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
- 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)
- 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
- 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
- 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)
- 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)
