Douglas Gilmore Movies

In this western, the leader of an outlaw band gets conned on a steamship voyage. To get revenge he holds the con man's fearless sister hostage in the mining town he calls home base. The two fall in love. Another band of desperados attacks the town. A shoot-out ensues and only the gang leader and the girl survive. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A socially prominent wife must choose between avoiding scandal and her own happiness in this British drama. According to social convention, the wife is expected to gracefully ignore her husband's constant philandering, and under no circumstances can she get a divorce. But her husband's actions are difficult to ignore as he is sleeping with her brother's wife. She decides to escape and head for Switzerland. There she gets involved with another. Meanwhile, her husband and his lover are killed in an automobile crash. When the wife explains that the two were en route to meet her and her lover, a major scandal erupts and her social status is destroyed. Fortunately, she is now free to marry her new love and happiness ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

No one was surprised in 1929 that aviation mogul Howard R. Hughes would produce a paean to World War I flying aces like Hell's Angels. Given Hughes' comparative inexperience as a moviemaker, however, everyone was taken slightly aback that the finished film was as good as it was. The very American Ben Lyon and James Hall play (respectively) Monte and Roy Rutledge, a couple of British brothers who drop out of Oxford to join the British Royal Flying Corps. Several early scenes establish Lyon and Hall's romantic rivalry over two-timing socialite Helen (Jean Harlow). While flying a dangerous bombing mission over Germany, the brothers are shot down. The commandant (Lucien Prival), who'd earlier been cuckolded by one of the brothers, savors his opportunity for revenge. He offers the boys their freedom if they'll reveal the time of the next British attack; if they don't cooperate, they face unspeakable consequences. Roy, driven mad by his combat experiences, is about to tell all when he is shot and killed by Monte. The latter is himself condemned to a firing squad by the disgruntled commandant -- who, it is implied, will soon meet his own doom at the hands of the British bombers. Nobody really cares about this hoary old plot, however; Hell's Angels culls most of its strength from its crackerjack aerial sequences. The highlight is a Zeppelin raid over London, one of the most hauntingly effective sequences ever put on film. From the first ghost-like appearance of the Zeppelin breaking through the clouds, to the self-sacrificing behavior of the German crew members as they jump to their deaths rather than provide "excess weight," this is a scene that lingers in the memory far longer than all that good-of-the-service nonsense in the finale. Also worth noting is the star-making appearance of Jean Harlow. When Hell's Angels was begun as a silent film, Norwegian actress Greta Nissen played the female lead. During the switchover to sound, producer Hughes decided that her accent was at odds with her characterization, so he reshot her scenes with his latest discovery, Harlow. While she appears awkward in some of her scenes, there's no clumsiness whatsoever in her delivery of the classic line about slipping into "something more comfortable." Originally, Marshall Neilan was signed to direct the film, but became so rattled by Howard Hughes' interference that he handed the reins to Hughes himself, who was in turn given an uncredited assist by Luther Reed. Also ignored in the film's credits are the dialogue contributions by future Frankenstein director James Whale, who'd been hired as the film's English-dialect coach. Modern audiences expecting a musty museum piece are generally surprised by Hell's Angels' high entertainment content: they are also startled by the pre-code frankness of the dialogue, with phrases like "The hell with you" bandied about with reckless abandon. In recent years, archivists have restored the film's two-color Technicolor sequence, providing us with our only color glimpses of the radiant Jean Harlow. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, an early talky, a horse race determines a woman's romantic fate. The trouble begins when she finds herself falling deeply in love with a handsome songwriter. Unfortunately, she is already betrothed to a real cad. When her fiance finds out that she loves another, he decides to frame the conductor for a crime. When she finds about the crime, the girl believes him and her heart breaks. In hopes of being able to gracefully break off the engagement she makes a deal with her fiance: if her horse (whom she thinks is a sure thing) loses the Kentucky Derby, she will become his unwilling bride. Unfortunately, the horse does indeed lose and the woman must honor her bet. Fortunately, just before her wedding day she attends a concert and who should be conducting but her true love. Realizing that the conductor is innocent and romantic bliss ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this drama, an impoverished girl defies her mother and marries her employer. When she becomes pregnant, her husband accuses her of adultery and casts her out. She then moves to a boardinghouse where she is befriended by a sympathetic writer who turns her sad tale into a best seller and hit play. When the husband reads about himself, he feels bad and begs for his wife's forgiveness. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

"Rough House Rosie" Reilly (Clara Bow) just can't seem to stay out of trouble. Hoping to become a Broadway actress, Rosie gets mixed up with rowdies and ends up in jail. Much the same thing happens when she tries to crash High Society. Eventually, Rosie finds her true niche in life when she falls in love with handsome prizefighter Joe Hennessey (Reed Howes) and helps him to win the championship bout by using her goo-goo eyes to distract his opponent. Arthur Houseman, later one of screendom's favorite "comic drunks," plays a comparatively straight role as gambler Kid Farrell, while Joseph W. Girard, perennial police chief in many a talkie serial, goes through his usual paces here. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The madness begins when J.P. and May Smith (Conrad Nagel, Claire Windsor) celebrate their second wedding anniversary with a trip to Paris. Succumbing to the charms of the City of Light, J.P. forsakes fidelity to pursue a sexy masked cabaret dancer. Finding out about her husband's galavanting, May discovers that the mysterious dancer is actually the wife of her former ballet teacher. Together, the ladies hatch a plan whereby May will pose as the dancer and teach her errant hubby a lesson. Incidentally, the dancer is played by Hedda Hopper, long before launching her career as a Hollywood gossip columnist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Love's Blindness was another bit of hothouse exotica from romance novelist and self-appointed social arbiter Madame Elinor Glyn. This is the story of Jewish maiden Vanessa Levy (Pauline Starke), the daughter of a somewhat disreputable moneylender (Sam De Grasse). Deeply in debt to Vanessa's father, British nobleman Hubert Culverdale (Antonio Moreno) agrees to marry the girl to square his account. Culverdale lets Vanessa know from the outset that she's not "his kind," and that any sort of romance between them is quite out of the question. Eventually, however, the snobbish hero is won over by the heroine's sincerity and devotion. It says something about Elinor Glyn's salability in 1926 that, reportedly, her bungalow at MGM was larger than the one occupied by Love's Blindness star Pauline Starke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide