Seesel Ann Johnson Movies

Carole Lombard stars as Helen Bartlett, a compulsive liar who always tips the audience to an oncoming whopper by sticking her tongue in her cheek. Helen is married to a Kenneth Bartlett, a scrupulously honest lawyer whose integrity has always held him back professionally. Hoping to help Kenneth get ahead, Helen confesses to a murder she obviously didn't commit, confident that he'll get her off and make his reputation. But things don't go exactly as planned, thanks largely to a mysterious eccentric named Charley (John Barrymore), who assures the heroine over and over that she'll "fry." Once considered a prime example of screwball comedy, True Confession is now regarded by film buffs as one of Carole Lombard's worst pictures: it wasn't much better when remade by Betty Hutton in 1946 as Cross My Heart. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sparrows, Mary Pickford's 1926 release, superbly combines the two elements--sentiment and adventure--that characterized Pickford's best work. At first glance, the film seems to be a horror picture, as satanic potato farmer Grimes (Gustav Von Seyfertitz) crushes a child's doll with his thumb and forefinger and tosses the plaything into the dismal swamps surrounding his lands. We learn that Grimes has been exploiting the children from a local orphanage, forcing them to work his farm day and night. Though collecting a hefty maintenance pay for the orphans, Grimes dresses them in rags and feeds them a starvation diet. Happily, Mary Pickford, the oldest of the orphans, has enough gumption to stand up to Grimes and prohibit him from inflicting any further atrocities. The plot thickens when a kidnaped child is left in Grimes' care in exchange for a generous portion of the ransom money. Mary rescues the abducted child, as well as all the other orphans, by leading them through the alligator-infested and quicksand-festooned swamp--a truly frightening sequence, made even more so by the use of real gators. Sparrows falters only in those scenes where Pickford, with genuine but somewhat misguided piety, "converses" with the Almighty, and in the final motorboat-chase sequence, which seems prolonged (and unnecessary!) after that heart-pounding swamp escape. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

First filmed by Fox in 1918 with William Farnum, Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage became a typically lavish Tom Mix extravaganza, filmed on locations at picturesque Lone Pine, California. Mix plays Jim Lassiter, the bold Texas Ranger whose sister, Millie Erne (Beatrice Burnham), and her little daughter (Seesel Ann Johnson, later Marian Nixon) are abducted by a discredited lawyer, Lew Walters (future Charlie Chan Warner Oland). Dedicating his life to the recovery of his relatives, Lassiter takes the job of ramrod at the ranch belonging to Jane Withersteen (Mabel Ballin). From a captured outlaw, the former lawman learns that his prey has become a judge under the assumed name of Dyer. An enraged Lassiter marches into Judge Dyer's courtroom and shoots his long time enemy dead. A posse is formed and Lassiter and Withersteen are forced to flee. They find a hideout at a secret plateau reachable only through steps carved in the rock. To rid themselves of their pursuers once and for all, Lassiter blocks the entrance with a huge boulder, realizing full well that he and Jane will be trapped forever. Grey had written a sequel to his melodramatic saga, The Rainbow Trail, which Mix, like Farnum before him, also filmed. Both Riders of the Purple Sage and The Rainbow Trail were turned into vehicles for B-Western hero George O'Brien in 1931 and 1932 and Riders was filmed a third time ten years later starring George Montgomery. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide