Margery Wilson Movies

"New Thought," a form of spiritual positivism, was very popular in the late 1910s through the 1930s, and the principles behind it were the inspiration for this drama. Margery Wilson both directed and starred. Young spendthrift Edwin Drake (Charles Meredith) is disowned by his father. When he cannot find work he becomes a tramp, but a vision shows him his better self and he begins his regeneration. He finally lands a job and works his way up to one of the firm's top positions. Meanwhile, Sarah Holmes (Wilson) is working as a boarding house slavey. She finds her will with the help of a professor who has befriended her. She meets Mrs. Drake, who is out on a charity mission. The wealthy matron befriends the girl and finally adopts her. When Mrs. Drake tells Sarah of her lost son, she recognizes Edwin, who has boarded at her house under an assumed name. She reunites mother and son, and eventually marries Edwin. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Jack Mulhall and Margery Wilson star in this World War I drama from Triangle. Jeannette Gontreau (Wilson) goes through a Red Cross list and picks the names of three soldiers who are locked away in a German prison camp. With the help of her boss, Frederick Armstrong (Wilbur Higbee), she sends them letters and gifts. The letters that one soldier, Henry Ledyard (Mulhall), writes her become increasingly personal and romantic -- something she finds disturbing. But then by pure chance, one of Jeannette's letters is held over a flame and the soldiers discover that the paper contains secret information for the Germans that has been written in invisible ink. When Ledyard is freed, he returns to New York, where Jeannette is living. In a panic, she dresses up as an old woman to disguise herself. Ledyard informs the authorities about the secret messages and Jeannette is arrested. To save her, Ledyard takes the blame until he is able to find the person who is really responsible for the hidden messages. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Jules (William Desmond) is the last of the once-respected Ingraham family. He is a drunk, scorned by everyone in the New England village in which he lives, the only exception being his own butler (Walt Whitman). When Jules is up to his neck in mortgage and debt, he is cast from the family house by the town banker, Rufus Moore (Robert McKim). Mercy Reed (Margery Wilson), who because of an indiscretion in her past, is the town's other outcast, takes him in and tries to cure him of his alcoholic ways. She reforms him, but the outraged villagers can't stand having the two living under one roof in unwedded bliss, so a mob heads for Mercy's home. But in the midst of the melee, Mercy reveals that the man who wronged her initially was Rufus Moore. In addition to that, Moore was illegally taking property belonging to Jules. Moore is disgraced, and Jules, after discovering that some old oil wells have now made him rich, marries Mercy. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The racial prejudices of 1800's America died hard; in fact, they were still strong enough in 1916 for this film to be made. It involves Southerner Dr. Duprez (Frank Keenan), whose grandniece kills herself after being betrayed by Paul Crenshaw (Jerome Storm). For revenge he introduces slave Mercedes Mendoza (Margery Wilson) to Crenshaw, telling him that the girl is a Spaniard. The man falls in love with Mercedes and as soon as he marries her, the good doctor denounces him as the husband of a Negro. Crenshaw becomes a drunk and is killed when he wanders into a quarantined part of town and tries to leave. Then the doctor finds out that Mercedes really is Spanish, and she has not one drop of Negro blood in her veins; on top of that, the girl is his own granddaughter. So Mercedes wins the old man's love and amends. Exhibitors in the South were warned that theatergoers in their section of the U.S. could find this story offensive. Its shamefully negative attitude towards AfricanAmericans would be even more offensive to the majority of modern-day filmgoers. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Sometime during the shooting of the landmark The Birth of a Nation, filmmaker D.W. Griffith probably wondered how he could top himself. In 1916, he showed how, with the awesome Intolerance. The film began humbly enough as a medium-budget feature entitled The Mother and the Law, wherein the lives of a poor but happily married couple are disrupted by the misguided interference of a "social reform" group. A series of unfortunate circumstances culminates in the husband's being sentenced to the gallows, a fate averted by a nick-of-time rescue engineered by his wife. In the wake of the protests attending the racist content of The Birth of a Nation, Griffith wanted to demonstrate the dangers of intolerance. The Mother and the Law filled the bill to some extent, but it just wasn't "big" enough to suit his purposes. Thus, using The Mother and the Law as merely the base of the film, Griffith added three more plotlines and expanded his cinematic thesis to epic proportions. The four separate stories of Intolerance are symbolically linked by Lillian Gish as the Woman Who Rocks the Cradle ("uniter of the here and hereafter"). The "Modern Story" is essentially The Mother and the Law; the "French Story" details the persecution of the Huguenots by Catherine de Medici (Josephine Crowell); the "Biblical Story" relates the last days of Jesus Christ (Howard Gaye); and the "Babylonian Story" concerns the defeat of King Belshazzar (Alfred Paget) by the hordes of Cyrus the Persian (George Siegmann).

Rather than being related chronologically, the four stories are told in parallel fashion, slowly at first, and then with increasing rapidity. The action in the film's final two reels leaps back and forth in time between Babylon, Calvary, 15th century France, and contemporary California. Described by one historian as "the only film fugue," Intolerance baffled many filmgoers of 1916 -- and, indeed, it is still an exhausting, overwhelming experience, even for audiences accustomed to the split-second cutting and multilayered montage sequences popularized by Sergei Eisenstein, Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, Joel Schumacher, and MTV. On a pure entertainment level, the Babylonian sequences are the most effective, played out against one of the largest, most elaborate exterior sets ever built for a single film. The most memorable character in this sequence is "The Mountain Girl," played by star on the rise Constance Talmadge; when the Babylonian scenes were re-released as a separate feature in 1919, Talmadge's tragic death scene was altered to accommodate a happily-ever-after denouement. Other superb performances are delivered by Mae Marsh and Robert Harron in the Modern Story, and by Eugene Pallette and Margery Wilson in the French Story. Remarkably sophisticated in some scenes, appallingly naïve in others, Intolerance is a mixed bag dramatically, but one cannot deny that it is also a work of cinematic genius. The film did poorly upon its first release, not so much because its continuity was difficult to follow as because it preached a gospel of tolerance and pacifism to a nation preparing to enter World War I. Currently available prints of Intolerance run anywhere from 178 to 208 minutes; while it may be rough sledding at times, it remains essential viewing for any serious student of film technique. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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, Arizona Joe (Robert McKim), arrives to make trouble. "Draw" manages to scare off his opponent, however, and the grateful town forgives his past and elects him sheriff to the delight of Buckton's daughter (Margery Wilson). William S. Hart excelled in playing outlaws reformed by the love of a good woman and The Return of Draw Egan is perhaps the quintessential Hart western. Like so many times before and since, Hart's hero has to choose between two disparate women, a hardened dance-hall harlot (played to the hilt by veteran silent screen femme fatale Louise Glaum) and the naive, but God-fearing and just Margery Wilson. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The title of this 1916 5-reeler refers to the British lighthouse where most of the action unfolds. William H. Thompson plays a likeable old lighthouse keeper who must contend with his less likeable fellow villagers. One of Thompson's acts of kindness is to bless the "scandalous" romance between hero and heroine. Future silent superstar John Gilbert, then billed as Jack Gilbert, plays a small and none-too-pleasant role. Eye of the Night's florid subtitles were written by C. Gardner Sullivan, who seldom made a point in ten words or less. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Reliance feature bore a striking resemblance to the previous IMP release Driven By Fate. Deserted by her husband, a pregnant chorus girl finds herself stranded in a backwater town. She gives up her baby to a Quaker family then disappears into the night. Flash-forward several years: The child, now grown up into a beautiful young woman (and now played by Dorothy Gish) begins to develop unexplained yearnings to go on the stage. With the help of a benevolent theatrical manager, she quickly rises to the heights of success on Broadway. If only Gish knew that her personal maid is actually her long-lost mother.... ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide