Marceline Day Movies

Marceline Day plays two women in the late-silent Fox release One-Woman Idea. The actress is cast as haughty aristocrat Lady Alicia Douglas, and as alluring half-caste dancing girl Alizar. Honorable Prince Ahmed (Rod La Rocque) harbors a platonic love for the prim-and-proper Lady Alicia, while her less-than-honorable husband Lord Douglas (Douglas Gilmore) lusts after the sexy Alizia. It's an "East is East, West is West" class-consciousness drama, with "East" coming off far more sympathetically than "West." Featured as a cabin boy is child actor Coy Watson, who later became a prolific producer of "behind the scenes" Hollywood newsreels. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this mostly silent drama, an overprotective brother tries to keep his sister from getting further involved with a group suspicious characters. Meanwhile he falls in love with a jazz-lover whose father is his father's mortal enemy. At the film's climax, the brother races his car against a trolley car. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This is one of the last films from Buster Keaton's classic period, before the coming of sound and interference from MGM spoiled his work and softened his popularity. The Great Stone Face portrays Luke Shannon, a "tintype" portrait photographer who develops a serious crush on Sally (Marceline Day), a beautiful woman who works as a secretary for MGM's newsreel department. Luke's primary rival for Sally's affections is a cameraman for the company, so Luke decides to sign to the newsreel department in hopes of impressing her. However, his hand with a movie camera is not especially sure at first; he mistakenly double exposes a reel of film that results in battleships sailing down Broadway, while his attempts to get footage of a Tong battle seem more successful until an organ grinder's monkey runs off with his film. Luke gets the axe before long, but he's not about to give up, and he tries to find another way to impress his lady love. This was Keaton's first film under a new contract with MGM, and director Edward Sedgwick for the most part allowed Keaton to stick to the creative formula of his best work. However, that would soon change, and many Keaton aficionados consider The Cameraman to be his last truly important work. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Even mighty MGM succumbed to the Rin Tin Tin craze by developing its own in-house canine star, a handsome German shepherd named Flash. In the WWI drama Under the Black Eagle, Flash proves his mettle by rescuing his master Ralph Forbes on the battlefields of France. This somehow enables Forbes to overcome his inherent cowardice, and thus become worthy of the love of heroine Marceline Day. The story wasn't even taken seriously in 1928, but Flash the Dog proved to be an audience favorite. Accordingly, he rushed into a second vehicle, Shadows of the Night. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Big City was perhaps the most "normal" of the Lon Chaney-Tod Browning collaborations. Minus makeup, Chaney plays gangster boss Chuck Collins, who despite his ruthlessness is a basically decent fellow. Collins is plagued by a rival gang, led by deceptively boyish Curly (James Murray), who has been stealing jewelry from the rich and famous. Our "hero" tricks the other crooks into turning the gems over to him, intending to use them for his own profit (he throws the cops off track by hiding jewels in a plate of spaghetti!) But sweet heroine Sunshine (Marceline Day) eventually persuades Collins and his cohorts to turn honest. Betty Compson, who'd co-starred with Chaney in his breakthrough picture The Miracle Man, provides romantic contrast as Collins' hard-bitten gun moll. Director Browning had hoped to capture the "flavor" of Manhattan night life by hiring entertainer Sophie Tucker for a guest spot, but negotiations fell apart when Tucker demanded an impossibly high sum for her services. As it turned out, Chaney's star-power enabled Big City to score a box-office success to the tune of $387,000 in profits. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The "certain young man" of the title is Lord Gerald Brinsley, played by Ramon Novarro. A carefree young bachelor, Lord Gerald enjoys the company of married women, which makes him exceedingly unpopular with married men. After dallying with such women of the world as Henrietta (Renee Adoree) and Mrs. Crutchley (Carmel Myers), our hero falls genuinely in love for the first time with the unattached -- and decidedly unworldly -- Phyllis (Marceline Day). The fact that Willard Louis, who died in 1926, was prominently featured in the cast should have been a tip-off that A Certain Young Man was not precisely fresh off the shelf. Sure enough, the film had been completed in 1926, but withheld from release for two years while MGM subjected the property to endless retakes and re-edits. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Lars Hanson had recently appeared as Reverend Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter when he was called on once again to play a man of the cloth. Anson Campbell (Hanson), however, has his doubts as he studies for the ministry -- he loves the sea at least as much as he loves God. Bess Morgan (Pauline Starke) is scorned by the villagers as a wicked, sinful woman, but the open-minded Campbell sides with her. This horrifies the straight-laced townsfolk, and Campbell signs on with a ship in disgust. It turns out to be a convict ship, and Bess is on board. She had promised Campbell she would change her ways, and she hold fast to this, even when the Captain (Ernest Torrence) tries to force himself on her. Rather than allow him to have his way with her, she kills herself. Her steadfastness renews Campbell's faith, and he establishes the first gospel ship, thus blending his two loves. He returns home to wed his sweetheart, Mary Phillips (Marceline Day). ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

Directed by one of "Uncle" Carl Laemmle's many relatives, this Universal "Blue Streak Western" sat on the shelf for two years before being released to a mostly indifferent reception in 1927. The reason for the film's delay could have been aged leading man William Desmond's waning popularity, or its subject matter -- the bad treatment of Native American recruits in the past war -- might have worried a rather matter-of-fact studio such as Universal, despite the success of Paramount's The Vanishing American (1925). Desmond played Chief John Nisheto who, during the campaign in France, saves the life of Jack Burr (Albert J. Smith), the son of a United States senator (Byron Douglas) favorable to Native Americans. After the Armistice, Chief Nisheto starts dating Jack's sister Agnes (Marceline Day), to the dismay of the racist Jack, who doesn't realize that the chief is the man who once saved his life. Nisheto is later mortally wounded and Jack repents his prejudice on his rescuer's deathbed. Despite the film's honorable intentions, Red Clay suffered under Hollywood's stringent miscegenation policy. Desmond (a white actor, of course) had to die for Red Clay to reach an acceptable conclusion. This and several other melodramatic treatments of Native Americans were inspired by pro-Indian legislation enacted by real-life senator John Collier. The subject matter, however, was much better served in the early silent era, where Native Americans were more a subject of benign curiosity than the condescending praise typified by films such as Red Clay and The Vanishing American. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Gangly Karl Dane and diminutive George K. Arthur were teamed up for the first time in MGM's Rookies. Clearly conceived to cash in on the success of Paramount's Wallace Beery-Raymond Hatton service comedy Behind the Front, this Dane-Arthur vehicle finds our mismatched heroes cast as a sergeant and private during WWI. After several hilarious if disjointed slapstick misadventures, the boys are set adrift in a reconnaissance balloon. There was hardly an original moment in Rookies, but that's not to say it wasn't funny. The film was an enormous box-office hit, spawning a series of equally well-received feature films starring Dane and Arthur. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

MGM's The Gay Deceiver was based on Toto, a stage play by Maurice Hennequin and Felix DuQuesnal. Lew Cody stars as Toto, a celebrated French actor whose globetrotting career distances him from his loving family. While on tour, he has an affair with a married woman, who moves heaven and earth to keep her husband from finding out. But find out he does, with results ranging from hilarious to heavily dramatic. Gay Deceiver co-stars Lew Cody and Carmel Myers were reteamed soon afterward in The Demi-Bride. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This melodrama was based on the novel The Just and the Unjust by Vaughn Kester. District attorney John North (Harrison Ford) is in love with Barbara Langham (Marceline Day), the sister of gambler Marshall Langham (Wallace McDonald). John Gilmore, a café owner (Henry Kolker), sends Evelyn Vance, a mercenary chorus girl (Margaret Livingston), to Langham to cause a scandal. She marries the gambler instead. Langham kills Gilmore during a dispute over money, but North is accused of the crime. Evelyn finds herself in a bind -- she could clear North's name, but that would implicate Langham. Her problem is solved when Langham shows up in the throes of death, but manages to confess before he expires. Evelyn has a strange nightmare in which her sins become monsters (this allegorical vision was shot in color and apparently was purely a creation of the film's director, John Griffith Wray). When she wakes up, Evelyn is not actually a gold-digging chorus girl at all. Instead of searching for a wealthy husband, she's on her way to an iceman's picnic. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

No relation to the much-later musical comedy of the same name, The Boy Friend focuses on the misadventures of dreamy-eyed Marceline Day. Unhappy with her small-town home and middle-class family, our heroine yearns to attend a high-society party. To accommodate the girl, her boyfriend John Harron bankrolls the very sort of party that she craves. Not unexpectedly, everything goes hilariously awry, and Day learns the hard way to appreciate what she has in her own back yard. Prolific character actress Elizabeth Patterson made her screen debut at the tender age of 50 in The Boy Friend. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Unlike most "collegiate" films of the 1920s, College Days paints a fairly realistic portrait of campus life. To be sure, the characters are seen in raccoon coats and flapper skirts. Yes, they do take an occasional swing from their hip flasks while partying at the local roadhouse. And, true, they spend their spare time speeding around in Stutz Bearcats. On the other hand, the students are shown actually attending classes -- and, in an even more radical departure from formula, they are glimpsed doing their homework! The film ends with the traditional Big Football Game, as BMOC Jim Gordon (Charles Delaney) leads his team to victory. A.P. Younger, the writer of many a football drama of the era, supervised the production and penned the script, while Pat Harmon, who played the football coach in Harold Lloyd's The Freshman, more or less repeats his performance here. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi