, West Side stars George O'Brien as John Breen, who is orphaned early on when his mother and stepfather are killed in a barge accident. With nothing holding him back, John heads to the Big City he's always dreamed about. Here he becomes a champion boxer under the patronage of wealthy architect Gilbert Van Horn (Holmes Herbert). What Breen doesn't know is that Van Horn is his real father, who was forced by his wealthy family to give up custody of the boy years earlier. After accumulating enough money in the ring to start a new career, Breen develops into a brilliant architect, again with Van Horn's help. Only when both Breen and Van Horn fall in love with the same girl (Virginia Valli) does the true relationship between father and son come to surface. Based on a novel by Felix Reisenberg, East Side West Side was remade in 1931 as Skyscraper, with Thomas Meighan and Hardie Albright. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Considered by many to be the finest silent film ever made by a Hollywood studio, F.W. Murnau's Sunrise represents the art of the wordless cinema at its zenith. Based on the Hermann Sudermann novel A Trip to Tilsit, this "Song of Two Humans" takes place in a colorful farming community, where people from the city regularly take their weekend holidays. Local farmer George O'Brien, happily married to Janet Gaynor, falls under the seductive spell of Margaret Livingston, a temptress from The City. He callously ignores his wife and child and strips his farm of its wealth on behalf of Livingston, but even this fails to satisfy her. One foggy evening, O'Brien meets Livingston at their usual swampland trysting place. She bewitches him with stories about the city -- its jazz, its bright lights, its erotic excitement. Thrilled at the prospect of running off with Livingston, O'Brien stops short: "What about my wife?" Drawing ever closer to her victim, Livingston murmurs "Couldn't she just...drown?" (the subtitle bearing these words then "melts" into nothingness). In his delirium, the husband agrees. The plan is to row Gaynor to the middle of the lake, then capsize the boat. Gaynor will drown, while O'Brien will save himself with some bulrushes that he'd previously hidden in the boat; thus, the murder will look like an accident. The next day, the brooding O'Brien begins slowly rowing his unsuspecting wife across the lake. Halfway to shore, he makes his intentions clear, but is unable to go through with it. As his wife cringes in terror, O'Brien rows to the other side of lake. Once ashore, she runs away from him in terror, as he stumbles after her, trying to apologize.

Gaynor boards a streetcar bound for the city, with O'Brien climbing aboard a few seconds afterward. Upon reaching the city (a renowned set design), O'Brien continues trying to make amends to his wife. They sit disconsolately at a table in a restaurant, unable to eat the plate of cake that is set before them. Slowly, Gaynor begins overcoming her fear. The couple wander into a church, where a wedding is taking place. Breaking down in sobs, O'Brien begins repeating the wedding vows, thereby convincing Gaynor that she has nothing to fear. Together again, the couple embraces in the middle of a busy street, oblivious to the honking horns and irate motorists. Anxious to prove to each other that all is well, the husband and wife spend a delightful afternoon having their pictures taken and "dolling up" in a posh barber shop. They cap their unofficial second honeymoon at a joyous festival in an outsized amusement park. More in love with each other than ever before, O'Brien and Gaynor head back across the lake in the dark of night. Suddenly, a storm arises. Pulling out the bulrushes with which he'd planned to save himself, O'Brien straps them onto Janet, telling her to swim to shore. The storm passes. Washing up on shore, the unconscious O'Brien is brought home. But Gaynor is nowhere to be found, and it is assumed that she has died in the storm. Half-insane, O'Brien strikes out at Livingston, the instigator of the murder plan. Just as he is about to throttle the treacherous temptress, he is summoned home; his wife is alive! As Livingston stumbles out of the village, O'Brien and Gaynor cling tightly to one another, watching the sun rise above their now-happy home. Together with Seventh Heaven, Sunrise earned Janet Gaynor the first-ever Best Actress Academy Award, while Charles Rosher and Karl Struss walked home with the industry's first Best Photography Oscar. The film itself was also in the Oscar race, but lost out to the more financially successful Wings. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

George O'Brien, Fox Studios' general-purpose leading man, heads the cast of Honor Bound. The story opens in the bedroom of hero John Ogletree (George O'Brien), who is awakened from his slumbers by the unexpected arrival of Evelyn (Evelyn Brent), a total stranger. Claiming that she's fleeing from her brutal husband, Evelyn begs John to protect her. On cue, the husband shows up and in the ensuing struggle is accidentally killed. Arrested for manslaughter, John nobly serves his sentence without ever implicating Evelyn in her husband's death. Our hero subsequently joins a prison work gang, assigned to the coal mines owned by one Mr. Mortimer (Tom Santschi) -- who happens to be Evelyn's new husband. Feeling guilty for John's plight, Evelyn arranges for him to have the relatively cushy job of Mortimer's chauffeur. This naturally arouses the suspicions of Mortimer, who promptly assigns John to "grunge" duty in the mines. A fire set by a fellow convict is blamed on John, but this time Evelyn steps forward to exonerate the long-suffering hero, freeing him to marry his true love, pretty nurse Selma Ritchie (Leila Hyams). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Directed by a young Michael Curtiz, this Warner Bros. epic had aspirations of becoming another Intolerance (1916). In the end, Curtiz' treatise of man's inhumanity to man was ironically sabotaged by the enormous success of yet another studio release, the groundbreaking The Jazz Singer (1927). Basically a quaint romantic melodrama set during World War I, Noah's Ark opens with American George O'Brien falling in love with German Dolores Costelllo while travelling on the Orient Express on the eve of war. The train wrecks and the two seek shelter at a nearby hostelry. Russian military officer Noah Beery tries to molest Miss Costello but is repulsed by O'Brien. The three meet again near the end of the war in a little French village, where Beery accuses Costello, now Mrs. O'Brien, of being a German spy. Placed before a firing squad, Dolores is saved in the nick of time by her husband, a member of the squad.The Germans use this very moment to bomb and all are soon entombed in the basement of a demolished building. Comparing the war with the Biblical account of the Flood, screenwriters Anthony Coldeway and Darryl F. Zanuck flash back to Miriam (Costello) and Japheth (O'Brien) at the festival of Jaghut. The climactic Flood (the filming of which brought Miss Costello a severe case of pneumonia) pulls out all the stops and is magnificent in UCLA's lovingly restored print. After the deluge, the story shifts back to war-torn France, where Costello and O'Brien are rescued by the Red Cross on the eve of the Armistice. Ready to be released, Warner Bros. withdrew the film in order to add several scenes of dialogue, considered a necessity after the unprecedented reception of The Jazz Singer. The results were doleful: Ever so often, Noah's Ark comes to a screetching halt as the characters leave the realm of silent movies to speak stolid lines of dialogue. The cumbersome Vitaphone sound-on-disc made for pedestrian drama as everyone were forced to speak slowly and enunciate carefully. Dolores Costello, Warners' blonde leading lady and the off-screen Mrs. John Barrymore, suffered the most and would see her flourishing career all but evaporate. But UCLA's restoration of Noah's Ark proves once and for all that the rumors of Miss Costello having trouble with sibilants were highly exaggerated. It was Costello's line-reading of "Merthy, merthy, have you no thisther of your own?" in Tenderloin (1928) that supposedly sealed her fate in talkies. But even though the restored Noah's Ark shows little sign of the dreaded lisp, the hapless Miss Costello is visibly ill at ease before the microphone and her stilted dialogue, by Coldeway, is of no help whatsoever. "Part-talkies" like Noah's Ark were mercifully only a stop-gap measure; by the time of M-G-M's Broadway Melody (released June 6, 1929), "all-talking, all-dancing" features had already freed themselves from the constraints of early sound technology. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi