David Belasco Movies

This film is the first western ever made in Italy. It tells the tale of a young saloon dancer who inadvertently gets romantically involved with the man who killed her husband and framed her recent lover. She accepts his advances until she learns the truth. She then returns to her lover and discovers that he has been married all along. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In her much vaunted screen debut, Metropolitan Opera star Gladys Swarthout takes on David Belasco's 30-year-old operetta about the female leader of a gang of vigilantes battling usurpers plotting to steal valuable land grants. The masked Don Carlos (aka Rosita Castro) uses her operatic voice as a call to arms, singing Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin's "If I Should Love You," "Thunder Over Paradise," "Where Is My Love?," and other selections, but her attempt to lynch accused bandit leader Joe Kincaid (Charles Bickford) fails when government agent Jim Kearney (John Boles) puts a stop to the unlawful proceedings. Despite interference from Don Castro (H.B. Warner), who has promised his daughter to Don Louis Espinoza (Don Alvarado), Kearney falls in love with the songstress, unaware that she is Don Carlos. But when Kincaid and his hordes storm the Castro rancho, Kearney is battling right alongside the lovely vigilante. Rose of the Rancho had previously been filmed in 1914 by Cecil B. De Mille as a vehicle for silent star Bessie Barriscale. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Hatchet Man is a dated but fascinating film set amidst the "tong wars" in San Francisco's Chinatown. Tong hatchet man Wong Low Get (Edward G. Robinson) is required to kill his boyhood friend Sun Yet Sen (J. Carroll Naish). Sen is resigned to his fate, but extracts a promise that Wong will look after Sen's daughter Toya San, and marry the girl when she grows up. Played as an adult by Loretta Young, Toya San weds Wong, now an influential Chinatown figure. But the girl is secretly in love with Harry En Hai (Leslie Fenton), a disreputable young half-caste. When Wong learns of the affair, he sends Toya and Harry packing, and is ostracized by the community for not fighting for his honor. Harry is deported to China for drug-dealing, taking Toya with him and ultimately deserting her. Wong trails the pair to China, where he finds that Toya has been sold into prostitution. He intends to use his hatchet to kill Harry, but is talked out of the murder by Toya. But before Wong and Toya leave for America, Harry En Hai accidentally receives his comeuppance from the one-time "hatchet man." Well acted and powerfully directed, Hatchet Man would hardly qualify as "politically correct" these days, since virtually every Asian character is portrayed by a Caucasian. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

San Francisco's Chinatown provides the setting of this dramatic romance set in 1911. At this time in China, a major uprising has occurred and the rulers of the Ch'ing dynasty have been overthrown and a new president, Sun Yat-Sen, has risen to power. In order to aide the anti-royalist revolutionaries and her father who leads them back home, a devoted young woman barters herself to a villainous nobleman in the traditional way. She does this even though she really loves another. Later, her husband orders her entire family slaughtered. His wife goes mad with grief and ends up using her husband's own pigtail to strangle him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Though frequently credited to impresario David Belasco, the play upon which Tonight or Never is based was actually penned by Lili Havatny. Gloria Swanson stalks through the proceedings as an opera prima donna who goes through men like tissue paper. While on holiday in Venice with her elderly fiance Ferdinand Gottschalk, Swanson becomes intrigued by one of her admirers, Melvyn Douglas (in his film debut). One evening Douglas manages to corner the heroine in her lavish apartment, whereupon she becomes convinced that he's merely a gigolo interested in her money. But -- ha-ha -- the last laugh is on Swanson when Douglas reveals that he's a representative of the Metropolitan Opera, determined to sign her to a contract. Produced by Sam Goldwyn, Tonight or Never represented the end of the first phase of Gloria Swanson's talkie career; she subsequently announced her "retirement" but was back before the cameras two years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, a conservative family becomes alarmed when they begin believing their daughter is pregnant. They frantically begin searching for the father. The search is narrowed down to three possibilities: her ex-fiancee, her current one, or her legal guardian. Meanwhile, a drunken son marries the family maid, who is also pregnant. The daughter then admits her pregnancy is false--she only did it to cover for the maid. The son, now sober annuls the marriage and the maid marries the ice man, her real love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this, its third cinema incarnation, David Belasco's hoary old Girl of the Golden West received the full swagger treatment from the otherwise lady-like Ann Harding as the gun-toting saloon belle who falls for a handsome outlaw (James Rennie). Again, the story's climax is the dramatic poker game between Harding and Sheriff Jack Rance, the stakes of which is the outlaw's freedom. Unfortunately, Miss Harding insisted that her husband, phlegmatic stage actor Harry Bannister, play the sheriff, a casting decision that somewhat upset the story's apple cart. A Broadway veteran but a cinematic novice, Bannister reportedly insisted on lecturing director John Francis Dillon on the finer aspects of art in general and film-making in particular. Needless to say, Mr. Bannister's screen career, like his marriage to Ann Harding, proved short-lived. The "Girl" herself, however, enjoyed incredible stamina and would experience two subsequent remakes: a lavish 1938 musical version starring (of course) Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy (with Walter Pidgeon as Rance) and a 1942 war-time Italian production featuring Isa Pola, Michel Simon and Rossano Brazzi as the leads. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This drama chronicles the rise of a famous Madame from casino hostess to king's mistress. Her story begins as she is being fished from a pond by her future lover. Next she is seen as a hostess in the gambling house. She then becomes the King's mistress. Meanwhile she continues to carry on with her first love. They are together until death. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Fifteen-year-old Loretta Young is 45-year-old Lon Chaney's winsome leading lady in Laugh, Clown, Laugh. Based on the war-horse stage piece by David Belasco and Tom Cushing, the film casts Chaney as (what else?) an aging circus clown, who adopts an orphaned girl and falls in love with her when she grows up. Alas-and not surprisingly-the girl loves another, prompting Chaney to perform a suicidal circus stunt, freeing her to marry the man she truly cares about (Nils Asther). Chaney had been here before, having played a similar role opposite Norma Shearer in 1924's He Who Gets Slapped. Though widely touted as Loretta Young's film debut, she had actually made earlier appearances with her sisters as a child extra. A silent film, Laugh Clown Laugh was released with a musical sound track, which highlighted the hit title song. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The venerable David Belasco stage piece The Return of Peter Grimm was first brought to the screen in 1926, with Alec B. Francis in the title role. In life a selfish, mean-spirited old man, Peter Grimm returns from the grave to right the wrongs he committed while on Earth. The spectral Grimm pays a visit to his nasty nephew Frederick (John Roche), the husband of Grimm's ward Catherine (Janet Gaynor), who had been forced into the marriage. Literally entering Frederick's conscience, Grimm transforms his covetous, philandering nephew into a "good guy." After several similar episodes, both comic and dramatic, Return of Peter Grimm comes to a tear-stained finale as the tubercular young William (Mickey McBan) joins his grandfather Grimm in the hereafter. The double-exposure work was faultless, with Alec B. Francis seeming to glow and radiate as he ministers to the living. Return of Peter Grimm was ploddingly remade in 1935 with Lionel Barrymore as star. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Raymond Griffith's star was on the rise when he made this comedy, based on the play Lord Chumley by David Belasco and Henry C. De Mille (father of directors Cecil B. De Mille and William C. De Mille). Gaspar Le Sage (Cyril Chadwick) sends Annabelle Wu (Anna May Wong) to steal plans for a coast defense movement. The papers are in the hands of Lieutenant Butterworth (William Boyd), and she easily vamps them away from him. Butterworth faces a court-martial and disgrace until his friend Lord Chumley (Griffith) offers to help locate the documents. Le Sage does everything he can to stop him, while at the same time courting Chumley's sweetheart, Eleanor (Viola Dana), who happens to be Butterworth's sister. Chumley manages to track the papers to Annabelle's apartment, but then he has to rescue Eleanor, who is now in Le Sage's clutches. He pursues the villain by motorboat and saves Eleanor. Unfortunately they wind up in the middle of a floating target which is being used for gun practice. The couple manage to escape, and then make a triumphant return. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This was the second time that William C. DeMille's stage play was brought to the screen (DeMille's younger brother, Cecil B. DeMille, directed the 1915 version). Director Elmer Clifton downplayed the romantic angle of this Civil War story, not out of choice but necessity -- former Follies star Martha Mansfield, who played Agatha Warren, died from burn injuries she suffered in a tragic accident during filming. Ned Burton (Wilfred Lytell) and Agatha Warren have been sweethearts since childhood, but when the War Between the States breaks out, Burton joins the Union forces while the Warren family sides with the Confederacy. Burton is assigned the task of being arrested at Agatha's home so he can trick the Confederates and obtain information from them. As a result, supplies don't reach the Southern army in time. Burton is taken out to be hanged as a spy. But Agatha hears that Lee has surrendered and she enlists the help of Union soldiers to save Burton. After the war, Burton and Agatha reconcile their differences and marry. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This tale of the Canadian Northwest was originally a stage play by Willard Mack and David Belasco. Belasco worked with Warner Brothers on this production -- it was the second of a series of plays which he brought to the studio. Lenore Ulric performed the role of Rose Bocion on Broadway, and she starred in the motion picture version, too. When her father dies, Rose is left alone in the world. She rides a raft which drifts towards the rapids and is saved from sure death by Canadian Mountie Michael Devlin (Forrest Stanley). She is adopted by Hector McCollins (Claude Gillingwater), who runs a nearby trading post. Although Devlin loves Rose, she falls for engineer Bruce Norton (Theodore Von Eltz), who is surveying on behalf of a railroad. Norton kills the man who ruined his sister and becomes a fugitive from the law. With the help of Rose and Dr. Cusick (Sam De Grasse) he hides from Devlin. Norton manages to escape but he comes back and turns himself in to keep Rose from going to jail for protecting him. After serving his time he and Rose are reunited. This story was filmed as a talkie in 1930, with the fiery Lupe Velez in the lead role. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide