Vernon Dent Movies
Actor Vernon Dent launched his career in stock companies and as one-third of a singing cabaret trio. Silent comedian Hank Mann, impressed by Dent's girth (250 pounds) and comic know-how, helped Vernon enter films in 1919. Dent starred in a 2-reel series at the Pacific Film Company, then settled in at Mack Sennett studios as a supporting player, generally cast as a heavy. During his Sennett years, Dent was most often teamed with pasty-faced comedian Harry Langdon, who became his lifelong friend and co-worker. Remaining with Sennett until the producer closed down his studio in 1933, Dent moved to Educational Pictures, where he was afforded equal billing with Harry Langdon; and when Langdon moved to Columbia Pictures in 1934, Dent followed, remaining a mainstay of the Columbia 2-reel stock company until 1953. Here he was featured with such comic luminaries as Andy Clyde, Buster Keaton, Hugh Herbert, Vera Vague, and especially the Three Stooges. Among Dent's dozens of talkie feature-film credits were W.C. Fields' Million Dollar Legs (1932) and You're Telling Me (1934); in one of his rare feature starring roles, Dent played a boisterous, wife-beating sailor in the 1932 "B" Dragnet Patrol. Well-connected politically in the Los Angeles area, Dent supplemented his acting income by running the concession stand at Westlake Park. Vernon Dent retired in the mid-1950s, due to total blindness brought about by diabetes; the ever-upbeat actor was so well-adjusted to his handicap that many of Dent's close friends were unaware that he was blind. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1921
This drama, produced by Thomas Ince, featured an excellent cast and a powerful story. Although she only had a second lead, Madge Bellamy felt her role was the best one she was ever given. Oliver Beresford (top character actor Theodore Roberts) is a bigoted, chauvinistic, New England farmer. His son David, who is studying for the ministry (Lloyd Hughes), lives in fear of him. Because he shies away from his father's disapproval, he secretly marries Nan Higgins (Bellamy), the daughter of an "odd jobs man" (Tully Marshall -- another great character actor of the silent screen). The elder Beresford discovers that Nan is expecting, and that David is the father, but Nan protects her weak-willed husband by steadfastly refusing to reveal their marriage. As a result, Oliver buys off Nan's father, who beats her and casts her from his home. Nan travels up to New York where she becomes a prostitute after the child is born. The cowardly David remains silent. David's sister, Judith (Florence Vidor), sticks up for Nan, and Oliver drives her from his home. She encounters Nan in New York, and takes care of the child after Nan's death. Nan had revealed her marriage to Judith before she died, and Judith decides that her brother must clear Nan's name. She returns to New England on the day that David is to be ordained, and confronts him with the child in front of the congregation. Filled with remorse, David confesses all and accepts the child. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Florence Vidor, Lloyd Hughes, (more)
- 1923
Mabel Normand's last feature-length film is also one of her most entertaining. Sue Graham (Normand) lives in the tiny hamlet of River Bend. When her parents (George Nichols and Anna Hernandez) refuse to let her marry her sweetheart, Dave Giddings (Ralph Graves), she enters a movie contest and wins. But Sue finds stardom in Hollywood very elusive and winds up working in the wardrobe department at a studio. She convinces her parents to sell everything they have to join her in Hollywood, but they are taken in by a swindler and lose all their money. Giddings comes out to help Sue get a better job, but she is determined to track down the swindler and get the money back. Eventually she is successful and everyone returns to River Bend. Normand has one of her most memorable comic moments when she leads a lion around on a leash, fully convinced it is a dog in disguise. Shortly after this picture was released, Normand was involved in a scandal in which her chauffeur shot a male friend with whom she had been drinking. After the 1921 murder scandal involving her colleague Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and the unsolved killing of her good friend, director William Desmond Taylor in 1922, this was the last straw. A number of states banned her from the screen (Ohio's attorney general remarked, "This film star has been entirely too closely connected with disgraceful shooting affairs.") Producer Mack Sennett released Normand from her contract and her career never recovered. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Nichols, Anna Hernandez, (more)
- 1923
This comedy-drama featured Madge Bellamy's most unusual co-star -- an elephant named Oscar. Ruth Lorrimore (Bellamy) works at a circus where her only friend is Oscar. The cruel circus owner (Bert Sprouts) forces her to take the place of the "wild girl" and while she's locked in a side show cage, a cyclone hits. Oscar manages to save her, and she rides him to the Canadian Northwoods, where she meets Paul Nadeau, a crippled young musician (Cullen Landis). Caesar Durand, the town bully (Noah Beery), makes things tough for both Ruth and Nadeau until Oscar finally has enough and gives the villain his due. According to her interview in Speaking of Silents by William M. Drew, Bellamy felt the film did her career no good, calling her performance "disreputably coy." ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Madge Bellamy, Cullen Landis, (more)
- 1924
While this comedy was pretty standard fare for producer Mack Sennett in the 1920s, it is notable for being the first film in which Marceline Day had a major role -- she had started out working for Sennett the year before as a Bathing Beauty, and would become most famous as Buster Keaton's leading lady in 1928's The Cameraman. Mom and sis (Day) are faced with that standard melodramatic situation that Sennett loved to parody -- the mortgage is due and they are penniless. Villainous landlord Jack Richardson is about to foreclose. Mother asserts that her boy Jack would know what to do -- if only he were there. Unfortunately, Jack (Sid Smith) is behind bars. But his pal (Vernon Dent) is about to break out with the help of an aeroplane. It picks up Jack from the yard instead, leaving Dent to dig his way out. Now that Jack is free, he actually does know what to do -- he enters his horse in a steeplechase in hopes of winning the purse. Of course, Richardson is just as determined to see him lose, and enlists the help of bear-like jockey Kalla Pasha. But Jack and his steed manage to slapstick their way to the finish line. The mortgage is paid and Jack's sweetheart gleefully tells him, "Now you can foreclose the mortgage on my heart!" Minor comic Sid Smith died in 1928 from bad Prohibition-era alcohol. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1926
Baby-faced comedian Harry Langdon plays a timorous fireman in His First Flame. Much of the action involves Langdon's efforts to impress the unimpressable Ruth Hiatt. She is so resistant to his "charms" that she can't even act grateful when he rescues her from a burning house. Filmed during Langdon's last year at Mack Sennett's studio, His First Flame was originally a three-reeler. It was expanded into a feature (using stock footage and outtakes) after the success of Langdon's official feature-film debut in First National's Tramp, Tramp, Tramp. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harry Langdon, Natalie Kingston, (more)
- 1926
Baby Face Harry Langdon is a videocassette collection of selected Mack Sennett two-reelers starring pasty-faced comedian Harry Langdon. Langdon's character can best be described as an overgrown baby (with all the bad attributes of infancy as well as the good), and as such he seemed an unlikely candidate for stardom in the mid-1920s. But with Charlie Chaplin between pictures, movie audiences turned to Langdon for large dollops of character comedy seasoned with pathos. Many of Langdon's silent short subjects for Mack Sennett Studios were scripted by Frank Capra, and most were directed by Harry Edwards, a mediocre talent who did his best work with Langdon (who, in turn, trusted Edwards without question). The highlight of this collection is Saturday Afternoon (1926) a near-perfect three-reeler in which Langdon escapes his domineering wife for an afternoon of carefree abandon with his pal Vernon Dent and two flirtatious flappers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1928
These vintage silent comedies from Mack Sennett include A Strong Revenge (1913) A Sea Dog's Tale (1926), Sailor, Beware (1927) and The Channel Swimmer (1928). ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- 1928
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, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Buster Keaton, Marceline Day, (more)
- 1932
Very loosely based on Booth Tarkington's novel The Plutocrat, Business and Pleasure stars Will Rogers as Earl Tinker, a newly rich Oklahoma razor-blade manufacturer. On the pretext of taking a vacation with his family, Earl journeys to far-off Syria, there to purchase the secret formula for Damascus steel. During the ocean voyage to the middle east, Earl's daughter Olivia (Peggy Ross) falls in love with struggling playwright Lawrence Ogle (Joel McCrea), while a worldly adventuress named Madame Momora (Jetta Goudal) apparently sets her sights on the bashful Earl, much to the dismay of his wife (Dorothy Peterson). In truth, however, Madame Momora is an "industrial spy" in the employ of Tinker's main competitor, and it is her job to prevent Earl from completing his business mission. But our dumb-like-a-fox hero manages to turn the tables with the use of a clever disguise and a few other dexterous diversions. Filmed before the 1931 Will Rogers vehicle Ambassador Bill, Business and Pleasure was released afterward in early 1932, thereby giving audiences the pleasant surprise of seeing Boris Karloff, newly famous thanks to his performance as The Monster in Frankenstein, popping up unbilled as a desert sheik. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Will Rogers, Jetta Goudal, (more)
In this his first Western of 1932, Tim McCoy is supported by a young John Wayne. Learning that he is a dead ringer for rancher Jim Rawlins, drifter Texas Grant (McCoy) agrees to keep up the charade in order to scare off a gang of rustlers that has been terrorizing the area. The missing man's wife, Helena (Shirley Grey in the second of four appearances opposite McCoy), at first believes Texas to be her husband but when learning otherwise agrees to keep his real identity hidden. Helena has been having trouble with Utah Becker (Wheeler Oakman), the owner of the Red Dog Saloon, who is secretly employing a majority of the Rawlins' cow hands. Texas, as Jim Rawlins, has the crooks thrown off the property, keeping only Steve, who has remained loyal to Helena throughout. When Becker learns of the newcomer's real identity, he accuses the cowboy of taking advantage of Helena and challenges him to a gunfight at dawn. The saloon owner hedges his bets, however, by having Nick hide in ambush, but both men are killed and Texas wounded. Nursed back to health by Helena, Texas reveals that he is indeed Jim Rawlins, a victim of amnesia caused by an earlier scuffle with Becker. Rotund Vernon Dent, later a popular villain in Three Stooges two-reelers, appeared in this film as Hefty, the bartender, a role he would re-create in future McCoy Westerns. Young John Wayne would also reappear in a future McCoy Western, Two Fisted Law (1932), in both instances playing characters sympathetic to Tim. Offscreen, Wayne and McCoy were less friendly, the former finding the latter morose and distant. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1932
As cheap as any other poverty-row talkie, Dragnet Patrol possesses a breezy charm that is hard to resist. Glenn Tryon stars as a rambunctious sailor who marries carnival cutie Vera Reynolds. For her sake, he hires himself out to shady business entrepreneur Walter Long, only to face extermination when Long's faithless wife Symona Boniface "comes on" to him. Finally getting his priorities straight, Tryon returns to his wife, but not before an understanding judge gives him a severe dressing-down in court. Effortlessly stealing the picture is 2-reel comedy perennial Vernon Dent as Tryon's sailor pal; the scene in which Dent returns home to his wife Marjorie Beebe, only to be forced to kick Beebe's current boyfriend out the back door, is priceless. Also worth noting is the performance of veteran screen heavy Walter Long, who turns out to be more honorable and up-front than the so-called hero. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vernon Dent, Walter Long, (more)
- 1932
A typical low-budget but competently made Columbia Western, The Riding Tornado featured Tim McCoy as a famous rodeo champ who, incognito, wins a supposed killer stallion, Pal, and a purse of 500 dollars in a small town race. Having amicably lost the money in a poker game, Tim is hired by Pal's prior owner, rancher Hiram Olcott (Lafe McKee), to track down a gang of cattle rustlers headed by Hetch Engle (Wheeler Oakman). In between fighting hothead ranch foreman Dick Stark (Wallace MacDonald) for the attention of lovely Patsy Olcott (Shirley Grey), Tim manages to track down Hetch and his gang before they can do more damage. Stark, meanwhile, is heroically killed attempting to stop a stampede, leaving Tim and Patsy free to plan a future together. Vernon Dent, who later menaced the Three Stooges in countless two-reelers, played Hefty, the bartender, a role he had originated in an earlier McCoy effort, Texas Cyclone. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley Grey, Wallace MacDonald, (more)
- 1932
Although based on a story by William Colt McDonald, the creator of The Three Mesqueteers, this Tim McCoy effort from Columbia was a conventional Western at best. McCoy played Tim Madigan, a cowpoke coming to the aid of Jerry Norris (Alberta Vaughn), whose father (Murdock MacQuarrie) is in trouble with a gang of cattle rustlers. The leaders of the rustlers, Hugo Distang (Robert Ellis) and Bull Bagley (Richard Alexander), prove to be the very same villains Madigan was trailing. Aided by a new friend, Jughandle (Wallace MacDonald), Madigan manages to catch the rustlers red-handed. The bandits are carted off to jail and Jughandle proves to be an agent for the Cattlemen's Association. McCoy offered a competent and believable performance but this time the material was not quite up to his usual high standard. Future Three Stooges menace Vernon Dent appeared as an ill-fated bartender. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alberta Vaughn
- 1932
"Klopstokia: A Far-Away Country. Chief Exports: Goats and Nuts. Chief Imports: Goats and Nuts. Chief Inhabitants: Goats and Nuts." This introductory title ushers in Million Dollar Legs, one of the zaniest comedies ever to emerge from a major studio. W.C. Fields stars as the president of Klopstokia, who will hold on to his office so long as he can best the secretary of the treasury (Hugh Herbert) in their daily arm-wrestling contests. Like most of the Depression-era world, Klopstokia is broke, forcing the government to take drastic measures to raise money. Fortunately, everyone in the country is a super-athlete, inspiring visiting Fuller Brush salesman Migg Tweeney (Jack Oakie) to come up with a brilliant idea: Klopstokia will enter the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. Alas, the subversive cabinet members, hoping to overthrow the president, plot to undermine the Klopstokian athletic team with the aid of sexy seductress Mata Machree (Lyda Roberti), "the woman no man can resist." Words can hardly describe the nonstop parade of gags and verbal insanity in Million Dollar Legs: Ben Turpin, playing a cloaked-and-caped spy, pops in and out with neither rhyme nor reason; the conspirators' outdoor hideout is incongruously equipped with hydraulic lifts and elevators; Mata Machree's butler informs the villains that "Madame can only be resisted from 2 to 4,"; and, when asked why all the Klopstokian men are named George and the women named Angela, the president's daughter (Susan Fleming, later the wife of Harpo Marx), replies "Why not?" then launches into the national anthem -- a double-talk version of "One Hour With You." Among the writers were Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Henry Myers, who were also responsible for the wacky Wheeler andWoolsey political satire Diplomaniacs. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Oakie, W.C. Fields, (more)
