Madge Evans Movies

An old Hungarian story was the basis for the Marguerite Clark vehicle Seven Sisters. The story takes place in a Budapest household, where it is believed that if one of the younger daughters marries first, her older siblings will be doomed to live out their lives as old maids. The youngest daughter, 5-year-old Clara (played by future leading lady Madge Evans) is hardly of marriageable age, nor are the next two daughters. But the fourth oldest, Mici (Marguerite Clark), is much sought after by potential husbands, driving her older sisters into a frenzy. For their own protection, the older girls arrange for Mici to be shipped off to a convent school, far removed from anyone in trousers. Despite her cloistered existence, Mici manages to escape long enough to attend a masked ball, where she meets and falls in love with Count Horkoy (Conway Tearle). With his help, Mici finds suitable husbands for her older sisters, and everything turns out "Jake." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lee Randall (Robert Warwick) is a man who leads a double life. By day he is a respectable person; by night he robs banks. His gang stages an elaborate break-in at a bank, but they are discovered while fleeing the scene of the crime, and the gang is captured. (During their stay in jail, real shots of prisoners in Sing Sing are shown -- though some of the prisoners didn't want their faces in the movie!). When Randall is released from prison after serving his time, the film becomes a traditional melodrama, telling the story of a man who tries to go straight and the difficulties that he encounters after he and his cronies get out of prison. When Randall has established a new life (keeping the books at a bank), a detective comes calling. The detective wants to pin an old bank heist on Randall. At the same time, a small girl is accidentally locked in the bank vault. Randall must use his safe-cracking skills to free her, even though it may send him back to prison. This film is one of several important gangster films released in the mid-teens. Director Maurice Tourneur's most imaginative camera work of the film is in the first 15 minutes when the gang executes a bank heist. There are several deep-staged set-ups that have characters in real locations (like a train) instead of just on studio sets. The heist features an over-the-head shot of the cubicles in the bank to show the night watchman just missing the crooks. ~ Bruce Calvert, All Movie Guide

Captain Harry Ford (Carlyle Blackwell) is tracking down moonshiners in the South when he runs afoul of nasty political goings-on. Some Negroes have stolen a ballot box, but a white man refuses to be bribed for its return and horsewhips the group's leader. The Negro kills the man, and the crime gets pinned on Ford. Ford is sent to prison for life, but escapes when he is put on a road-working gang. His Southern sweetheart, Georgia Gwynne (Ethel Clayton) helps him so that he can prove his innocence and finally the Negro murderer confesses. The racist attitude of this film is on par with that of Birth of a Nation, and is a sad statement on the prevailing attitudes of the 1910s. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This film, based on the stage play of the same name by Adolph Philipps, gave comedian Lew Fields a role that had both humor and pathos. Charles Wendel (Fields) is a wealthy grocer who, along with his wife (Justine Cutting), adopts a little orphan, Mary (Madge Evans). He also has a son, Ralph (William Sherwood), who he hopes will become his business partner when he returns from college. Ralph, however, comes home with a snooty attitude and refuses. Wendel gets him a job at the bank, but the young man botches it up by falling prey to a pair of swindlers (Pinna Nesbit and George Cowl, who also directed). He embezzles bank money to fund a crooked company and is forced to flee when one of the swindlers is murdered. Wendel coughs up the money to pay for his son's theft, but it bankrupts him and he is forced to return to his pushcart days, while Mary (played as a young woman by Lillian Cook) goes to work. Eventually the son is cleared of the murder, and when he makes good, he comes home to his father and marries Mary. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Although Ellen Franklin (Alice Brady) consents to marry John Locke (David Powell), she's reluctant to have a family since, for three generations, the women in her family have died in childbirth. Because of her attitude, she and Locke become estranged and he renews contact with an old flame, now a widow with a young daughter named Constance (Madge Evans). One day Constance meets Ellen when she is looking for Locke. Ellen drives the little girl towards home, but gets in an automobile accident. Both of them wind up in a hospital, which catches fire. Ellen risks her life to save Constance and return her to her mother. After that, her attitude about motherhood softens and she is reunited with Locke. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Rejected by her parents, the wayward Juliette La Monde (Kitty Gordon) becomes a musical comedy actress and is courted by Morgan Grant (Frederick Truesdell). Grant is married, but no matter; he leaves his wife (Pinna Nesbit) to be with Juliette. After the death of her parents, Juliette takes care of her sister, Francine (played as a girl by Madge Evans and as a young woman by Lillian Cook). Grant has tired of Juliette and now pursues Francine. Even though Juliette has tried to keep her sister on the straight and narrow, Francine is not adverse to Grant's attention. Juliette tries to talk to Grant, but it grows into an argument in which a gun is drawn. In the struggle, Grant is mortally wounded but he exonerates Juliette before he dies. Francine winds up with another man, Philip Stewart (William Sherwood), while Juliette becomes a Red Cross nurse in Europe, and dies in battle. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This picture, made in the thick of America's involvement in World War I, is a combination of real life and fiction. Because her father (Victor Kennard) has joined the army, and her mother (Muriel Ostriche) is going to Europe as a Red Cross nurse, little Madge (Madge Evans) can no longer work at the World Film Studio. So she says goodbye to all of her friends and costars at the company's Fort Lee, New Jersey, headquarters (the cameos include Carlyle Blackwell, Evelyn Greeley, Kitty Gordon, Montagu Love, June Elvidge, and even studio head William A. Brady himself). Her new home is with her Quaker grandparents (Jack Drumier and Kate Lester). Their son Jonathan (Henry Hull) wants to enlist, but his father refuses, as it would be against their faith. But Jonathan is determined, and when he comes of age, he joins the army anyway. His father refuses to speak to him until Madge melts through his stern reserve. Finally, the old man accepts his son's decision and is there for him when he leaves for France. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This picture has nothing to do with the 1933 Spencer Tracy film, or its 1961 remake. It's an adaptation of a novel by Grace MacGowan Cooke. Because her poverty-stricken family is deeply in debt, Johnnie Consadine (June Elvidge) leaves her home in the Blue Ridge mountains and finds a job in a factory in Cottonville. Her hard work gets her promoted to forewoman, and the owner, Gray Stoddard (Frank Mayo), becomes romantically interested in her. Johnnie's uncle (Albert Hart), meanwhile, finds a silver mine. Pap Hines (Ned Burton), the owner of the boarding house where Johnnie resides, marries Johnnie's mother when he finds out about the strike. Then he puts Johnnie's brothers and sisters to work at the factory. Gray, believing that Johnnie is responsible for this, stops seeing her. Attempts are made to take the silver mine from Johnnie's uncle, but eventually his rights are returned to him. Gray learns the truth about Johnnie's situation, and the couple are reunited. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Film pioneer J. Stuart Blackton tempered his old-fashioned approach with some welcome slapstick moments in this melodrama, which contained just about every rural cliché in the book. Struggling artist Paul Bixler (Lumsden Hare) leaves his family to commit suicide but the village busybody (Marcia Harris) tells his wife, Anne (Mary Carr), that he has run off with another woman. Meanwhile, the couple's daughter, Lisbeth (Madge Evans) is heart-broken when her sweetheart, David (James Morrison), becomes infatuated with a city flapper (Mary MacLaren). The river floods the village, but the townsfolk are saved by Captain Hammond (Burr McIntosh) and his boat, the Sarah Jane. Bixler reappears to rescue his wife, and Lisbeth rescues David, who finally realizes that she's the one for him. The boat catches fire and is forced to go to shore, but everyone is safe and happy. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Though silent star John Gilbert's talking pictures were habitual money-losers, the stubborn actor insisted that MGM honor his $250,000-per-picture contract, signed just before talkies came on. West of Broadway wasn't a bad Gilbert vehicle by any means, but the star's previous failures worked against its success. Gilbert is cast as cynical millionaire Jerry, who, after being snubbed by his sweetheart Anne (Madge Evans), marries Dot (Lois Moran) on the rebound -- and while blind stinking drunk. Sobering up, Jerry treats Dot atrociously, letting her know that he's not in love with her. By the time he realizes that he is, she has had enough of his oafish behavior and has walked out on him. The scene then shifts to Jerry's Arizona ranch, where after much verbal dueling, the reluctant husband is tenderly reunited with his now-forgiving wife. El Brendel, borrowed from Fox Studios, enlivens the picture with his trademarked Swedish-dialect humor. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The titular hands belong to Lionel Barrymore, who plays a prominent defense attorney. To save his daughter (Madge Evans) from a cad (Alan Mobray), Barrymore murders the man and arranges to make the deed look like suicide. The victim's mistress (Kay Francis) suspects foul play, but the lawyer has done his cover-up job too well. Barrymore very nearly pulls off his ruse--until the corpse itself has the "last word." The central gimmick of Guilty Hands, in which Barrymore establishes an alibi by positioning a revolving cardboard silhouette to create a continually moving shadow, was later appropriated for comic purposes in the Astaire-Rogers musical Gay Divorcee (34). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Clark Gable went from supporting actor to star in the space of one year with Sporting Blood, adapted from a novel by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan. Gable is top-billed as a gambling house proprietor named Rid Riddell. When the owner of a prize thoroughbred loses heavily in Riddell's establishment, he is forced to give up the horse to the gambler as security. Rid enters the horse in several honest races, then pulls the animal during a crucial race in order to collect big money on the losses; then he plans to dope up the horse to assure future wins. But when the horse loses, the gambler, deeply in debt to mobsters, transfers ownership to one of his female dealers (Madge Evans), and then drops out of the plotline. Clark Gable isn't really the lead in Sporting Blood--actually he's something of a rat--but he's the one whom everybody in the audience remembers long after the final fadeout. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this comedy-adventure, an enterprising young man devises a new kind of speedboat motor. The trouble begins when he tries test out his new invention in the big race and finds he needs a sponsor. Fortunately, the beautiful but haughty daughter of a prominent shipwright is around to help and hinder him. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide