W.E. Lawrence Movies
- 1924
Anne Gray (Ruth Clifford) runs off with Robert Gordon (William E. Lawrence), believing that he is going to marry her. When they arrive at a hotel, another guest, Langdon Van Kreel (Charles Clary), sees though Gordon's ploy and chases him away. While Van Kreel is being thanked by Anne, detectives secretly photograph them together -- his wife, Marcia (May Mersch), is planning a divorce and is trying to drum up evidence. Anne gets a job on a conservative newspaper edited by John Manning (Niles Welch), who falls in love with her. Unbeknownst to Manning or anyone else on the paper, the managing editor, Fred Galvin (Hayden Stevenson) owns a scandal sheet. Anne goes to interview Marcia Van Kreel about her divorce and finds herself accused of destroying the marriage. Manning finally has it out with Galvin, who admits that he was running a blackmail scheme. Anne's name is cleared and the Van Kreels make up. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ruth Clifford, Niles Welch, (more)
- 1924
Baby Peggy, a popular child star of the 1920s who grew up to become film historian Peggy Carey, who stars in The Law Forbids. This time around, little-miss-fix-it Carey prevents her mother (Elinor Fair) from making a big mistake by divorcing Daddy (Robert Remsen). Separated from her husband, mother packs Peggy off to the family's country estate. The precocious tyke accidentally-on-purpose gets lost, reuniting her wandering parents. Based on a story by Bernard McConville, The Law Forbids concludes with a tear-stained courtroom scene. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Both animal and human nostrils flare, and passion reigns in this classic romantic tragedy with Rudolph Valentino. Valentino is Juan Gallarde, an aspiring bullfighter, married to his loving childhood sweetheart Carmen (Lila Lee). But as his fame rises as a matador, so does his hot Spanish blood, and he succumbs to the passionate embraces of the sultry Doña Sol (Nita Naldi). When Juan is gored by a bull, his bullfighting fame is cut short, and Carmen returns to his side to nurse him back to health, and, as he struggles to regain his strength and make a comeback in the bullring, Carmen is there for him. At last he returns to the bullring, but in the stands, Juan sees Doña Sol with another lover. His attention distracted, a furious bull charges him and he is killed, dying in the arms of Carmen. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rudolph Valentino, Lila Lee, (more)
- 1921
Kathryn Haynes (Wanda Hawley) has been raised to look down on everyone whose ancestry doesn't go back to the American Revolution, or who doesn't at least have the cash to make up for it. So she gets her comeuppance when she goes away to college and falls for star quarterback Bill Putnam (William Lawrence). When she finds out that he's working his way through school as a waiter, she turns her nose up at him, but his pals decide to teach her a lesson. Kathryn gets some humility and just to prove that she means it, she gets a job as a waitress herself, thus welcoming Bill back into her life. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wanda Hawley, Edwin Stevens, (more)
- 1918
After finishing school, Betty Brewster (Edith Roberts) wants to go into business; her father (John Cossar), however, wants her to spend her time in society. The best he'll do for her is let her write advertisements for the bean company which he owns. But one day, he needs to get some options renewed and he can't go, so he is forced to have Betty travel to San Francisco to get the job done for him. She is to meet his lawyer, Glendon Kirk (Lew Cody), at the train station, but Wingate (Charles Gerrard), her father's secretary -- who is really in cahoots with his rivals -- arrives first. He tries to pass himself off as Kirk, and Kirk as the crooked one. The result is a cross-country chase and various mix-ups that keep throwing Betty and Kirk together. Through a long series of events, the couple are thrown in jail while Wingate runs off with the papers. They escape and Betty gets the papers back and saves the day. Kirk and her father follow behind, and Betty is promoted to the company's manager. Kirk, meanwhile, convinces Betty that he should be her partner -- in more ways than one. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1915
This race-themed melodrama is the first two-reeler directed by Tod Browning. Indians kill homesteader Bob West (Otto Lincoln) and capture his little daughter Ida. They sell her to a slave trader named Morgan, who uses her in place of a dead mulatto slave child and sells her to a kindly couple. When Fred Gilbert (W.E. Lawrence), the couple's nephew, visits them a dozen years later, he falls in love with Ida (Teddy Sampson) -- much to the consternation of his aunt and uncle, who believe the girl to be of mixed race. Morgan's mulatto slave Sally (Mary Alden) gives the family a letter written by Bob West shortly before his death, and a fingerprint on the document reveals that Ida is indeed West's daughter and is Caucasian. Morgan is killed by a posse and Fred and Ida marry. Note actor Otto Lincoln, who changed his name to Elmo Lincoln by the following year, when he played The Mighty Man of Valor in the Babylonian sequence of D.W. Griffith's masterpiece Intolerance; in 1918, Lincoln found fame as the screen's first Tarzan. 15/2rl ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Otto Lincoln, Teddy Sampson, (more)
- 1915
This Reliance feature bore a striking resemblance to the previous IMP release Driven By Fate. Deserted by her husband, a pregnant chorus girl finds herself stranded in a backwater town. She gives up her baby to a Quaker family then disappears into the night. Flash-forward several years: The child, now grown up into a beautiful young woman (and now played by Dorothy Gish) begins to develop unexplained yearnings to go on the stage. With the help of a benevolent theatrical manager, she quickly rises to the heights of success on Broadway. If only Gish knew that her personal maid is actually her long-lost mother.... ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
