Robert Anderson Movies

In this wartime drama, a young woman nearly comes unhinged when her husband, a Navy pilot, is transferred to Pearl Harbor on their wedding day. She goes with him. Once in Hawaii she is surprised to see her ex-boyfriend sailing about in an expensive yacht. Her husband becomes totally engrossed in his work and begins neglecting her so it seems natural that she would go for a little sail with her ex-flame. When her husband learns about her philandering, he gets jealous and ends up crashing his plane in the harbor. As a result, he is court-martialed. His wife, sorry for her actions, defends him, gets him acquitted and never strays again. Marital bliss ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This 1929 drama about mistaken identities contains three eight minute scenes that involve talking. The rest of the film is silent and subtitled. The trouble begins when the hero follows a pretty lady aboard an ocean liner. He boards the ship using the name of his friend who was supposed to take the cruise for health reasons. The friend was told that if he did not board the boat, he would not receive his inheritance. Unfortunately for the hero, a male nurse believes that he is the sick friend and forces him to stay in the cabin and subsist upon a diet of goat's milk. He is finally able to escape the nurse and search for the girl. Unfortunately, a band of jewel thieves sees him and mistakes him for a detective. The robbers are after the girl's necklace. The nurse finds the hero and forces him back to the cabin explaining to the crew that the man is crazy. Later the hapless hero unknowingly thwarts the thieves, gets away from the nurse, and finally gets the girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Filmed on location in Tahiti, White Shadows in the South Seas was originally intended as a project for famed documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty, whose Nanook of the North had cleaned up at the boxoffice. At first given complete artistic control, Flaherty began faltering in terms of keeping cast and crew organized; even worse, he moved too slowly to suit his parent studio MGM. More and more directorial authority was relegated to Flaherty's assistant, the phenominally fast W. S. "Woody" Van Dyke. Frustrated, Flaherty resigned (some reports claim that he fell ill and was taken off the project), and the film became solely the responsibility of Van Dyke. Despite the wails from the pro-Flaherty camp about "compromise" and "bastardization", the finished White Shadows in the South Seas is a superlative work. Loosely based on a 1919 book by Frederick O'Brien, the film charts the denigration of the South Sea islands and its denizens thanks to the intervention of white civilization. Monte Blue plays a alcoholic doctor who is disgusted by the negative effects of European colonization. He sails away to an island still untouched by "white shadows", where he falls in love with native girl Raquel Torres. Enchanted by the idyllic lifestyle of the islanders, Blue reacts with horror when he sees a group of white men sailing into view, bringing their usual seductive trinkets of alcohol and cigarettes. Attempting to quell the invasion, Blue is killed. As her island falls victim to civilization, Raquel mourns over her lover's grave. Gorgeously photographed, White Shadows in the South Seas is a masterful blend of drama and documentary. Most surviving prints do not include the clumsily constructed talkie sequences, wherein Monte Blue teaches Raquel Torres how to whistle (this scene works far better when conveyed silently). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Temptress was Greta Garbo's second American film, and while it may strike modern viewers as excessively melodramatic, Garbo is always worth watching. The star plays Elena, the wife of Monsieur Canterac (Lionel Barrymore) -- and the mistress of rich Parisian banker Monsieur Fontenoy (Marc MacDermott). When the banker's Argentine friend Robledo (Antonio Moreno), a dynamic young engineer, pays a visit to Paris, the fickle Elena immediately falls in love with him. Upon learning that Fontenoy has lost his fortune, Elena dumps him and returns to her husband, whereupon the banker kills himself. Evidently not content with ruining one life, Elena heads to Argentina and goes to work on Robledo, leading to a bloody whip duel between Robledo and his rival Manos Duros (Roy D'Arcy). Inevitably, Elena drives Robledo to perdition and indirectly causes the destruction of the magnificent dam upon which he has worked all his life. Banished from Argentina, she returns to Paris, where she spends the rest of her days as a seedy streetwalker. At least, that was the ending of the European version of The Temptress. The American version incredibly ends happily, five years after the above-described events, as Robledo and the reformed Elena triumphantly supervise the opening of his now-repaired dam! Initially, the film's director was Garbo's mentor-lover, the brilliant Mauritz Stiller, but he was replaced halfway through by the competent but uninspired Fred Niblo -- and the finished picture shows this division of interests all too clearly. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Northwest melodrama was based on the novel The Law Bringers by G. B. Lancaster. Andree Grange (Renée Adorée), the daughter of the local cafe owner (Josef Swickward), is engaged to marry Sergeant Neil Tempest (Earle Williams) of the Northwest Mounted Police. But she falls in love with one of his underlings, Bucky O'Hara (Pat O'Malley), after a flirtation. In her father's cabin Andree is attacked by Barode Dukane (Wallace Beery), and she believes she has killed him in the ensuing struggler. Her father helps her to flee and O'Hara is ordered to find her and put her under arrest. He tracks her down, followed by Tempest. Tempest takes charge of Andree but they find themselves caught in the rapids and are saved only because O'Hara shows up. Andree's innocence is established, and Tempest realizes that she and O'Hara are in love, so he gives her up. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This lightweight farce comedy actually has some witty moments, including a brief spoof of the 1919 silent blockbuster, Miracle Man. Mary Lorraine (Louise Lorraine) runs away on her wedding day because she does not like the groom picked out by her mother (Laura Lavernie), the amusingly named Algernon Emptihead (Robert Anderson). She winds up at a farm, where she encounters Joe Thornby (Joe Moore), who is working there primarily because he "likes chickens" (in fact, one of the birds is wearing trousers). But her haven is short-lived -- both groom and mother find her and cart her off to the seashore. Joe comes to the rescue by getting the chauffeur drunk and then disguising himself to take his place. At the shore, his next disguise is a waiter, then a Miracle Man-type seer. Joe has to rescue Mary twice -- once while riding a mule, and then by blimp. It just so happens that Joe is a millionaire, so Mother is happy when Mary chooses him as her husband. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The solid production (courtesy of director William Worthington) made this Universal programmer an above-average offering. Dr. Jim Keene (Frank Mayo) is a devoted surgeon -- too devoted for his wife, Helen (beautiful Claire Windsor, who was then still known in certain circles under her homely real name, Olga Cronk). Just about every social function she wants to attend is ruined because one important case or another interferes. But things change when Keene suffers a nervous breakdown and he and Helen go on a sea voyage for his health. The ship is manned by a brutal captain whose machismo sparks Helen's interest. But when the captain falls ill, Keene helps saves his life. The captain, however, fakes his death and later returns to do battle with Keene, who was recovered Keene is victorious, and Helen finally learns to appreciate him. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

In this adaptation of a Fannie Hurst story, Stella (Mary McLaren), an innocent shopgirl, is invited to a party by some fast friends. At the party, she has one beer -- her first -- and stumbles out into the street. She runs afoul of a detective who arrests her for being drunk and soliciting, and she is sent to jail for ten days. While she is locked up, her mother (Gertrude Claire) dies of the disgrace, and when she is released, her employers won't have her back, claiming that she might "contaminate" the other girls. Alone, broke, and scorned by everyone around her, she makes her way to a park and rests on a bench, waiting for some available man to come along. One does (Robert Anderson), and although he has lost faith in womanhood, Stella's basic goodness brings it back. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

On the heels of his masterpiece, Intolerance, which dramatized the futility of war born out of prejudice, director D.W. Griffith shifted gears for this film. Intolerance had proven a financial disaster for Griffith, so he signed with producer Adolph Zukor to release his next film. He came upon the subject matter on a trip to England to promote Intolerance. The British government, desperately looking to America for help in fighting the Germans in the first World War, persuaded Griffith to make a propaganda picture. Set in France, it's the portrait of a village overrun by the Germans during the hostilities. Griffith begins the story in 1912 with a slow developing romance between The Boy, Douglas Gordon Hamilton (Robert Harron) and The Girl, Marie Stephenson (Lillian Gish). A street singer known as The Disturber (Dorothy Gish) tries to come between them, but she settles for her own romance with Monsieur Cuckoo (Robert Anderson). In the summer of 1914, The Boy and M. Cuckoo answer the call to arms, forcing the postponement of The Boy and Girl's wedding. The film's second half cuts back and forth between the battlefield and the home front (which in this case are separated by only a few miles). By the time the film was completed, the United States had already entered the war, and over the years its extreme portrayal of German soldiers has been trimmed, the first time at the request of the wife of President Woodrow Wilson. In fact, Griffith included shots of American troops helping out in the story's final battle and then marching off to return home. The version viewed for this review, running 115 minutes, included a brief prologue with footage of Griffith touring the battlefields in France, where some documentary footage was shot, though most of the film was made in Southern California, and the director meeting with British prime minister David Lloyd George. Also notable is the appearance in small parts of future filmmaker Erich Von Stroheim as a German soldier, future character actor Ben Alexander as The Boy's youngest brother, and future entertainer Noël Coward as a young villager pushing a wheelbarrow. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide

Even though World War I had just reached its end, the war films kept coming. While The Heart of Humanity had a similar plot to D.W. Griffith's Hearts of the World, it was by no means some cheap knock-off. Director Alan Holubar worked hard (sometimes too hard for this post-war era) to make the battle scenes as authentic as possible. The story centers around Nanette (Dorothy Phillips), an American girl living in a small Canadian village, who is in love with John Patricia (William Stowell), the eldest of five brothers. The war interrupts their romantic idyll, as everyone goes overseas to Belgium and France. Nanette becomes a Red Cross nurse and is terrorized by the evil Prussian Lt. von Eberhard (Erich Von Stroheim, who played a similar, but smaller role in Hearts of the World). It is up to John to save her from the Hun's advances. It was in this film that Von Stroheim, who had become famous for his wicked portrayals of German officers, was billed as "The Man You Love to Hate." This was his first movie for Universal; he would be both director and star of the next one, Blind Husbands. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide