Ernie S. Adams Movies

William Powell stars in this drama as William Foster, a gifted defense attorney with a gift for making cases go his way. Foster's winning record in the courtroom has earned him a colorful clientele, including several notorious criminals, but he doubts his abilities when his girlfriend Irene Manners (Kay Francis) is charged with manslaughter after a violent incident which occurred while she was drinking. Wanting to protect Irene, Foster tries to pull a few strings, but the results find Foster facing a five year sentence for jury tampering. While Foster certainly doesn't want to be separated from the woman he loves, he also knows that in prison he'll have to face several former clients whose defense didn't pan out. For The Defense was based in part on the true story of William Fallon, a well-known attorney of the day. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Clara Bow and her sister Jean Arthur are wisecracking department store employees with ever-roaming eyes for eligible bachelors--particularly those with fat bank accounts. Both girls fall for the same wealthy man (James Hall) but Bow temporarily loses out to Arthur, who is just a tad craftier and a whole lot nastier. On the occasion of a wild costume party, the truth of Arthur's gold-digging duplicity comes out, and true-blue Bow wins the hero. Saturday Night Kid is a remake of the 1926 silent film Love 'Em and Leave 'Em, in which the female leads were played by Evelyn Brent and Louise Brooks. Both films were based on a stage play by George Abbott--which, in turn, was adapted from a verse novel by Townsend Martin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gary Cooper, as a lanky Wyoming ranch and foreman, places his gun on a poker table after being insulted by one of the gamblers and intones, "If you want to call me that . . . smile." That much quoted line's origin is in this early sound version of the Owen Wister novel, The Virginian, directed by Victor Fleming. When the Virginian meets his old friend Steve (Richard Arlen), he gives him a job on his crew at the Box H Ranch near Medicine Bow, Wyoming. Newly arrived in town is the new schoolmarm, Molly Wood (Mary Brian), and both men take notice. Afterwards, in a saloon, The Virginian encounters the evil Trampas (Walter Huston), and the two get into an argument over a dancer. The Virginian calls Trampas' bluff but, although Trampas backs down, he seethes inside. Afterwards, following a christening party, The Virginian walks Molly back home, and a friendship grows between the two that burgeons into love. But when Steve joins up with Trampas and his gang of rustlers and is captured by a posse, The Virginian is forced to supervise Steve's lynching. After that, Molly spurns The Virginian. However, when The Virginian is wounded, Molly forgets all that, and nurses him back to health. They decide to finally marry, but Trampas interferes with their plans --Trampas wants The Virginian to leave town, and he is out gunning for him. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

This was comedian Harold Lloyd's last silent film, and one of his most charming. Lloyd's character here is called Harold "Speedy" Swift, an upbeat young man whose fatal attraction for baseball always causes him to lose his jobs. After his latest firing, he impulsively spends a day at Coney Island with his sweetheart, Jane Dillon (Ann Christy). Ann's grandfather, Pop Dillon (Bert Woodruff), meanwhile, has a dilemma -- he runs the last horse-drawn trolley in New York City, and the railway magnates desperately want his route. Since Pop won't sell it to them, they plan to get it by underhanded means. Pop must make his rounds at least once every 24 hours, so the magnates hire thugs to stop him. Speedy hears about this plan and, being gainfully unemployed, takes over the route to protect the old man. But the magnates then steal the trolley, and the climax of the film involves Speedy's dash to find the trolley and get it back to its route before the 24 hours are up. He makes it just in time and then forces the magnates to buy the route for a cool 100,000 dollars. This picture was shot on location in a Manhattan that now looks almost quaint for all its concrete and steel. Baseball legend Babe Ruth had a cameo role, playing himself as a very harassed fare when Speedy is working as a cabbie. Their wild ride ends at the old Yankee Stadium. Other historically interesting sites include Coney Island's Luna Park, and Columbus Circle and Wall Street as they were in 1928. In the film's climax, the trolley has a spectacular crash at the Brooklyn Bridge -- this accident was not planned, but was left in the film anyhow. At the time of this picture's release, Lloyd was a top box-office draw, a bigger moneymaker than Charlie Chaplin (whose releases during the '20s was infrequent) and Buster Keaton (whose quirky comedy wouldn't be fully appreciated for several decades). While Lloyd made some fairly amusing sound films, he never again matched the quality of his silent work. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The freewheeling direction of Gregory LaCava helps to enliven the otherwise standard actioner The Gay Defender. Decked out with sideburns and mustache, Richard Dix stars as real-life outlaw Joaquin Murietta, who (according to this film, anyway) is a latter-day Robin Hood, dedicated to driving land-grabbers and corrupt politicians out of Spanish California. The fictional love interest, played by Thelma Todd (long before establishing herself as a comedienne), is Ruth Ainsworth, the daughter of a United States commissioner whose murder Murietta hopes to avenge. A festival of cliches, the film manages to avoid the most obvious plot ploy of all: the attack on the heroine by the villains (the girl manages to get through the entire picture without having to be rescued). The Joaquin Murietta story would be told again -- once more with scant fidelity to the facts -- in 1936's Robin Hood of El Dorado. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Priscilla Dean made a name for herself in the silent era by playing lady crooks for Universal. By the mid-'20s, however, her star was fading fast and she was acting in low-budget independent films. Here she plays Margarita Sloane, a book agent who discovers that she is heir to her uncle's estate. She goes to his rancho and finds it is next door to a graveyard. From that moment on, a number of strange things happen. An Indian squaw (Marie Percivale) shows up with a chest containing the dead man's "legacy." Lawyer Maclyn Mills (John Bowers) arrives to inform Margarita that there is a mortgage on the property, but he is able to translate a piece of parchment she finds. It's a map to some buried treasure on an island. The map is promptly stolen by a tattooed man named Pedro (Walter Long). Margarita and Mills arrive at the island to find that Pedro and his cronies are already there. The men find the treasure, and Pedro tries to double-cross them. Margarita takes the jewels herself and Pedro goes after her. Both of them fall off a cliff into the shark-infested waters. A shark devours Pedro, while Mills rescues Margarita. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Somewhat convoluted for an inexpensive silent Western, this film starred the laconic Bob Custer in the title role, a rancher helping a girl (Eugenia Gilbert) and her brother (Ernie Adams) defeat their evil stepfather. The latter (Murdock MacQuarrie) is forcing Rose to work in Blake's (Lew Meehan) saloon, and when Baxter interferes, Blake kidnaps her. The saloon owner, however, is killed by Jim Dodds (Jim Corey), whose gang of rustlers has been stealing cattle from the ranch belonging to Silas Brant (Hugh Saxon), Baxter's father. After a furious fight, Dodds and his men are finally brought to justice, paving the way for a marriage between Baxter and Rose. Hair Trigger Baxter was but one in a series of cheap Westerns produced by Jesse J. Goldburg's Independent Pictures. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Recovering war veterans Bob Custer and Tom Bay rescue ranch-owner Eugenia Gilbert and a little French war orphan (Bobby Nelson) from a nasty villain planning to rob them blind. One of producer Jesse J. Goldburg's penny-pinching little silent westerns, The Valley of Bravery had an above-average cast that included turn-of-the-century stage idol William Gillespie as the mustache-twirling villain and director Frank Nelson's little son, Bobby, as the imperiled orphan. Bobby Nelson later starred as the "Pioneer Kid" in one of Universal's last silent 2-reel series. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Having tackled a wagon train in the immensely popular The Covered Wagon (1922), James Cruze directed this would-be epic centered on the famed Pony Express. This time, however, audiences stayed away in droves. Cruze's old-fashioned staging was foremost to blame. He portrayed pretty vistas but little movement in his epics and Pony Express of course even lacked the novelty aspects that had made "Wagon" a box-office success. Austrian-born Ricardo Cortez starred as a gambler who joins the delivery service during the time of California's impending statehood. There is the obligatory Indian attack and a nasty villain played to the hilt by George Bancroft. Still and all, this silent version is superior in almost all aspects to the even more slow-moving 1953 remake starring Charlton Heston. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Pennsylvania-born action star Charles Hutchison plays the title role in this silent adventure about a globetrotting reporter who lands in the middle of a revolution in the Republic of Guadala. General Moreno (Frank Leigh) is planning to overthrow President Bonilla (Alphonse Martell) and establish a dictatorship, but Hutch, who has fallen in love with the general's innocent ward (Edith Thornton), manages to prevent disaster. A favorite with the small fry, Charles Hutchison enjoyed a huge following in the 1920s, despite the often ramshackle appearance of his endeavors. Leading lady Edith Thornton was Mrs. Hutchison in real life. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The story to this melodrama came from one of the "Limehouse" stories written by Thomas Burke, the same author who wrote the original Broken Blossoms story. Unfortunately this tale is no Broken Blossoms -- Shirley Mason, while being a fine little comedienne, is no Lillian Gish, and director Maurice Elvey was certainly no D.W. Griffith. Big Bill Branigan (Wallace MacDonald), one of the tough characters of London's Limehouse district, falls in love with Curlytop (Mason) because of her sweet innocence. He leaves his sweetheart, Bessie (Diana Miller), for her and resolves to go straight. When he sets out to find a job, the jealous Bessie gets Curlytop drunk and hacks off her long curls. Curlytop runs away and gets a job as a waitress on a floating barge owned by Shanghai Dan (Warner Oland), the head of a gang of Chinese crooks. Branigan returns to find Curlytop gone, and when he finds her curls in Bessie's possession he forces her to reveal her whereabouts. He saves Curlytop just as she is about to be hypnotized by Dan. Another ship crashes into the barge and Dan is killed, while the couple are reunited. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide