O. Henry Movies

William Sydney Porter became one of America's most beloved writers under his pen name of O. Henry. The master of the short story captured the fabric and feel of American life in his poignant vignettes. This video is part of a three-volume series that celebrates the writer's life and works. This episode features the author's story The Last Leaf, where characters discover the meaning of life, love, and death in a Greenwich Village apartment house. ~ Rose of Sharon Winter, Rovi

A delightful cartoon featuring the antics of the Pink Panther. In New York in the 1890s he is searching for food in Central Park where he discovers the true spirit of Christmas. ~ Rovi

This half-hour sequel to the famous O. Henry tale The Ransom of Red Chief finds our hero, the little boy who pretends to be a legendary American Indian named Red Chief, using his powers of deception to outwit a group of con artists. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

This anthology film assembles five respected directors and a top-notch cast to bring a handful of stories by the great American author O. Henry to the screen. In The Cop and the Anthem, a tramp named Soapy (Charles Laughton) tries to get arrested so that he can spend the winter in jail, only to find that is not as easy as it used to be. Marilyn Monroe appears in this episode as a streetwalker. The Clarion Call features Dale Robertson as Barney, a cop forced to arrest an old friend, Johnny (Richard Widmark). Anne Baxter stars in The Last Leaf as Joanna, an elderly woman who sees her own illness reflected in the fall of the autumn leaves; she's convinced that when the last leaf drops from the tree outside her window, her life will go with it. The Ransom of Red Chief concerns Sam (Fred Allen) and Bill (Oscar Levant), two novice kidnappers who kidnap a child, only to discover that his parents don't want him back -- and after a few hours with the brat, they find out why. And The Gift of the Magi tells the story of a pair of cash-strapped newlyweds, Della (Jeanne Craine) and Jim (Farley Granger), who struggle to get each other the perfect Christmas gift, with unexpected results. John Steinbeck narrates. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

In this Mexican adventure, a daring man robs a stage coach. During the robbery, his mask slips off when he steals a kiss. Though the woman he affronted saw his face, she refuses to identify him. Later the two get together to cheat a Mexican woman out of her wealth by having the Kid impersonate her son. In this capacity, the Kid begins to really care about the old woman and decides to remain with her and be a son she can be proud of. He then dumps his conniving girlfriend in favor of the old woman's adopted daughter. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The Cisco Kid was to have been the sequel to the pioneering 1929 talkie In Old Arizona, with Warner Baxter repeating his Oscar-winning role as "O. Henry's Robin Hood of the Old West". Unfortunately, Fox Studios temporarily lost the rights to the Cisco Kid character, thus Baxter was starred as Cisco-in-name-only in The Arizona Kid. The rights were then reclaimed, and The Cisco Kid went into production as the third in the Baxter series -- and, by all accounts, the best of the trio, beautifully photographed and blessed with a thrilling musical score. Running just under an hour, the film finds good-hearted Cisco robbing a bank to save pretty widow Sally Benton (Nora Lane) from losing her ranch. Developing a strong affection for the widow's two children, Cisco risks arrest when he mistakenly believes that one of the kids has been injured. The hero's "friendly enemy" Sgt. Mickey Dunn (Edmund Lowe, likewise a carry-over from In Old Arizona) is so touched by this display of devotion that he "accidentally" allows Cisco to escape to new adventures. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Warner Baxter, sporting a black mustache and a musical-comedy Mexican accent, stars as the Cisco Kid, the "Robin Hood of the Old West" created by O. Henry. Edmund Lowe co-stars as Cisco's "friendly enemy" Sgt. Mickey Dunne, the role that was originally to have gone to Raoul Walsh. Both men are madly in love with dusky beauty Tonia Maria (Dorothy Burgess), and in fact Cisco is so "far gone" that he composes a song in the girl's honor (actually, "My Tonia", first heard during the opening credits, was written by Fox studio tunesmiths Lew Brown, B.G. DeSylva and Ray Henderson). Alas, Tonia ends up betraying Cisco to Sgt. Burke. But the crafty, cold-blooded Cisco arranges for Tonia to be killed in the trap set for him (this plot resolution is faithful to O. Henry's original conception of the Cisco Kid, who wasn't really meant to be a "good guy"). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi