Elsie Ferguson Movies
Elsie Ferguson starred in many Hollywood silent films during the late 1910s. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1930
In rare film appearance, Broadway luminary Elsie Ferguson repeats her 1929 stage role in the 1930 film version of Scarlet Pages. Ferguson is cast as brilliant attorney Mary Bancroft, who defends nightclub songstress Nora Mason (Marian Nixon) from a murder charge. The victim was Nora's rapacious stepfather, who died while trying to assault the girl. As the trial progresses, Mary comes to the startling realization that Nora is her own out-of-wedlock daughter, given up for adoption years earlier. The film is a typical early-talkie bore, but it's worth enduring to watch the great Elsie Ferguson give her all to her art. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elsie Ferguson, John Halliday, (more)
- 1925
Simple country girl Rose Kirby (Patsy Ruth Miller) is heartbroken when the wealthy parents of her sweetheart Jack Talbot (Alan Forrest) look down on her in this sentimental melodrama. Both go on to marry other people, but Jack never forgets her and even includes her in his will. Years later, Rose and Jack are reunited when their respective spouses die, giving them a second chance at happiness. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Patsy Ruth Miller, Allan Forrest, (more)
- 1925
Elsie Ferguson stars in this routine society drama. Elaine Kent (Ferguson) weds Kenneth Billings (Frank Mayo), a young man who has a taste for wild living. She attempts to reform him and his exasperated father (Arthur Donaldson) disinherits him. Now that he is without money, Kenneth starts a dye business and he proceeds to throw himself into it with the same amount of effort he once spent on the high life. As a result, he overworks until he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His doctor orders him to rest, but he refuses to listen. Elaine, worried that her husband will kill himself, manipulates the situation so that a rival company wins a much-desired contract. This leaves Kenneth on the verge of ruin, and when he believes that Elaine is in love with a former suitor, he leaves. Eventually his health returns and he and Elaine are reunited. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Frank Mayo, Mildred Harris, (more)
- 1924
Ultra suave Adolph Menjou plays an urbane, filthy rich bachelor who finds himself falling for a socialite just as carefree as he. At first he is delighted by her gadabout ways, but after a while her cocquettish ways towards others begin to grate upon him. Deciding he needs a break from shallowness he lets a room in a boarding house for theater people. There he meets a struggling ex-convict. Her prison record causes her to lose her job. Smitten by her beauty and earthiness, the playboy takes her in and tries to help her integrate into his glittering world by telling people that she is his ward. things are finally looking up when a crooked detective appears and tries to blackmail her. Fortunately, her millionaire hero isn't about to let her life be destroyed again. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Adolphe Menjou, Norma Shearer, (more)
- 1922
This picture was based on the stage play by Hubert Henry Davies and starred Elsie Ferguson, who reprised her role for the screen. When her husband deserts her, Miriam Moore (Ferguson) gets work as a model, but then she loses her job and is evicted from her apartment when she can't pay the rent. While she is wandering through the streets, a young tough accosts Miriam, but Tony Hewlett (William David) rescues her. His friend Geoffrey Sherwood (David Powell) has him invite Miriam up to his Park Avenue home. Sherwood is drunk and pining away for his sweetheart, Valentine (Mary MacLaren), who has married another man for his wealth. When Miriam tells Sherwood her troubles, his don't seem as bad. He helps her out and eventually they form a business partnership. Miriam comes to love Sherwood but he still misses Valentine, who finally decides she's had enough of her husband, John Moreland (Charles Wellesley), and comes back. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elsie Ferguson, Dave Powell, (more)
- 1921
Elsie Ferguson plays aspiring New England actress Lizzie Parsons in this light comedy, based on a Saturday Evening Post story by Rita Weiman. With the help of her sympathetic grandmother (Letty Ford), Lizzie makes it to New York, but her stage career goes absolutely nowhere until she meets manager Oswald Kane (Marc MacDermott). With Kane's help, she changes from Lizzie Parsons to the temperamental Russian dramatic actress Lisa Parsinova and becomes a huge star. Her true identity is kept a deep, dark secret, even from Brett Page (Reginald Denny), the man-about-town who falls for her. But Lizzie's maid, Etta (Octavia Handworth), discovers the truth and uses her knowledge to blackmail her. Finally Lizzie tires of the whole ruse and decides to fake Lisa's death. She goes out rowing and is thought drowned. But Brett, who has discovered her real identity, tracks her down. He decides that he loves Lizzie even more than he loved Lisa and they wed. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elsie Ferguson, Reginald Denny, (more)
- 1921
Elsie Ferguson, who played the role of Carlotta Peel on stage, also starred in the film. Carlotta's aunt (Helen Dunbar has kept her innocent of the facts of life, but then the girl meets pianist Emilie Diaz (Conrad Nagel), who is all-too willing to show them to her. On the night he seduces Carlotta, her aunt dies. Left on her own, Carlotta goes to London and becomes a famous author. Her publisher, Frank Ispenlove (Thomas Holding), falls in love with her. Unfortunately, there is also a Mrs. Ispenlove (Winifred Greenwood), so Carlotta rejects him, even after he has followed her to France. In misery, he commits suicide. Carlotta, meanwhile, finds Diaz in Paris. He has become an absinthe addict, and she sets out to regenerate him. With her help, he once again achieves renown as a pianist. Thus their profane love becomes sacred. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elsie Ferguson, Conrad Nagel, (more)
- 1921
aka Forever George du Maurier's classic novel was made into a play by John Raphael which starred John and Lionel Barrymore. In their places, the film version had lesser lights Wallace Reid and Montagu Love playing Peter and his uncle, Colonel Ibbetson, respectively. Peter is an orphan raised by his uncle, but when Colonel Ibbetson insults his dead mother, Peter attacks him and is ordered from the house. Then the young man runs into his childhood sweetheart, Mimsi (Elsie Ferguson), and their romantic feelings are rekindled. Unfortunately, Mimsi has married, but they carry on a love affair in their dreams. Their dream-affair continues over the years, even after Peter kills his uncle and is given a life prison sentence. After their death, the lovers reunite in the astral world. This lyrical, highly romantic story was not exactly the kind of material that went over in the hinterlands, so to remove any literary pretensions, Paramount retitled the picture Forever for release out side of the New York area. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wallace Reid, Elsie Ferguson, (more)
- 1919
Elsie Ferguson, one of the lesser stars of the day, manages to overcome the poor direction, photography and plot of this film. In it she plays a wealthy young girl whose family falls on hard times when her father dies. She tries to find work but is unable to support herself. To keep from starving, she marries a rich man (Wyndham Standing). However, she finds her attention wandering towards Kenneth Gordon (Lionel Atwill). Intrigued by his slick style, she considers running off with him, but in the end she takes a new look at her husband and discovers that she does love him after all. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1919
Stage star Elsie Ferguson gives moving pictures a try in Counterfeit. Elsie plays a woman of mystery who takes a vacation in Newport. Coinciding with her visit is a flood of counterfeit money that has popped up in every merchant's cash register within a radius of fifty miles. It looks for a while as though Elsie is the culprit, but don't be so sure. A "surprising ending" that any astute member of the audience could have seen coming from Reel One caps this enjoyable star vehicle. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1919
Elsie Ferguson has a dual role, as mother and daughter, in this tale of gambling fever. Chichita (Ferguson) has a gambler father who is murdered, and later on she marries another gambler, who shoots himself. When she meets yet another gambler, Nick Delano (Warner Oland), she marries him too, and sends her daughter Helene (also Ferguson) to a convent, with John Harvey (Fred Esmelton) as her guardian. Years later, Chichita, now known as Madame Delano, runs a fashionable gambling hall with her husband. Helene, who has married Price Ruyler (Lumsden Hare), comes to the establishment, but is not aware that her mother is its proprietor. She has inherited her father's gambling bug and soon she has gone through all her money and pawned her jewels. She owes thousands of dollars to Delano, who threatens to expose her if she does not pay up. Madame Delano finds out that Helene is her daughter and tries to make a partial payment for her. This does not satisfy Delano, who attacks Helene. In the struggle he falls off a balcony and dies. The police show up, but Madame Delano puts on Helene's wrap and hat and is taken away in her place. She is sent to prison for murder and kills herself so that she won't bring shame down on her daughter. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1918
Film star Dorothy Phillips courageously tackled one of the most complex roles ever written when she starred in this 1917 adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's The Doll's House. That Phillips was not quite up to the challenge was readily apparent to the critics, but fans of the actress were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Retaining all the cynicism and bleakness of the stage original, the film charts the progress of the long-suffering Nora Helvsted (Phillips) as she matures from "trophy wife" to Her Own Woman. The film's highlight, like the play, was the climax, when Nora literally and symbolically slams the door on her dunderheaded, patronizing husband Torvald (William Stowell). The film's best performance was delivered by Lon Chaney Sr. as the blackmailing Nils Krogstad. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1918
No relation to the Kathleen Norris best-seller of the same name, the 1918 production Rose of the World was based on a novel by Agnes and Edgerton Castle. Elsie Ferguson stars as Rosamond English, the widow of India-based British officer Capt. Harry English (Wyndham Standing). Not long after returning to London in the company of her second husband Sir Gerardine (Clarence Handysides), Rosamond agrees to collaborate with Lt. Bethune (Percy Marmont) in writing a biography of her late first husband. In the process, she realizes that she is still in love with her deceased spouse and desperately begs her Indian maidservant Jani (Marie Benedetta), a self-styled mystic, to bring back her husband in spirit form. Much to her astonishment, Captain English suddenly appears before her, very much alive. The explanation for English's "resurrection" was distressingly logical, robbing the film of its carefully nurtured exotic ambience. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1918
The always reliable Elsie Ferguson stars in Danger Mark. Made before the advent of nationwide Prohibition, the film is a hard-hitting indictment of the evils of alcohol. Ferguson plays a society girl whose life is ruined by her fondness for the grape. She manages to pull herself together in time to rescue her boy friend (Mahlon Hamilton) from likewise drinking himself into oblivion. It's a creaky tale, but Elsie Ferguson saves the proceedings with her subtle underplaying. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1917
Jennie Cushing (Elsie Ferguson), a girl of the slums, decides to get even with the world after undeservedly spending several years in reform school. Casting convention to the winds, she becomes the live-in lover of aristocratic artist Donelson Meigs (Elliot Dexter). He wants to make their relationship legal, but she doesn't want to ruin his life and walks out on him. Though the film is predicated on the "progressive" notion of an open romantic relationship (aka "Free Love"), things are tied up nicely and neatly at the end when Jennie goes the traditional matrimonial route after all. The Rise of Jennie Cushing was based on a novel by Mary S. Wetts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1917
Based on a novel by Robert Hitchen, Barbary Sheep was set in Algiers. The heroine, Lady Katherine Wyverne (Elsie Ferguson), forsakes her neglectful sportsman husband (Lumsden Hare) in favor of a handsome and charismatic Arab chieftain named Benchaalal (Pedro de Cordoba). Though nothing of an untoward nature happens, Lady Katherine's recklessness may very well cost her reputation and social standing. A last-minute intervention by her husband, who under the circumstances is quite reasonable, rescues the heroine from disgrace. Credit director Maurice Tourneur for making this relatively uneventful domestic drama seem more important than it actually was. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
