Edmund Burns Movies
- 1921
Prolific writer Max Brand, famous for such oft-filmed works as Destry Rides Again, penned the story upon which the silent Children of the Night was based. William Russell plays a young clerk who escapes the boring routine of his job via Mittyesque daydreams. The heroine in his imagined adventures is office stenographer Ruth Rennick. The dream sequences themselves are handled with just the right blend of satire and conviction by one-time 2-reel comedian Jack Dillon. Co-starring in Children of the Night is Lefty Flynn, later the breezy star of several silent western programmers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1920
Given that silent star Mary Miles Minter was famous for her wide, deep-blue eyes, it's not surprising that many of her films incorporated the word "Eyes" in their titles. In Eyes of the Heart, Minter is cast as a sightless young lady, led to believe that the world is a fairy-tale wonderland. Upon regaining her sight, she quickly realizes that much of the world is ugly and unpleasant -- and that the three "Prince Charmings" in her life are a trio of petty criminals. Disillusioned, she falls in with a safecracker who intends to exploit her heightened sense of touch. She is rescued by her erstwhile protectors, who have fortuitously reformed in time for a happy ending. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1920
Author George Clayton (H.B. Warner) is a skeptic when it comes to hypnotism. Nevertheless, he allows mesmerist Norman Osgood to put him under. The next day, Harrison Kirke (Howard Davies) is found murdered, and Clayton is the prime suspect because Osgood -- who had a grudge against the victim -- supposedly commanded him to do the deed "one hour before dawn." Only through the skilled work of Inspector Steele (Wilton Taylor) is Clayton found innocent of the crime. This mystery story received fine direction at the hands of Henry King, who was beginning to make quite a name for himself. It was based on Mansfield Scott's novel, Behind Red Curtains. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1919
In order to rescue his brother, society boy David Strong (Wallace Reid) has to travel through the underworld. He disguises himself as "the Colt Kid," who has just gotten out of prison. During his travels, Strong winds up in a cabaret where he meets singer Joan Gray (Anna Q. Nilsson). Joan is being pestered by coast-to-coast Taylor (Wallace Beery), who wants her as his mistress. Strong saves Joan from this situation and they fall in love. Only after going through some adventures together does she discover his real identity, and he finds out she is actually a writer who has been researching the criminal side of life. This film was based on the play One of Us by Jack Lait. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
Don't let that title fool you: Male and Female is really James M. Barrie's The Admirable Crichton, as interpreted by Cecil B. DeMille. Thomas Meighan plays Crichton, the very proper butler in the British household of Lord Loam (Theodore Roberts). When masters and servants go on a yachting excursion, the vessel is destroyed in a storm, marooning everyone on a desert island. The helpless aristocrats must turn to the resourceful Crichton for survival. Before long, Crichton is ruling the roost, while his masters are cheerfully performing the most menial of tasks. Haughty Lady Mary (Gloria Swanson) foregoes her class-conscious upbringing and falls in love with Crichton. Once the castaways are rescued and brought back to England, however, the original class distinctions are restored. Lady Mary goes ahead with a marriage to stuffy Lord Brockelhurst as scheduled, but it is obvious that she will be unhappy in this "socially correct" union. Meawhile, Crichton finds happiness with scullery maid Tweeny (Lila Lee), who has loved him all along. Feeling that the Barrie play didn't have sufficient "punch" to go over with 1919 filmgoers, DeMille interpolated a dream sequence in which Gloria Swanson imagines herself a Babylonian princess; this gave the actress the opportunity to share a scene with a live and none-too-docile lion. One would think that critics of the era would haul DeMille over the coals for taking so many liberties with The Admirable Crichton, but such was not the case. One reviewer of Male and Female even congratulated DeMille for making Barrie "filmable"! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thomas Meighan, Gloria Swanson, (more)
- 1918
In what is perhaps one of his lesser vehicles, Douglas Fairbanks plays a Canadian Royal Mounted Policeman who impersonates a notorious bandit, "Headin' South," in order to infiltrate the lair of bandit Frank Campeau. The outlaw has kidnapped a pretty young thing (Katherine MacDonald), who at first spurns Fairbanks' romantic overtures, thinking he is a bandit, but soon falls for the energetic charmer. Leading lady MacDonald was an untalented but spectacular young actress known as "The American Beauty." She was reportedly the mistress of President Woodrow Wilson. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Douglas Fairbanks, Frank Campeau, (more)
- 1918
The always reliable Elsie Ferguson stars in Danger Mark. Made before the advent of nationwide Prohibition, the film is a hard-hitting indictment of the evils of alcohol. Ferguson plays a society girl whose life is ruined by her fondness for the grape. She manages to pull herself together in time to rescue her boy friend (Mahlon Hamilton) from likewise drinking himself into oblivion. It's a creaky tale, but Elsie Ferguson saves the proceedings with her subtle underplaying. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1918
Written by Edmund Goulding (who later went on to a substantial directing career), The Ordeal of Rosetta was tailor-made to the talents of Alice Brady, seen here in a dual role. The story begins in Italy, where Lola and Rosetta, the twin daughters of a professor, prepare to emigrate to America. Alas, their tiny village is rocked with an Earthquake, and the sisters are separated. Rosetta arrives in America alone, never giving up hope that she will someday relocate Lola. To supplement her income as a stenographer, Rosetta poses for a portrait artist, who capricious affixes her head to the body of a nude model. Outraged at being so obscenely misrepresented, Rosetta tells her life story to an inquiring reporter, only to end up falling in love with the man. Within a few months, Rosetta has become the author's mistress, assuming that he will eventually legitimize their relationship by marrying her. Instead, he becomes engaged to another, prompting Rosetta to commit suicide. Learning of this tragedy, the girl's twin sister Lola swears revenge against the author, and to achieve this she poses as a wealthy Countess, the better to lure the author into a death trap of her making. Lola succeeds in fulfilling her vendetta -- at which point the entire plot is revealed to be a nightmare experienced by the still-alive Rosetta! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1918
Morgan's Raiders could well be described as a family affair; its director was Wilfred Lucas, and its writer was Lucas' then-wife Bess Meredyth. The story is set during the Civil War, with Northern officer John Davidson (Edward Burns) falling in love with Southern belle Betsy Dawley (Violet Mersereau), only to fall out of love for her when war is declared. Betsy's father, "Handsome Harry" Dawley (Frank Holland) is a special operative for guerilla leader Colonel Morgan, and in this capacity he is assigned to deliver an important message behind enemy lines. When Dawley is shot and wounded, his daughter Betsy dons male drag and completes her father's mission. Subsequently, Betsy is captured by a Northern spy, who threatens to kill her if she doesn't surrender herself sexually. Swooping down to rescue Betsy is John Davidson, who by now is quite willing to forget the political differences which have come between himself and the heroine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Sometime during the shooting of the landmark The Birth of a Nation, filmmaker D.W. Griffith probably wondered how he could top himself. In 1916, he showed how, with the awesome Intolerance. The film began humbly enough as a medium-budget feature entitled The Mother and the Law, wherein the lives of a poor but happily married couple are disrupted by the misguided interference of a "social reform" group. A series of unfortunate circumstances culminates in the husband's being sentenced to the gallows, a fate averted by a nick-of-time rescue engineered by his wife. In the wake of the protests attending the racist content of The Birth of a Nation, Griffith wanted to demonstrate the dangers of intolerance. The Mother and the Law filled the bill to some extent, but it just wasn't "big" enough to suit his purposes. Thus, using The Mother and the Law as merely the base of the film, Griffith added three more plotlines and expanded his cinematic thesis to epic proportions. The four separate stories of Intolerance are symbolically linked by Lillian Gish as the Woman Who Rocks the Cradle ("uniter of the here and hereafter"). The "Modern Story" is essentially The Mother and the Law; the "French Story" details the persecution of the Huguenots by Catherine de Medici (Josephine Crowell); the "Biblical Story" relates the last days of Jesus Christ (Howard Gaye); and the "Babylonian Story" concerns the defeat of King Belshazzar (Alfred Paget) by the hordes of Cyrus the Persian (George Siegmann).
Rather than being related chronologically, the four stories are told in parallel fashion, slowly at first, and then with increasing rapidity. The action in the film's final two reels leaps back and forth in time between Babylon, Calvary, 15th century France, and contemporary California. Described by one historian as "the only film fugue," Intolerance baffled many filmgoers of 1916 -- and, indeed, it is still an exhausting, overwhelming experience, even for audiences accustomed to the split-second cutting and multilayered montage sequences popularized by Sergei Eisenstein, Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, Joel Schumacher, and MTV. On a pure entertainment level, the Babylonian sequences are the most effective, played out against one of the largest, most elaborate exterior sets ever built for a single film. The most memorable character in this sequence is "The Mountain Girl," played by star on the rise Constance Talmadge; when the Babylonian scenes were re-released as a separate feature in 1919, Talmadge's tragic death scene was altered to accommodate a happily-ever-after denouement. Other superb performances are delivered by Mae Marsh and Robert Harron in the Modern Story, and by Eugene Pallette and Margery Wilson in the French Story. Remarkably sophisticated in some scenes, appallingly naïve in others, Intolerance is a mixed bag dramatically, but one cannot deny that it is also a work of cinematic genius. The film did poorly upon its first release, not so much because its continuity was difficult to follow as because it preached a gospel of tolerance and pacifism to a nation preparing to enter World War I. Currently available prints of Intolerance run anywhere from 178 to 208 minutes; while it may be rough sledding at times, it remains essential viewing for any serious student of film technique. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Rather than being related chronologically, the four stories are told in parallel fashion, slowly at first, and then with increasing rapidity. The action in the film's final two reels leaps back and forth in time between Babylon, Calvary, 15th century France, and contemporary California. Described by one historian as "the only film fugue," Intolerance baffled many filmgoers of 1916 -- and, indeed, it is still an exhausting, overwhelming experience, even for audiences accustomed to the split-second cutting and multilayered montage sequences popularized by Sergei Eisenstein, Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, Joel Schumacher, and MTV. On a pure entertainment level, the Babylonian sequences are the most effective, played out against one of the largest, most elaborate exterior sets ever built for a single film. The most memorable character in this sequence is "The Mountain Girl," played by star on the rise Constance Talmadge; when the Babylonian scenes were re-released as a separate feature in 1919, Talmadge's tragic death scene was altered to accommodate a happily-ever-after denouement. Other superb performances are delivered by Mae Marsh and Robert Harron in the Modern Story, and by Eugene Pallette and Margery Wilson in the French Story. Remarkably sophisticated in some scenes, appallingly naïve in others, Intolerance is a mixed bag dramatically, but one cannot deny that it is also a work of cinematic genius. The film did poorly upon its first release, not so much because its continuity was difficult to follow as because it preached a gospel of tolerance and pacifism to a nation preparing to enter World War I. Currently available prints of Intolerance run anywhere from 178 to 208 minutes; while it may be rough sledding at times, it remains essential viewing for any serious student of film technique. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, (more)
