May Collins Movies

This comedy was based -- as many silent films were -- on a Saturday Evening Post story. Blanche St. George (Eunice Van Moore) has a repertory company that performs Uncle Tom's Cabin in every tiny hamlet they can manage to reach. Two of her star players are her sons, John (Benjamin Haggerty), who plays Uncle Tom, and Roy (Gareth Hughes), who at 16, balks at the fact that he's still playing Little Eva -- especially since his girl lives in the next town. The troupe registers at the only hotel around, and Blanche is horrified to discover that the proprietor, Mr. Wilson (Edward Martindel), is her ex-husband. John, who has not seen his father since he was very little, confides in him and confesses that both he and his brother hate the theatrical life. They're stuck with it, however, until their mother makes enough money to buy the hometown opera house. Wilson offers to help. The show that night is a complete disaster. Just as Eva is about to ascend, a jeer from the crowd infuriates Roy and he tears off his wig. Then he catches his robe in the scenery and knocks the backdrop down. He immediately takes off for Wilson's farm. Wilson gives his wife the money to buy the opera house, providing she let him have the boys. She agrees, and John and Roy have a much happier life with their father. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

Universal's manly star Frank Mayo is overshadowed for once by the female support in this South Seas drama. MacLeod Dean (Mayo) has a partnership with Captain Marston (Herbert Fortier) in a San Francisco shipping firm. He is also engaged to marry Marston's daughter, June (Doris Deane), but when he sets sail to inspect the firm's South Seas trading stations, he is shipwrecked. Dean winds up on a small island, where he meets Flame Flower (May Collins), a beautiful young white woman who is living amongst the natives. As an infant, Flame Flower was cast upon the island, and the native chief deified her and pronounced her taboo to the rest of the tribe. Now, faced with a white man for the first time in her life, Flame Flower falls in love. Dean's efforts to remain faithful to June are eventually undermined, and he winds up with the girl. June, meanwhile, sets out to find her fiancé and locates him with Flame Flower. There is a struggle between the two women to see who will ultimately end up with Dean, but since he and Flame Flower already have a child, he decides to remain on the island. A side note: Doris Deane became the second wife of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Arbuckle's career was cut short, right about the time this film was released, because a girl died at a scandalous party he was throwing. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi