Olive Hasbrouck Movies

This 1929 drama about mistaken identities contains three eight minute scenes that involve talking. The rest of the film is silent and subtitled. The trouble begins when the hero follows a pretty lady aboard an ocean liner. He boards the ship using the name of his friend who was supposed to take the cruise for health reasons. The friend was told that if he did not board the boat, he would not receive his inheritance. Unfortunately for the hero, a male nurse believes that he is the sick friend and forces him to stay in the cabin and subsist upon a diet of goat's milk. He is finally able to escape the nurse and search for the girl. Unfortunately, a band of jewel thieves sees him and mistakes him for a detective. The robbers are after the girl's necklace. The nurse finds the hero and forces him back to the cabin explaining to the crew that the man is crazy. Later the hapless hero unknowingly thwarts the thieves, gets away from the nurse, and finally gets the girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Invited to stage a Wild West show at a dude ranch, rodeo king Bill Hammon (Hoot Gibson) makes an impressive arrival by parachuting into the swimming pool from an airplane in this fanciful Western-comedy produced by Universal. A couple of jewel thieves briefly ruin what otherwise would be a pleasant stay for Hammond. The rodeo cowboy quickly brings the villains to justice and is free to romance lovely Connie Lamont (Olive Hasbrouck). Gibson enjoyed these less than action-packed comedy-Westerns, in which his rustic humor took center stage over smoking guns and fisticuffs. Enough folks agreed to make Gibson Universal's top-grossing cowboy. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

One of the better "Abie's Irish Rose" derivations of the late 1920s, The Shamrock and the Rose was adapted from a play by Owen Davis Sr. Set in New York's Lower East Side, "where the melting pot boils over," it's the story of a Jewish girl (Olive Hasbrouck) who falls in love with an Irish boy (Edmund Burns). While the hero's parents are delighted at the prospect of his marriage, the girl's mother and father are beside themselves, prompting the heroine to consider converting to Catholicism. She is diverted from this course by an understanding priest (former matinee idol Maurice Costello, in a very minor role) who exhorts her to take pride in her Hebraic heritage. The differences between the two families are settled comedically a year or so later, when the heroine is rushed to the maternity hospital. The film's best performance is delivered by Keystone veteran Mack Swain as the hero's boisterous father. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The stolid Jack Hoxie comes to the rescue of the Follies Bergere in this otherwise routine silent Western. The touring show's soubrette, Jeanne D'Arcy (Alma Rayford), as it turns out, is the long-lost daughter of Westerner John D'Arcy (William Malan). While she is performing at the town opera house, D'Arcy is found murdered and young Jack is accused of the heinous deed. The cowboy flees from the authorities and finds a hiding place in Jeanne's dressing room. Disguised as the show's mystic, he manages to unmask the real killer, D'Arcy's ne'er-do-well nephew, Steve Clayton (William Norton Bailey), who was about to be disinherited. This whodunit Western proved Jack Hoxie's final film for Universal. The now veteran action star faced an uncertain future in the new sound films and chose to leave films in favor of personal appearances. He returned in 1932 for what was to become his final series, six bottom-of-the-barrel Westerns produced by low-budget Majestic Film Corp. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The incredible success of the Broadway comedy Abie's Irish Rose sent movie producers scurrying abot for similar "Catholic-Jewish romance" yarns. First on the scene was Universal's Carl Laemmle, who purchased an obscure theatrical piece titled Just Next Door and transformed it into The Cohens and the Kellys. Jacob Cohen (George Sidney) is a Jewish dry-goods merchant, while Patrick Kelly (Charlie Murray) is an Irish cop. Though they carry on a grumpy-old-man feud, one gets the feeling that the two guys would really like each other were the circumstances right. Those circumstances are forced upon them when Jacob's daughter Nannie Cohen (Olive Hasbrouck) secretly marries Patrick's son. Once the truth comes out, there's a lot of anguish, hand-wringing and denunciations, but all turns out well when the Cohens and the Kellys become business partners. Universal managed to parlay The Cohens and Kellys into a series of feature films, which extended well into the talkie era; many of the follow-up films also starred Charlie Murray and George Sidney, who later teamed for a group of Columbia 2-reelers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

One of Jack Hoxie's best surviving silent Westerns, Border Sheriff makes an exciting detour to both a drug conference in Washington, D.C., and a knock-down brawl in a Chinatown dive. Hoxie is investigating drug smuggling on the border to Mexico. On his way West from the conference in Washington, he makes the acquaintance of pretty Joan Belden (Olive Hasbrouck) and her father (Tom Lingham). The latter is met in San Francisco by his oily business partner Carter Brace (real-life lawyer turned outlaw turned movie actor Al Jennings), who, as it turns out, is the brains behind the smuggling scheme. Hoxie makes a dashing figure in civilian garb (complete with rakish cap) and diminutive Gilbert "Pee Wee" Holmes is quite amusing as his dreamy sidekick. One very funny sequence has Hoxie hurrying to catch a train, dragging Holmes along by his suspenders. Equally amusing, but unintentionally so, is a scene where Hoxie, a well-known rodeo star, accidentally falls off his horse Scout. For reasons known only to Universal, the sequence made it into the released print. Even the romantic denouement in this fast-paced, well-written Western is inventive; handcuffed to Hoxie, Miss Hasbrouck inquires if she is to be taken off to jail. "No," comes the laconic answer, "to the minister." Playing Hoxie's foreman in the film is Bert De Marc, who later functioned as animal trainer on the star's real-life spread, the Broken Arrow Ranch. Director Robert N. Bradbury was the father of B-Western star Bob Steele. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this silent Western, popular genre star Fred Thomson was given a new sidekick in six-year-old Billy Butts, a fair-haired boy actor who could ride with the best of them. Fred, as Fred Saunders, rescues little Buddy, an orphan, from being trampled to death by a runaway horse. Saunders soon becomes so attached to the plucky tyke that he "kidnaps" him from the orphanage. The two of them recover money stolen from the collection plate at the local church and Fred falls in love with the minister's daughter, June (Lola Todd). Things turn serious, however, when little Buddy is kidnapped for real, this time by a gang headed by Con Carney (Robert McKim). The Western climaxes in a daring rescue of Buddy, who proves to be June's long-lost kid brother. Billy Butts went on to star opposite Fox cowboy Rex Bell and later replaced Jackie Morgan in the popular "Gumps" two-reeler. His waif-like qualities didn't survive into puberty, however, and Butts retired from films at age 17. Like so many of his FBO Westerns, The Tough Guy was written by Thomson's wife, Frances Marion, under the pseudonym "Frank M. Clifton." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Jack Hoxie's dog, Bunk, takes center stage in this amusing little silent Western from the Universal assembly-line. Hoxie's discovery of the stolen payroll from the B. B. Ranch is interrupted by the robbers. Happily, Bunk manages to escape with the loot, which he buries in a secret place. The clever pooch then tunnels under a wall and frees the tied-up Hoxie. The gang is apprehended in no time flat and Hoxie is revealed to be a Texas Ranger. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Veteran serial star William Desmond earned a rare opportunity to play comedy in this well-received Universal western about an Arizona cowboy forced to live in a San Francisco mansion for a year. The cowboy, Sky Parker, is willed a fortune by an eccentric uncle but can only claim the inheritance after spending a year at the uncle's Nob Hill estate. Parker, who arrives with a retinue of five unruly cowpunchers, gets into all kinds of humorous situations, very much as a certain clan of hillbillies would decades later on television. Sky's evil cousin Miller (Stanhope Wheatcroft) hires a dancing girl, Maize (Ann Forrest), to further lead the cowboy astray, but she of course falls for the charming rustic and refuses to comply. But when Sky asks Maize to marry him, she guiltily takes the next train out of town. Undeterred, Sky chases the train, first in a car which he crashes, then on a stolen motorcycle. Boarding the train at full speed, Sky learns the truth from the repentant Maize, whom he quickly forgives. Directed by the capable Arthur Rosson, Ridin' Pretty was a popular success that did much to re-establish the aging Desmond. Forrest was a former stunt-driver from Denmark, who had earlier starred opposite William Farnum in the Zane Grey western The Rainbow Trail (1918). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide