Mary Gordon Movies

A handsome French trapper must chose between an Indian girl and a pretty white orphan in this Northwoods melodrama produced by poverty row entrepreneur Morris R. Schlank and ostensibly based on popular pulp writer James Oliver Curwood. Mustachioed Walter McGrail played the lovesick trapper, with Neva Gerber as the Indian girl, Lillian Rich as the orphan, and stunt-man Cliff Lyons (who was starring in his own series for Schlank at the time) as the villain, who menaces both girls. The father of director Henry Hathaway, Rhody Hathaway, played a priest. According to the film's press book, "a tribe of Klamath Indians furnished the picturesque backgrounds for the sequences showing the Canadian aboriginals in their natural locale." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This entertaining knockoff of Abie's Irish Rose and The Cohens and the Kellys stars George Sidney and Will Armstrong as rival clothing-store owners Hyman Cohen and Timothy Clancy. Right on schedule, Cohen's daughter Leah (Sharon Lynn) and Clancy's son Tom (Rex Lease) fall in love. To break up the romance, Cohen forces Leah to date the suitor of his choice, Jewish boxer Izzy Murphy (Ed Brady). Determined to win back his sweetheart, Tom challenges Izzy to a fight, while both fathers place bets on the outcome, putting up their businesses as collateral. Tom wins, whereupon the young lovers force Cohen and Clancy to merge their stores, allowing the two bickering neighbors to live scrappily ever after. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This standard underworld meller was dressed up with good performances and an entertaining approach. Nancy Preston (Marguerite de la Motte) and her sweetheart Mike Horgan (John Bowers) are former jailbirds who would really like to go straight. But they are forced to stay undercover to escape the watchful eye of "Gloomy Gus" Cole (Ed Kennedy) of the Tierney Detective Agency, who is doing his best to get something, anything, on them. The beleaguered couple is finally able to escape to a small town, where they settle down, and Horgan establishes a medical practice. Tierney (Alphonz Ethier), the head of the detective agency, gets on their trail, but Nancy ends up nursing him through a serious illness. Cole arrives with a warrant for Nancy's arrest, but he confesses that she is actually innocent. Horgan, meanwhile, is cleared of a burglary charge, so the couple is finally able to start life anew. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Although this film sounds like a 1920s version of Mr. Mom, in some ways it's more enlightened than the 1983 comedy -- for one thing, being a stay-at-home dad comes quite naturally to husband Lester Knapp (Clive Brook). Nevertheless, the idea of switching traditional husband-wife roles was quite a radical one in the days when women had only recently won the right to vote, and as such, this drama (with comic touches) was not always warmly received. Knapp is an ineffectual office worker, while his wife, Eva (Alice Joyce), is a paragon of efficiency who, although she loves her children, is woefully lacking in mothering skills. When Knapp is fired from his job, he decides to die "accidentally" so that his long-suffering family can collect on his life insurance. But (according to the title card) "Lester proved a bungler even at dying," and instead he winds up a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair. Eva turns down the charity of Knapp's old boss, Spencer Willing (Lester Whitlock), and instead asks for a job. He gives her one, as a saleslady at one of the company's stores. Eva flourishes at her new position and soon is earning almost twice as much as Knapp ever made. Meanwhile, Knapp's effect on the couple's three children is almost magical, especially when it comes to dealing with their formerly incorrigible three-year-old. This odd set-up is gradually accepted by the Knapp's friends and relatives, but then disaster strikes -- Eva notices Knapp's legs twitching in his sleep, and indeed, he finds out that he can walk again. But Knapp realizes that both he and Eva are ill-suited for the roles originally foisted on them by society, so he swears their reluctant physician, Dr. Merritt (the delightful George Fawcett), to secrecy. Not surprisingly, this picture was adapted by a woman, Mary O'Hara, from a novel by another woman, Dorothy Canfield. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide