Alice Terry Movies

Rex Ingram directed this romantic tale of passion about pious Father Adrian (Ivan Petrovich) who has taken a vow of silence, prayer, and chastity in order to gain entrance into the Trappist monastery of Notre Dame d'Afrique in Algeria. But his vows are broken when a young girl accuses him of an illicit embrace. Though Adrian is forced to undergo penance, the thought of the girl in his arms is too much for his fragile libido, so he renounces his vows for a life of debauchery. He takes off into the desert, reverting back to his secular name, Boris Androvsky. When he passes the oasis of Beni-Mora, he saves Domini Enfilden (Alice Terry) from a riot. Domini is devoutly religious, and she takes notice when, at a party at the home of Count Anteoni (Marcel Vibert), Androvsky shies away from the priests and their crucifixes. Nevertheless, Domini and Androvsky fall in love and they decide to marry. As they leave for a desert honeymoon, Androvsky has to decide whether or not to confess his true religious identity to Domini. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

Having struck box-office gold with his adaptation of the mystical Vincent Blasco-Ibanez novel The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, producer-director Rex Ingram adapted another Ibanez best-seller, Mare Nostrum, as a vehicle for his hauntingly beautiful actress wife Alice Terry. Set during WWI, the film casts Terry as Freya Talberg, a German secret agent. Though she seems to have ice water in her veins (there's even a hint that she prefers the company of women over men), Freya loses her heart to a Spanish sea captain, Ulysses Ferragut (Antonio Moreno). As a result, she is captured and sentenced to be executed, going to her death with a poise and dignity befitting a Joan of Arc. The firing-squad sequence is the film's piece de resistance, brilliantly photographed from the heroine's point of view by ace cinematographer John F. Seitz. Perhaps because virtually all the major characters die at the end, the film was a financial flop, even though its anti-war sentiments were perfectly attuned to the mid-1920s. For many years one of the most highly sought-after "lost" films, Mare Nostrum was restored to a reasonable approximation of its original tinted and toned glory in the late 1970s and has been shown several times over the Turner Classic Movies cable service. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When Ellen Linden (Alice Terry) returns from finishing school, she discovers that her father has lost his fortune. Although she's less than thrilled at the prospect, she finds work in an office. Both her employers, James Rand (Lawson Butt) and Egbert Phillips (Henry Kolker), show their interest in her. Ellen only cares for Tom Galloway (Ernest Gillen), who is trying to promote a new soft drink. She attempts to interest her bosses in financing his endeavor, but when Rand discovers that the pair are romantically involved, he pulls his backing. Rand and Ellen team up for a treasure hunt (a fad popular in England during the mid-'20s in which the competitors compete with the help of scooters, old cars, old-fashioned bicycles, and just about anything else that moved). They are delayed and wind up being out until the early morning hours. Mrs. Rand (Margarita Fischer) is furious, as is Galloway. Galloway finally realizes that Ellen did nothing wrong and they are reunited. Rand decides it's a good idea to kiss up to his wife, and offers to back Galloway's soft drink as a wedding present to Ellen. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Polly Freeman (Dorothy Sebastian, then a fresh newcomer from Ziegfeld's Follies) is a frivolous young girl who goes West and seduces her mountain guide, Stephen Edwards (Orville Caldwell). When she becomes pregnant he offers to marry her, but instead she runs back home and tells her sister, Joan (Alice Terry), that she has been betrayed. Joan leaves her fiancé, Samuel Curtis (John Miljan), behind, and the girls travel to France to escape scandal. After Polly has her baby, she takes off and leaves Joan to take care of it. When Curtis shows up and sees Joan with the baby, he misunderstands and it causes them to break up. Countess Selignac (Kathleen Kirkham) accompanies Joan to Washington, where she meets Edwards, who has now become a congressman. Unaware that he is the same man who was involved with Polly, Joan falls in love with him. Once Polly's money runs out, however, she reappears and the facts about his past come out. Joan forces him to do right by Polly and marry her. Polly dies soon after, so Joan and Edwards are reunited. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Two of the silent screen's major stars, beautiful blonde Alice Terry and British-born Conway Tearle, starred in this lavishly mounted MGM western about a woman saved in the nick of time from a fate worse than death at the hands of three rough miners (Tearle, Wallace Beery, and William Orlamond). Tearle suddenly feels remorse and not only saves her from his cohorts but proposes marriage. Having grown to love him, she accepts, but her parents disapprove. All that changes when the girl gives birth to a bouncy baby boy. Amazingly, this story, a barnstormer as old as the hills, could still sell tickets in 1924 and would do it again five years later in a new version produced by First National. The graceful Alice Terry (formerly known as Alice Taafe) was the wife of director Rex Ingram. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This silent era classic was based on the swashbuckling adventure novel by Rafael Sabatini, the author whose works later inspired such renowned genre favorites as Captain Blood (1935) and The Sea Hawk (1940). Andre Moreau (Roman Novarro) is a law student during the time of the brewing French Revolution who politically supports his dissatisfied fellow citizens. During a confrontation with the Marquis de la Tour d'Azyr (Lewis Stone), a feared nobleman sympathetic to the royalist cause, the blue blood murders Andre's agitator friend. Unable to engage in swordplay against the legendary prowess of the Marquis, Andre vows revenge and joins a local circus troupe, hiding behind the guise of Scaramouche, a clown, while training in the art of fencing with a master. Andre also falls in love with a woman smitten by the dashing Marquis, but she returns to the troupe when she learns of the nobleman's infidelity. As political unrest boils over into rebellion, Moreau and the Marquis cross steel. Scaramouche (1923) was remade often, most notably in 1952, which features the cinema's longest sword battle and costarred Stone in a different role. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Rex Ingram's talents as a director are very much in evidence in this drama, which is leavened by a sizable dose of comedy, courtesy of Harry Myers and George Cooper. Ingram all but allows them to steal the show, which keeps an otherwise maudlin tale from becoming too overbearing. When Joe Bascom (Jack Mulhall) leaves the farm to experience life in the big city, he predictably gets himself into trouble. Ultimately, he is sent up the river for a crime he did not commit. But his time in jail is not all bad -- he meets fellow prisoners Gilly and Mugsy (Myers and Cooper), who turn out to be true friends. When they are released, Bascom takes them back home, where he discovers that his mother (Lydia Knott) is about to be swindled out of her peach orchard by Deacon Tillinger (Edward Connelly). The three friends save Mrs. Bascom's property, and Joe falls in love with Tillinger's daughter, Elsie (Alice Terry). This picture was based on the successful stage play by Winchell Smith and Jack Hazzard. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The mystical novels of Vicente Blasco-Ibanez were much prized by ambitious silent filmmaker Rex Ingram, who filmed two of them in the 1920s, both ostensibly vehicles for his actress wife Alice Terry. The first of the two, Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, was infinitely more successful than the second (Mare Nostrum), a fact that can be attributed to two little words: Rudolph Valentino. The quintessential Latin Lover stars as Julio, the scion of a wealthy Argentinian family. During the years prior to World War I, Julio's relatives relocate to Germany and France, with Julio opting for the latter country, where he opens an art studio. Here he carries on a torrid affair with Alice Terry, the wife of an attorney. When World War I breaks out, Terry joins the Red Cross and her husband enlists in the army, while the carefree Julio avoids involvement in the conflict. Only when visited by the spectres of the Four Horseman--war, conquest, famine, and death--does Julio don a uniform. His death is a symbolic sacrifice on behalf of Ms. Terry, whose husband has been blinded in the war: and, in an additional symbolic grace-note, Julio dies at the hands of his own cousin, now a German officer. The film's Big Money sequence was the one in which Rudolph Valentino danced the forbidden tango in a dingy, smoke-filled Argentinian cantina. That's what made him a star, not all that mumbo-jumbo about fate, destiny, and Four Horsemen. Proof that Valentino and not Blasco-Ibanez was the principal drawing card of this film was the 1962 remake, in which Glenn Ford portrays Julio. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When his mother (Alice Taaffe) dies, Bryce Cardigan (Wallace Reid) and his lumberman father James (Charles Ogle) bury her in a glade they own and have named the Valley of the Giants. The two men swear to protect this land, but when Bryce returns from college he discovers that his father is in dire financial straits and is nearly blind. The old man's business rival (Ralph Lewis) intends to get his hands on the Valley. To complicate matters, Bryce is in love with Pennington's niece, Shirley Sumner (Grace Darmond). Through a lot of physical and mental exertion, Bryce exposes Pennington as a crook, saves the Valley, and gets the girl. This picture was based on the book by Peter B. Kyne. While shooting this film on location in California redwood country, Wallace Reid was seriously injured. He was prescribed narcotic painkillers to avoid shutting down production, and this reportedly lead to the drug addiction which eventually killed him in 1923. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The first of Cecil B. DeMille's series of sophisticated romantic comedy-dramas, Old Wives for New was adapted from a novel by David Graham. Elliot Dexter stars as David Murdock, who after several years of marriage has grown as tired of his wife Sophy as she has of him. Casting about for new female companionship, David falls for lovely Juliet Raeburn (Florence Vidor). Upon divorcing Sophy, David is poised to marry Juliet, when she is innocently mixed up in a sensational murder case. Hoping to avoid scandal, David weds another woman named Viola (Marcia Manon), who in turn walks out on David in favor of his much-younger personal secretary. Suitably chastened, David begs Juliet to take him back, which she does. To emphasize the fact that David's first wife has let herself go to seed, director DeMille cunningly (and chauvinistically) cast pert and pretty Wanda Hawley as Sophy "before marriage," and plain and dumpy Sylvia Ashton) as Sophy "after." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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, Civilization begins with war spreading through the land. Inventor Count Ferdinand (Howard Hickman), against the wishes of his pacifist fiancee (Enid Markey), agrees to commandeer a submarine against the enemy. When his sub blows up, the Count is rescued from eternal damnation by the spirit of Jesus Christ, whose soul enters Ferdinand's body. Ferdinand returns to life, convincing the King of Wredpryd (Herchel Mayal) that he, the king, has divine powers. But Jesus, using Ferdinand as his vessel, shows the king that no man is above the laws of God--and also gives him an up-close-and-personal tour of the bloody battlefield. The King realizes the error of his ways, and declares an end to the battle. Extremely popular during its first year of release (1916), Civilization disappeared from view the moment that the US declared war against Germany. Though its direction is often credited to producer Thomas Ince, Civilization was actually directed by committee: among its helmsmen were Walter Edwards, Raymond B. West, Jay Hunt, Reginald Barker, J. Park Read and David M. Hartford. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide