George Field Movies

The focus of this heartfelt family film is Skeeter (Brandon de Wilde), a 14-year-old orphan who lives with his aged Uncle Jesse (Walter Brennan) in the swamps of the deep South. Their lives are brightened by a stray dog that Skeeter discovers and takes in. He makes the basenji his own, but eventually finds out that the dog is missing and its owner has posted a reward for its return. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

Paramount gave their newest star, an adolescent Douglas Fairbanks Jr., every advantage in his film debut. As support, young Fairbanks had some of the best talent from the studio's stock company, including renowned scene-stealer Theodore Roberts and Harry Myers, who had recently impressed in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. The young actor himself received polite notices for his performance as Stephen Harlow Jr., who fails a class in Turkish history, and, as a result, can't graduate from college. His irate father, Stephen Sr. (Roberts), who has endowed the college, sends his boy to Turkey to learn some history firsthand and fires the professor, Mr. Gilman (James O. Barrows). When he discovers that professor Gilman has been discharged, Stephen Jr. becomes determined to get him his job back -- but first he gets involved in a Turkish revolution, led by the villainous Muley Pasha (Noah Beery Sr.), and rescues the sultan's son (Pat Moore). For his heroic acts, Stephen Jr. receives the Grand Cross of the Crescent, and he sends it to Gilman, claiming that it is for books he wrote on Turkish history. The college, seeing that Gilman is a man of prominence and distinction, reinstates him, and Stephen returns home to a proud father. This film was based on Richard Harding Davis' adventure story The Grand Cross of the Crescent. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Jack Holt plays Sam Sandell, an American engineer working in India who rescues a pretty half-caste girl (Aileen Pringle) from a tiger's attack, but is badly wounded himself. The girl, Chameli Brentwood, nurses him back to health and out of gratitude he marries her, ignoring the fact that he has a fiancée, Harriet Halehurst (Eva Novak), back home. The couple had argued before Sandell left the States, and Harriet shows up in India hoping for a reconciliation. Instead she finds that Sandell has decided to stay with his new bride. But in the racially prejudiced 1920s, this could never be a satisfactory denouement, so the scenarists get Chameli out of the way by making her unfaithful. She runs off with Raj Singh (Bertram Grassby) -- "a man of her own race," noted trade paper Motion Picture News -- then dies, conveniently enabling Sandell and Harriet to reconcile. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

A young cowboy turns vigilante after his father is killed in this fine silent Western filmed on location in blistering Southern Arizona. With revenge on his mind, Bob Haddington (Jack Holt) turns himself into Velantrie, the leader of a gang of outlaws. At a mission, he meets and falls for Val Hannon (Bebe Daniels), the daughter of John Hannon (Will R. Walling), a wealthy rancher. In a case of mistaken identity, Bob is accused of cattle rustling but discovers to his horror that the real culprit is his new girlfriend's father. Not only that, but Hannon, hiding under the nickname "Black Rustler," is also the villain who killed Bob's father. In an act of supreme sacrifice, the young man exchanges places with his father's killer and is about to be hanged when Val arrives with proof of his innocence. North of the Rio Grande was based on the 1921 novel Val of Paradise by Vingie E. Roe. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Veteran silent-screen vamp Dorothy Dalton starred in this commonplace western based on Vingie E. Roe's story, Tharon of Last Valley. Dalton's Tharon Last is a plucky rancher out to avenge the murder of her father (Will R. Walling). As it turns out, the girl is up against a conspiracy that also includes the local judge and sheriff. Tharon learns how to handle a gun or two, however, and manages to nail the murderer (Frank Campeau). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Now completely forgotten, J. Warren Kerrigan was once a close competitor to Broncho Billy Anderson, widely regarded as the first true Western star. While Anderson founded his own company, Essanay, to produce Westerns, Kerrigan toiled for the American Film Manufacturing Company of Santa Barbara, CA. A former male model, Kerrigan's vogue lasted through the mid-1910s, but his career was on the wane when he filmed the prophetically titled The End of the Game for independent producer W.W. Hodkinson. Kerrigan plays a Southern gentleman heading West to seek his fortune in the California gold fields. Once there, he falls for a girl (Lois Wilson), whose brother is murdered. The hero, who has toughened up considerably during the long trek West, chases down the killer, an evil saloon keeper (Jack Richardson). J. Warren Kerrigan was a bit too delicate to remain a top action star, and it came as a complete surprise when director James Cruze chose him for the lead in the quintessential wagon-trail epic, The Covered Wagon (1923), which re-teamed him with Lois Wilson. The success of that film owed more to eye-opening shots of the wagon train itself than Kerrigan's performance, and he retired from the screen following yet another blockbuster, Captain Blood (1924). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This was one of an endless parade of pictures shot during World War I which used its intrigues as a backdrop. English Army Captain C.J. Woodhouse (Lewis Stone) has to track down a German spy and halt a plan which involves the Germans blowing up both the rock of Gibraltar and a group of British navy ships, which happen to be docked nearby. Jane Gerson (Marguerite Clayton), a buyer from New York, encounters Captain Woodhouse and serves as both love interest and a clue to the spy's identification. Lewis Stone and Marguerite Clayton both starred in the stage version of this picture, and they were hired to repeat their rolls here. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

A huge undertaking in its day, this 30 chapter serial is arguably the best known film to emerge from the American "Flying A" company of Santa Barbara, California. The company had offered Mary Pickford a staggering $4000 a week to star as the serial's imperiled heroine. "America's Sweetheart" sweetly declined but suggested her sister, Lottie Pickford, instead. Still hoping to exploit the Pickford name, American hired Lottie despite her well-known trouble with alcohol and an increasingly obvious pregnancy. Former cameraman Jacques Jaccard co-wrote the screenplay (with Roy L. McCardell, a Chicago newspaperman who had won a cash prize of $10,000 for coming up with the best story) and directed 10 episodes before he found himself stuck. Enter William Desmond Taylor, the company's latest acquisition, who finished the serial on time and under budget. The Diamond from the Sky had everything: babies switched at birth, mysterious gypsies, a poisonous femme fatale (Charlotte Burton), cliffhangers galore, all packaged in a story about a priceless gem that fell from the sky in a meteor. The producers pronounced it "The Serial Wonderful," and most audiences agreed. As a token of their esteem and gratitude, the board of directors at American presented Taylor with a two-carat diamond ring, a piece of jewelry the director still wore when he was found shot to death in his Los Angeles bungalow, February 1, 1922. A brief four episode sequel -- entitled, rather soberly, The Sequel to The Diamond from the Sky -- was released without much fanfare in 1916. By then everyone concerned had tired of the darn thing. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide