Bebe Daniels Movies

Harold Lloyd plays a dreamy young man in this Hal Roach short. Bebe Daniels (Lloyd's regular leading lady at the time) portrays a girl who is being courted by the unappetizing Snub Pollard. Harold, meanwhile, is at work, but it's spring, the day is beautiful and the office is next to a lovely park. His mind is anywhere but on his job, so he wanders off and the other office workers are unable to retrieve him. Harold causes so much trouble at the park that he is obliged to hide in a gigantic bush -- just as Bebe hides in it to get away from Pollard. Thus the two get acquainted. Bebe, for obvious reasons, finds him much more appealing than her beau and after a few more adventures, takes him home, where he discovers that her father is his boss. But the father is a man after Harold's own heart -- he advises Harold to "Do like I do and go to work whenever you please." ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Herman J. Mankiewicz was one of the screenwriters of the sprightly Bebe Daniels vehicle Stranded in Paris. Daniels is cast as New York salesgirl Julie McFadden, who wins a free trip to Paris, sponsored by a French perfume company. En route to Europe by boat, Julie enjoys a shipboard romance with wealthy Robert Van Wye (Robert Ames). Upon arrival in Paris, our heroine discovers to her horror that the perfume company has been closed down, whereupon her purse and luggage are stolen by thieves. With nary a penny to her name, Julie takes a job in a fancy modiste. She is sent to Deauville to deliver a shipment of clothes, but through a series of misunderstandings she finds herself in an entirely different town, where through an additional series of misunderstandings she is forced to pose as one Countess Paseda. Things look bad for Julie when the real Countess shows up, assumes that our heroine has been fooling around with her husband the Count, and prepares to shoot everyone in sight. At the last possible moment, Julie is rescued by her shipboard sweetheart Robert Van Wye, making one wonder why she doesn't greet his entrance with a harsh "Where the heck have you been for the past six reels?" ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Broadway chorus girl Peggy Lane (Bebe Daniels) is in love with stage-door-johnnie David North (Neil Hamilton). Vampish Derelys Devore (Lilyan Tashman), the obnoxious star of the show in which Peggy is appearing, tries to come between the adoring couple. When all else fails, Peggy is forced to put an end to Derelys' machinations with her fists. Sporting a spectacular black eye, Derelys refuses to go on stage, whereupon Peggy subs for the "incapacitated" star and scores a bit hit. Director Marshall Neilan, a marked man in Hollywood thanks to such wisecracks as "An empty car pulled up and Louise B. Mayer got out," helmed Take Me Home just before his professional decline began. The film's titles were written by Herman Mankiewicz. Comedian Joe E. Brown, never too lucky in his silent-film appearances, was again wasted in a minor role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cecil B. DeMille's much-maligned cinemadaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's The Affairs of Anatol holds up better than its reputation suggests. Wallace Reid stars as New York socialite Anatol DeWitt Spencer, who after only a few day's marriage has become bored with his new bride Vivian (Gloria Swanson). In search of new romantic vistas, Anatole takes up his old flame Emilie (Wanda Hawley), who repays the "favor" by two-timing him. Briefly returning to his wife, Anatole attempts another extramarital adventure with Annie Elliot (Agnes Ayres), whose tear-stained tales of a tragic life are but a subterfuge to disguise her larcenous streak. Finally, Anatole dallies with Satan Synne (Bebe Daniels), "the wickedest woman in New York"-who turns out to be a virtuous housewife, hoping to raise money for her seriously ill husband. At long last, Anatole decides that he's better off with Vivian, who by now has grown tired of him. In reviewing The Affairs of Anatol, Photoplay magazine said laconically "Cecil B. DeMille, not Arthur Schnitzler. We leave it to you which gentleman has pleased our public more." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When Billy Laidlaw (Kenneth Harlan) sees Peggy Laurence (Bebe Daniels) and her partner, Matt Wilde (T. Roy Barnes), performing at a Bowery amateur night, he resolves to help them. They do well on Broadway, thanks to Laidlaw, who begins falling in love with Peggy, even though he already has a wife, Grace (Helen Lee Worthing). World War I breaks out and Laidlaw enlists. Peggy becomes a "Y" entertainer so she can be near him, while Grace becomes a Red Cross nurse. There is an enemy attack, and Peggy has to choose between saving Laidlaw and saving an entire battalion. She chooses the battalion and becomes temporarily blinded in the fray. Grace nurses her back to health and they both assume that Laidlaw has been lost. When he shows up, Peggy does the right
thing and sends him back to Grace. This drama was based on the play by Channing Pollock and Edgar Selwyn. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Bebe Daniels struck a blow for feminism--for at least 6 reels, that is--in The Fifty-Fifty Girl. It all begins when Kathleen O'Hara (Daniels) and Jim Donahue (James Hall) find themselves joint owners of a gold mine. Each party would like to get rid of the other and take full ownership. Thus, they strike a deal that might serve as an amusing I Love Lucy plot: O'Hara will dig for gold, while Donahue will stay home and do the housework. The first one to pull out of this agreement will forfeit his or her share. This being a 1920s film, it's O'Hara who weakens first when she's attacked by the villains, but by this time Donahue has fallen in love with her for real, so it's "share and share alike" at fadeout time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This first of three film adaptations of Dashiel Hammett's The Maltese Falcon plays at times like the road-company version of the more famous 1941 John Huston/Humphrey Bogart adaptation. Ricardo Cortez stars as a slick, rogueish edition of Sam Spade, using his office as a trysting place for his various amours. Bebe Daniels plays the Brigid O'Shaughnessy character, here rechristened Ruth Wonderly. Ruth hires Spade and his partner Miles Archer (Walter Long) to locate her missing sister. Archer is killed while on duty, confirming Spade's suspicion that Ruth's lost-sister story was a subterfuge. In fact, Ruth is one of several disreputable types in search of a valuable falcon statuette encrusted with jewels. Others mixed up in the quest for the "black bird" are portly Casper Gutman (Dudley Digges), Gutman's neurotic gunsel Wilmer (Dwight Frye, better known as Renfield from Dracula) and effeminate Joel Cairo (Otto Matiesen). It is giving nothing away at this stage of the game to note that, after all the various intrigues concerning the falcon have come and gone, Spade turns Ruth over to the cops as the murderer of Archer. As would be the case with the 1941 version, the 1931 Maltese Falcon does not use Hammett's original ending, in which Spade callously resumes his affair with Archer's widow (Thelma Todd). Instead, we are offered a jailhouse coda, where a suddenly compassionate Spade asks the matron to treat the incarcerated Ruth gently during her 20-year stay. When Maltese Falcon was due for a reissue in 1936, it was denied a Production Code approval on the basis of one single line: Archer's widow, spotting Ruth Wonderly in Spade's bedroom, exclaims "Who's that dame in my kimono?" In between the 1931 and 1941 versions of Maltese Falcon, there would be a heavily disguised reworking of the Hammett novel, Satan Met a Lady (1936), starring Warren William and Bette Davis. To avoid confusion with the 1941 remake, the 1931 Maltese Falcon has been retitled Dangerous Female for television. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A loving mother sacrifices all for her son in this drama. She is an artist's model who finds herself financially drained by a dead-beat artist when she falls in love with a younger man, marries him and bears a son. When her beloved husband dies in the war, the old artist tries to win her back. When that doesn't work, he lures her into his studio and pulls a gun on her. During the ensuing struggle, she accidentally shoots him and ends up spending 15 years in jail. Upon her release she heads for America to keep her son from discovering the truth. In the States, she gets involved with a gambler, but then returns to England and discovers her son is being flimflammed by gamblers. She then saves him from losing it all, but the ungrateful son only has eyes for his lover and his mother slowly fades from view. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

When Bebe Daniels spent a publicity-filled ten days in jail for speeding, her studio saw an even bigger way to cash in and produced this light comedy. Actress Betty Lee (Daniels) is fast in every way but in love. Tom Manley, a young naval officer (Theodore Von Eltz), is her sweetheart, but then a millionaire butts in and tries to make him look bad in her eyes. Betty's real trouble begins, however, when she flirtatiously makes Manley hang around until he is late for his ship. When she realizes he'll be court martialed if he doesn't reach San Diego on time, she rushes him down in her car. The millionaire has informed the authorities, and although Manley makes his boat, Betty is arrested for speeding -- and just like Bebe, Betty spends ten days in jail as a celebrity. She has just about decided to wed the millionaire when she finds another girl behind bars who had been a victim of the guy. So Betty dumps him and returns to Tom. Although this was far from one of Daniels' bet! ter vehicles, any picture based around her sparkling personality couldn't be all bad. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Nearly thirty years before Victor Fleming took movie lovers "Over the Rainbow" in The Wizard of Oz, filmmaker Otis Turner adapted L. Frank Baum's original story for the screen, teaming young Kansas native Dorothy with Scarecrow, The Cowardly Lion, and The Tin Woodman for the first time on film. Swept away to the land of Oz in a furious tornado, Dorothy and her dog Toto make their way to the Emerald City with a little help from Glinda the good witch and some exciting new friends. But Momba the bad witch is never far behind, prompting Dorothy to seek out the wizard in hopes of finding a way back home. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide