Alice Chapin Movies
- 1925
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
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
- Starring:
- Bebe Daniels, Kenneth Harlan, (more)
- 1924
With this comedy-melodrama, Richard Dix was bumped up from leading man to star status. This also marked the first film for director R.H. Burnside, who was better known for staging spectacles at New York's Hippodrome. Peter Minuit (Dix) comes from an old and very rich New York family, but he is bored with his idle life. He finds excitement when safecracker Spike Malone (Gregory Kelly) breaks into his Fifth Avenue home. Minuit convinces Spike that he is really another crook by the name of Gentleman George. Spike takes him home to his pretty sister, Mary (Jacqueline Logan), and she falls in love with him. Gang leader Bud McGinnis (the imposing George Siegmann) wants Mary for himself and makes plans to do away with the interloper. There is a brutal fight between Minuit and McGinnis, but ultimately McGinnis is shot by one of his own henchmen. The gang is rounded up and Minuit weds Mary and takes her uptown to live. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Dix, Jacqueline Logan, (more)
- 1924
While this independently made stage drama didn't have one original concept in its scenario, it was well-made by director William Christy Cabanne and featured a solid cast. Connie Sutton (Sigrid Holmquist) is a shopgirl who quits her job to join the chorus line. Her old-fashioned friend, Molly Malone (May Allison), decides to stay working behind the counter. Wealthy Montgomery Breck (Richard Bennett), who spends much of his free time around chorus girls, takes a particular liking to Connie. Molly goes to a party Breck is throwing, accompanied by her sweetheart, Tom Towers (Charles Emmett Mack). When she discovers that Towers has a weakness for wild women, Molly tries to live it up by drinking some bootleg gin. But the hooch is bad and it renders her blind. To raise the money to cure Molly's condition, Connie offers herself to Breck, but Molly puts a halt to the plan. Instead, Towers sells his business and takes her on a honeymoon cruise to Europe, where they will see a specialist. Breck, meanwhile, is impressed with Connie's loyalty and offers her a wedding ring. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alice Chapin, May Allison, (more)
- 1924
It seems like the flashier Cecil B. DeMille made his films, the more intimate were those made by his older brother William C. DeMille. This drama, based on the stage play by Owen Davis, concerns a greedy New England family. The most broad-minded one of the bunch is Ben Jordan (Richard Dix). Ben has a wild streak, and one day he accidentally sets fire to a barn, and has to leave home to avoid being prosecuted. When he learns that his mother (Alice Chapin) is on her deathbed, he returns to find the rest of the family hovering over her like vultures. After she dies, and the will is read, everyone is surprised to find that she has left all her money to her ward, the very nice Jane Crosby (Lois Wilson). But there is a condition--Jane only gets the money if she marries Ben and straightens him out. Jane helps Ben with his legal trouble by bailing him out and having him work for her. But when Ben becomes infatuated with another girl, Jane decides to give up the money. Eventually, Ben realizes that he is a fool and reconciles with Jane. Edna May Oliver, who played the maid Hannah on stage, reprises her role here. It was her first time on film, and she would be reunited with Dix and Wilson again in 1926 in the film, Let's Get Married. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lois Wilson, Richard Dix, (more)
- 1924
Argentine Love is based on a novel by Vincent Blasco-Ibanez, whose Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse made a star of Rudolph Valentino. Not surprisingly, leading man Ricardo Cortez plays a Valentino clone: a headstrong Argentinian in love with fetching senorita Bebe Daniels. But Daniels prefers the company of American engineer James Rennie. Argentine Love is kept moving at a fast clip by Allan Dwan, who was far less lugubriously self-indulgent than Four Horsemen helmsman Rex Ingram. In retrospect, it is understandable that Paramount wanted to make a Valentino film without Valentino: he had recently ankled the studio in a bitter (and well-publicized) dispute over story material. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bebe Daniels, Ricardo Cortez, (more)
- 1921
This story of a rugged rural family made for an above-average programmer. The Brockton clan considers the mountain Little Smoky their own, but then the government comes in and declares it a forest and game preserve. This doesn't stop the family, who swears they will do what they want with the land. Forest ranger Bob Hayne (Joe King) catches the head Brockton (Frank Sheridan) poaching -- a nasty set of circumstances because Hayne loves Brockton's daughter Anne (Winifred Westover). The two men wind up in a fierce fist fight and Brockton is reported to be dead. Bloodhounds are set on Hayne's trail, but Anne, who is determined to save her lover, puts on an outfit of his so that the dogs will follow her. Unfortunately, she unwittingly leads the hounds right to him. On the same stormy night, Gita, a Gypsy girl (Dolores Cassinelli), is attacked by a vicious half breed, and shell-shocked war veteran Tom Brockton (Ralph Faulkner) comes to her rescue. The incident brings him back to his senses. Eventually the elder Brockton is found, very much alive, and he has become friends with Hayne, so all ends well. At the time this picture was made, Winifred Westover was married to cowboy star William S. Hart. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1917
Disillusioned by her own failed romances, a stern, aged aunt refuses to grant her niece permission to marry a young soldier who is preparing to fight WW I in France. To further convince her, the aunt brings forth her diary and hands it to the willful girl. Most of this silent melodrama tells the aunt's sad story. It began during the Civil War when she was a young bride. Her husband's brother is having an affair with a married woman. In order to stop the matter, the aunt's husband visits the woman. Unfortunately, her husband walks in and thinking that the fellow is the philanderer, shoots him dead. Meanwhile, the poor aunt, who knew nothing about the incident was left believing that her husband was cheating upon her. Utterly crushed, the aunt turns away from foolish notions of romance. She hopes she can prevent her niece from making the same mistake. Things look bleak until the niece finds an unopened letter that explains the whole situation and allows the ailing old aunt to die with her faith in true love restored. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1917
Anatole France's famous Egyptian courtesan came to the screen in December of 1917, courtesy of the Goldwyn company and opera diva Mary Garden, the latter making a much heralded screen debut. Garden had received accolades singing the part at the Manhattan Opera House, but a Thais without the Garden voice was a tricky preposition. Most reviews of the film applauded Garden for her past triumphs and Samuel Goldwyn for attempting to bring a bit of culture to the masses, but the very same masses refused steadfastly to be cultured, at least by Garden, who never really understood that film was a different media from grand opera. Garden herself especially protested the way Thais' death was filmed. "Imagine," she complained, "a saint dying like that!" Having had all he could take, Goldwyn told her, "You'd have a hard time proving to anyone that you're a saint." The diva left the screen after only her second film, the equally unsuccessful The Splendid Sinner. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
