Sam de Grasse Movies

This heart-warming drama was one of Colleen Moore's first films for First National, but her star would not ascend until later that year when she starred in Flaming Youth; here she primarily supports Wheeler Oakman, who plays the title role. Slippy McGee is a notorious safecracker who is seriously injured when he leaps from a freight train. His mangled leg has to be amputated, and he recuperates at the home of Father DeRance (Same De Grasse). Although McGee goes by an assumed name, the minister figures out his identity, but keeps it a secret because McGee reforms and helps him with his hobby of collecting butterflies. McGee falls in love with Mary Virginia, one of DeRance's parishioners. She loves him in return, but only as a trusted friend, and becomes engaged to someone else. But when a banker tries to force her into marriage through a stack of forged letters, McGee goes back to his old ways one last time. Another version of this story by Marie Conway Oemler was filmed by Republic in 1948 and starred Donald Barry. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This was the second silent version of the oft-filmed Rex Beach novel (made three more times in the sound era). Roy Glennister (Milton Sills) and his partner, Joe Dextry (Robert Edeson), are tricked out of their Alaskan gold mines by a pair of crooked politicians. Alex McNamara (Noah Beery Sr.) and Judge Stillman (Sam deGrasse) jump their claims. Glennister has become friends with Stillman's niece, Heelen Chester (Barbara Bedford), and dancehall girl Cherry Malotte (Anna Q. Nilsson) tries to convince him that the girl is part of the scheme. But Helen is honest, and she winds up looking into her uncle's dishonest affairs. Because of her efforts, she just barely escapes being put in a compromising position. Glennister and McNamara come to blows in a brutal fight that serves as the picture's climax. In the first version of The Spoilers, William Farnum and Tom Santschi made this fight particularly memorable. Unfortunately, handsome Sills and big, beefy Beery weren't nearly so well-matched, and the battle didn't look quite real. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Having achieved fame and fortune in a series of bucolic country-boy roles, Charles Ray decided he was ready to become his own producer. For a while, Ray did all right by himself, turning out "typical" vehicles that pleased his fans. Then he became fatally ambitious-and the result was the infamous fiasco The Courtship of Miles Standish. It's the old story, as set down by Longfellow, of John Alden's (Ray) suit for the hand of Priscilla Mullens (Enid Bennett) on behalf of his tongue-tied friend Miles Standish (E. Alyn Warren). Oodles of money were spent on this costumer, but seemingly no effort was exerted to make the story interesting or involving. The film bankrupted Charles Ray, forcing him to become a "hired hand" for other producers; by the 1930s he was a has-been, reduced to bits and extra roles. Though Courtship of Miles Standish no longer exists, viewers can still get a few yocks out of Hal Roach's 1924 two-reel parody, Courtship of Miles Sandwich. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Robin Hood, Douglas Fairbanks' biggest (though not necessarily best) production of the silent era, represents the first time that many familiar of the elements of the Robin Hood legend were presented on screen. To bring the project to full fruition, Fairbanks and his wife Mary Pickford purchased the old Jesse Hampton studio in Santa Monica, and on that site constructed a near-lifesized replica of 12th century Nottingham. The humongous castle set was so awesome that Fairbanks became worried that his own performance might be dwarfed. It wasn't: take our word for it. When first we meet Robin Hood, he is still the Earl of Huntington, preparing to joust with his bitter enemy Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Paul Dickey). Despite Sir Guy's propensity for cheating, the Earl is victorious. Shortly thereafter, Huntington rides off to the crusades with Richard the Lionhearted (Wallace Beery). Upon learning that Prince John (Sam De Grasse), goaded on by Sir Guy, has usurped his brother Richard's throne, Huntington returns to Nottingham in a new guise: dashing righter-of-wrongs Robin Hood. While robbing from the rich, giving to the poor, and bedevilling the villains, Robin romances the fetching Maid Marian (Enid Bennett). The film's singular highlight is Fairbanks' slide down a two-story tapestry, a bit of bravado accomplished by hiding a playground slide behind the huge cloth. As in all of Fairbanks' films, Charlie Stevens, a grandson of Geronimo and Doug's "mascot", appears in several minor roles. Also appearing is Alan Hale Sr. as Little John, a role he'd repeat in the 1938 Errol Flynn Robin Hood, not to mention the 1950 swashbuckler Rogues of Sherwood Forest. Long thought lost, Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood (as the film was so copyrighted) was rediscovered in the early 1960s. Most current prints fail to do justice to Arthur Edeson's glistening photography; also, some versions are stretch-framed to slow down the action to "normal" speed, a process that retards the marvelously fast pace instilled by star Fairbanks and director Allan Dwan. We recommend that you seek out a good-quality, tinted print of Robin Hood, processed at the slightly faster-than-life speed at which it was originally filmed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This minor dramatic programmer was an independent production. In spite of the fact that she's loved by Howard (William P. Carleton), a fine upstanding fellow, Florence (Fritzi Brunette) decides to marry the scheming George Otis (Sam De Grasse). Otis uses her to help him put over some questionable business deals. But when he asks her to get a 25,000-dollar loan from her former sweetheart, she can't go through with it. Instead, she gets the money from her mother. Because she does not tell him where the money came from, Otis suspects that she was intimate with Howard. When he needs even more money, he demands that she approach him again, but she refuses. Otis accuses Florence of being unfaithful, and finally she wakes up and realizes the kind of man she has married. She walks out on him, and they begin divorce proceedings. It is assumed that when she is free, Florence will marry Howard. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Sidney Franklin, formerly the principal director of the "Fox Kidlettes" series, works with grownups in the silent Courage. Sam DeGrasse plays a brooding Scotsman who spends 18 years in prison on a trumped-up murder charge. Only his wife Naomi Childers believes in DeGrasse's innocence. She nobly awaits her husband's return, ever seeking out the opportunity of exonerating him. Northern California proves an excellent substitute for the crags of Scotland in Courage, which was based on a short story by Andrew Soutar. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Edith Storey plays a French girl who, as a child, wandered into an Arab tribe after her mother was murdered. The tribe raises her as their own, and when she reaches adulthood, the chief's son proposes to her. But she decides she'd rather run off with a French artist who brings her to Paris. After a couple of reels, the artist turns out to be worse than a mere cad -- he's the one who betrayed her mother. The girl discovers this when her long lost father barges in and kills the artist. The young Arab man then shows up in Paris, and the girl decides that he can make her happy after all. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The conservative, political sentiments of Americans in the 1920s were decidedly anti-communist, and this comedy-drama lends a mocking, satiric touch to the Bolshevists that it portrays. Because he is an idler, Timothy Webb, Jr. (H.B. Warner) is disinherited by his father. Instead, his uncle Roger (Percy Challenger) gets the senior Webb's plumbing business. But Roger is ruining the company through his incompetence, so Tim goes to work there under another name to see what he can do. He finds some of the workers have come under "red" influence and are being agitated into striking because they've received a ten percent instead of a 20 percent raise. Along the way, Tim meets Sylvia Kingston (Kathryn Adams), an heiress who has been taken in by the radicals' fancy talk of a "golden day when nobody shall do anything." First he shows her where she has gone wrong, and then he borrows enough money from her to buy out his uncle. With his American work ethic and fighting spirit, he vanquishes the reds and wins Sylvia's heart. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Jack Boyle's Boston Blackie stories were a popular part of Redbook magazine in the late 'teens, and this film wasn't the first time the fictional crook was brought to the silver screen. In this particular scenario, Boston Blackie (Sam DeGrasse) finds an ad in the newspaper from someone looking for a safecracker. He arranges a meeting, and the ad's writer turns out to be Doris Macon, a beautiful but very nervous young woman (Priscilla Dean). Doris explains that she needs the contents of a certain safe removed, and she is willing to pay him well for his efforts. He accepts the job and they go to the house (and safe) in question. Just as the safe's door is being blown off, its owner (Fred Kelsey) enters. In a frenzy, he dashes -- not to the safe, but to the gramophone, and as Blackie and Doris try to make their escape, Blackie snatches a handful of records and the needle. They are caught by secret service men, but It turns out Doris is the girlfriend of one of the men, Robert Melchoir (Ashton Dearholt), and she was helping him get evidence on the safe's owner, under suspicious as a spy. The papers Doris took from the safe reveal nothing, but the records Blackie took, when played with that special needle, reveal government secrets. Although billed as a "special attraction" by Universal, this picture was clumsily made and was really nothing more than a glorified programmer. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Because of his portrayals of villainous Prussians in pictures such as Hearts of the World and The Heart of Humanity, Erich von Stroheim was already famous as "the man you love to hate." But Stroheim had also been quite busy behind the camera over the years, as an assistant director to D.W. Griffith and art director to Douglas Fairbanks. When he approached Carl Laemmle at Universal Studios with a screenplay entitled The Pinnacle, the mogul wasted no time in agreeing to let Stroheim both star and direct. The result was the auteur's first film, renamed Blind Husbands. In it, Stroheim shows deeper facets to his officer (this time an Austrian) who, underneath the elaborate trappings, is no gentleman. American couple Dr. and Mrs. Armstrong (Sam deGrasse and Francelia Billington) arrive at a retreat in the Alps at the same time as Lieutenant Erich von Steuben (Stroheim). The Lieutenant is a reckless and dissolute soul who sets his cap for Mrs. Armstrong. Since her husband is kindly but neglectful, she is easy prey. Their flirtation is watched over carefully by the guide Sepp (Gibson Gowland), who is indebted to the good doctor, and he manages to keep the wife away from the Lieutenant on the night the four of them spend together in a lodge. The next day when von Steuben and Dr. Armstrong climb the summit, a letter from Mrs. Armstrong falls out of von Steuben's pocket and a fierce battle between the two men takes place on the peak. The doctor cuts the rope binding the two men together, and for his sins, the Lieutenant falls to a terrible death. This picture introduces themes that carried throughout Stroheim's career -- the eternal triangle shows up in most of his films in one form or another, and the climatic struggle between the two men would be repeated in the director's flawed masterpiece, Greed (which starred Gowland as McTeague). The easy decadence and the careful attention to detail would also be constants. Even though this isn't anywhere close to his best work, Blind Husbands was one of the most impressive directorial debuts of all time -- "This picture is exceptional. It marks an epoch," spouted an enthusiastic Variety critic. Stroheim was poised at the dawning edge of the '20s, at ready to give the decade some of its most deliriously debauched dramatic moments. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Fannie Ward plays Marion Clark, a manicurist who gets involved with a family who live in the boardinghouse where she resides. She is in love with the son, Dick Strong (W.E. Lawrence); the mother is an invalid and the sister, Gladys (Irene Aldwyn), is pretty but naive. Gladys falls in with a fast crowd and becomes involved with Malcom Dunn (Sam DeGrasse), who happens to be one of Marion's clients. Dunn is married but that doesn't stop him from playing around. The troubled Gladys goes to Marion with her problem, and Marion is determined to confront Dunn. Unfortunately, Marion becomes the one who is accused of an affair with Dunn and when Mrs. Dunn (Mary Alden) starts divorce proceedings, the innocent manicurist is named corespondent. It is up to Marion to set the facts straight and save her reputation. In an era that had very strict moral values, a film with this subject matter was potentially problematic; the studio thought they solved this by inserting a bunch of sermonizing subtitles at the beginning of the picture. All this served to do, according to reviews of the day, was bore the audience before the picture had even started. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Though he was obliged to share directorial credit with Wilfred Lucas, Tod Browning graduated to "prestige" pictures with his 1917 release Jim Bludso. The film was based on a popular ballad, written by former U.S. Secretary of State John Hay. The original ballad ended tragically, as steamboat captain Jim Bludso sacrificed his life for the sake of his passengers. In the film version, however, Bludso (played by Wilfred Lucas) not only saved his ship, but also survived to win the love of the beautiful Gabrielle (Olga Grey). The film was shot on location along the Sacramento River, a familiar movie substitute for the mighty Mississippi. According to Tod Browning's biographers David J. Skal and Elias Savada, Wilfred Lucas' "co-director" credit may have purely been a contractual matter; recently uncovered evidence indicates that Browning was the sole director. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This drama was based on the then-popular novel by Richard Hardin Davis. Billy Winthrop (Franklyn Farnum) is the idle son of Samuel Winthrop (Al Filson). When Billy discovers that it's destroying his father financially to constantly get him out of trouble, he straightens up. Although Billy loves Beatrice Forbes (Edith Johnson), she is already engaged to marry Ernest Peabody (Sam deGrasse), the son of banker Cyrus Peabody (Howard Crampton). Billy and Beatrice plan to elope, but it isn't as easy for them to run off together as they thought it would be. They get tangled up in situations involving forgery and murder that need to be solved before they can get married. Both Peabody father and son are revealed as the crooks. Director Joseph deGrasse was the older brother of Sam deGrasse. A pre-stardom Lon Chaney has a small but intense role as Beatrice's father, Paul Revere Forbes. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide