Dwight T. Crittenden
- 1922
This mediocre drama was a typical Katherine MacDonald potboiler. Judge Gray (Dwight Crittenden) is running for governor, but he is strongly opposed by "Big Bob" Masters (Wade Boteler). Masters threatens to go to the papers with an incident in Gray's past if he does not pull out of the campaign. Gray's niece, Mary (MacDonald), gets involved in the situation because on one hand, she loves Theodore Van Ness, a reporter for the paper (Edward Burns), but on the other hand, she wants to protect her uncle. Desperate to keep Gray's name clean, Mary goes to Master's office and threatens to kill herself there. There is an altercation and Mary is shot by someone outside the window. In the end, Masters decides not to go ahead with the news item which, it turns out, was not particularly scandalous anyhow. MacDonald's fame came more from her looks than any acting talent (she was known as "the American Beauty"). Her undistinguished career as a star lasted until the mid-'20s. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Katherine MacDonald, Edward Burns, (more)
- 1921
Director Marshall Neilan brought his cast and crew to Montana for this extravagant re-telling of the famous last stand at Little Big Horn. The surrounding story of a military officer (James Kirkwood) turning into a notorious gunslinger after serving time for a crime he didn't commit is average B-Western melodrama, however. On his way west, Kirkwood saves a young girl (Marjorie Daw) from marauding Indians, and in one of those coincidences found only in the brain of a Hollywood screenwriter, she turns out to be the daughter he never knew he had. With a young and pretty daughter to care for, Kirkwood's gunman redeems himself and dies nobly alongside General Custer (Dwight Crittenden) in that suicidal last stand. Director Neilan, unfortunately, cluttered up his narrative by spending an inordinate time showcasing the tiresome Wesley Barry, a freckled urchin whom no one but Neilan himself much liked. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Kirkwood, Wesley Barry, (more)
- 1921
This is one of a number of silent pictures in which a young American is raised as a Chinese girl, and even though she has no Asian features to speak of, she never guesses she's white until the film's end. While they are visiting China on business a curio collector, Carmichael (Dwight Crittenden) and his wife (Irene Rich), are killed during a Boxer uprising. A servant, Ah Wing (E. A. Warren), saves their baby, which he takes to America and raises as his own. Sui Sen (Leatrice Joy) grows up in Chinatown really believing that Ah Wing is her father. A wealthy American, Newcombe (J. Frank Glendon), sees Sui Sen and falls in love with her on the spot. But Ling Jo (Wallace Beery) -- the same man responsible for the Carmichaels' deaths -- is living in the very same Chinatown and is determined to make the girl his wife. Ah Wing tells Ling Jo that if he can get him the scepter of the Mings -- a supposedly impossible task -- then he can have Sui Sen. But Ling Jo comes through and Ah Wing has to honor the promise. Newcombe finds out about it, however, and goes to save Sui Sen. But he is captured and taken to the steel room to be crushed to death. With the help of a Chinese boy, Newcombe is able to escape, and Ling Jo winds up being crushed in the steel room instead. Finally Sui Sen learns that she is American as apple pie and weds Newcombe. This picture was the first time author Gouverneur Morris wrote a story directly for the screen, and it was part of producer Samuel Goldwyn's "Eminent Authors" series. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Leatrice Joy, Wallace Beery, (more)
- 1921
During the early '20s, sentimental films about mother love abounded. As the decade went on, however, such mawkish tales were replaced by thoroughly modern daughters and mothers who wanted to keep up with them. This 1921 drama starred Mary Alden -- the same actress who played the mulatto mistress in Birth of a Nation -- as the mother. In spite of running a very long ten reels in length, there really is very little plot. It focuses on the life of Dr. Horace Anthon (Dwight T. Crittenden), his self-sacrificing wife (Alden), and their six children, four boys and two girls. Although the parents do everything for their kids, loving them and disciplining them whenever necessary, the youngsters all grow up to be neglectful adults. The children even forget their mother's birthday as they carry on their own lives, and Mrs. Anthon's only joy is in remembering days gone by. One son becomes a lawyer and then U.S. attorney general. Finally, when he has achieved his greatest success, he remembers the old homestead and brings the family together again. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dwight T. Crittenden, Mary Alden, (more)
- 1921
Christine Trevor (Gladys Walton) is a spoiled young society girl who completely neglects her father and her brothers and sister. When her indulgent father dies, she finds out that the family is nearly broke. Thinking only of herself, Christine considers marrying a social-climbing young man. A friend of the family, Dr. Paul Denton (Frederick Vogeding), talks her out of it and helps her create a home for her siblings out of the money they have left. Christine's better nature finally comes out and she dumps the social climber when she realizes his true character -- or lack of it. She also risks her life to rescue Joshua Barton (William Worthington), her crotchety old neighbor. Barton, it turns out, was the one who ruined her father (financially) because of an old grudge. Christine, however, wins his paternal affection. Denton's affection for Christine is something far more romantic, and eventually she comes to realize that she loves him, too. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gladys Walton, Fredrik Vogeding, (more)
- 1920
This picture, based on the novel by Jack London, was a bit out of place in the religiously conservative silent era, when belief in reincarnation was generally scorned. Dr. Hugh Standing (Courtenay Foote) is attending the theater with his fiancee, Faith Levering (Thelma Pearcy, sister of Eileen Pearcy). Opposite Standing's box sits political boss Tubbs (Chance Ward), and a hand reaches out behind the good doctor and shoots the bad politico. Standing is accused of the crime because he picked up the revolver and he is taken down to the police station. When ordinary methods don't wring a confession out of him, he is strung up by his thumbs and given the "third degree." During the torture, Standing sees his past lives, one during Viking days and another in the Orient. Faith, meanwhile, has gone to the District Attorney (Dwight Crittenden) to put a halt to Standing's suffering. But when they find out about Standing's visions, they give him the third degree again in hopes of discovering the real killer. He comes through, revealing the murderer as Maizie (Marcella Daley), the chorus girl betrayed by Tubbs. She confesses, and Standing is freed. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Courtenay Foote
- 1919
A group of crooks in New York City's Chinatown hear about an old hermit (Joseph J. Dowling) in a small upstate village who's performing miraculous cures. When they find out that the man is blind and deaf, they decide to pay him a visit. The leader, Tom Burke (Thomas Meighan), has his girlfriend Rose (Betty Compson), pose as the hermit's long-lost grand niece. Burke, Rose and the other crooks, the Frog (Lon Chaney) and the Dope, a morphine addict (J. M. Dumont), all become part of the hermit's household. The Frog fakes being a cripple, and the hoodlums figure that when he pretends to be cured, people will pay loads of money -- to the gang -- for the hermit's services. But they find out that the hermit's powers are real. This begins a change in the crooks -- the Dope quits drugs, the Frog is adopted by a gray-haired country lady, and when Rose is courted by a millionaire, she prefers to stay with Burke, who is finally won over by the hermit's faith. This film was based on a play by George M. Cohan, which was adapted from a book by Frank Packard. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1919
Amy Burke (Mary Pickford) is as spoiled, temperamental and contrary a lass as her grandfather, Alexander Guthrie (Ralph Lewis), is ruthless and cutthroat a businessman. Amy is bored with the privileged life on Riverside Drive, so when her father, John Burke (Dwight Crittenden), returns to New York, she demands that she go with him instead of traveling through Europe with her grandfather. It comes as a shock to Amy that her father, a writer, is living in a tenement and that she has lost all the perks she had as a child of wealth. But soon she adjusts to life in the slums, wearing loud, mismatched outfits and shooting craps with the best of the kids. And through fraternizing with neighbors, such as the ever-battling Pat O'Shaughnessy (Andrew Arbuckle) and Abram Issacs (Max Davidson) and the nice, but mysterious John Graham (Kenneth Harlan), she learns to be a real person. Watching over the transformation is her grandfather, who has come in disguise to keep an eye on her. But his own transformation is not complete until one night, when Amy and John -- who is now her beau -- break into the Guthrie residence in search of papers which were falsely used to send him to prison. Although they are caught, Guthrie not only forgives them, he consents to their marriage. This was the second of three films Pickford made for First National. In spite of the stellar cast, and the help of director idney A. Franklin and screenwriter Frances Marion, this picture -- based on Burkses' Amy by Julie M. Lippman -- is not one of Pickford's very best. Amy is far too nasty at the beginning, and it takes the audience quite a few reels to forgive her ill-tempered antics. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
