Phyllis Haver Movies

This 60-minute pastiche of silent film footage is narrated by humorist Henry Morgan. While the producers clearly worship Buster Keaton, they are confined to public domain material, so many of Keaton's best efforts, notably Sherlock, Jr. and The Navigator, are absent. The clips from Keatons 1917-1919 apprenticeship with Fatty Arbuckle are interesting, though hardly representative. Old "stone face" even smiles and laughs in some of the Arbuckle pictures! Still, there's plenty of great material at hand, especially the lengthy excerpts from Cops (1922) and The General (1926). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rival arms smugglers in Cuba endeavor to be the first to send their weapons to the revolutionaries in Central America in this crime drama. One of the smugglers uses a woman to dupe the other smuggler into tripping up. Unfortunately, the woman, who has criminal problems of her own, ends up falling in love with the rival. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this early, early talkie, a newspaper reporter convinces a judge to release an accused killer who used to be a colleague before he became an alcoholic. The reporter then gets the fellow a job at the paper. Trouble ensues when the city editor continues to doubt the innocence of the new employee and begins investigating for himself. Sure enough, he discovers that the fellow was entangled with the deceased's wife. Just when it looks as if he may be convicted after all, his loyal friend scoops it all. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Based on a real-life incident, Maurine Watkins' semi-satirical novel and play Chicago was first brought to the screen in 1927. Phyllis Haver was ideally cast as gum-chewing dance-hall girl Roxie Hart, who shoots her lover full of holes and then is forgiven by her faithful -- if not entirely honest -- husband Amos (Victor Varconi). Put on trial for murder, Roxie comes to enjoy the publicity, and soon willingly becomes the darling of the media (it helps that she's convinced herself that no jury in their right mind will condemn a "celebrity"). Feeding upon this, Roxie's flamboyant defense attorney Flynn (Robert Edeson) likewise revels in the hoopla stirred up by enterprising reporter T. Roy Barnes. The only person who doesn't enjoy the spectacle is Amos Hart, who becomes so fed up that he tosses Roxie out of their house, finding comfort in the arms of housemaid Katie (Virginia Bradford), who has loved him all along. A cleaned-up but no less rowdy version of Chicago was filmed by William Wellman in 1943 under the title Roxie Hart; three decades later, the property was revived as a Broadway musical, which has flourished on the road-show circuit ever since. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Silent-film leading man Harrison Ford (no relation to the current box-office champion) stars as John Douglas Jr., a go-getting young businessman. Falling in love with circus owner Nancy Flood (Phyllis Haver), John endeavors to save her dog-and-pony operation from foreclosure. This requires our hero to enter the circus' main attraction, a dancing horse, in a high-stakes race. To achieve victory, John affixes earphones to the animal and pipes in the sounds of roaring lions -- the one thing that is certain to frighten the horse into accelerating its pace! Similar plotlines can be found in items as diverse as the Three Stooges' Playing the Ponies (1937) and "The $1,000,000 Derby," the premiere episode of TV's Top Cat. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Popular leading lady Leatrice Joy was copacetically teamed with "fading star" Charles Ray in Nobody's Widow. After a whirlwind courtship, American gal Roxanna Smith (Joy) marries rakish English aristocrat John Clayton (Charles Ray). It isn't long before Roxanna becomes convinced that her new husband is unfaithful. Rather than face the humiliation of a failed marriage, our heroine pretends to be a widow when she returns home. But her "dead" husband soon shows up and wins her love all over again. Nobody's Widow was based on a play by Avery Hopwood. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Cecil B. DeMille-produced swashbuckler was based on Brigadier General, a story by Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle. Set during the Napoleonic era, the film stars Rod La Rocque as young adventurer Etienne Girard, who becomes involved in the political intrigues fomented by the duplicitous Talleyrand (Sam de Grasse). Girard ends up rescuing gorgeous diplomatic courier Countess de Launay (Phyllis Haver) from Talleyrand's clutches, then takes it upon himself to deliver the important papers which the Countess was transporting to the anti-Napoleon forces. Julia Faye, Cecil B. DeMille's longtime "secret" sweetheart, is seen briefly as Napoleon's wife Josephine, while Napoleon is curiously portrayed in the style of a Jewish vaudeville comedian by Max Barwyn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Tom Mix plays an Eastern dandy who finds himself banished to a Western ranch in this routine silent Western which boasted of an above-average supporting cast. The sophisticated Helene Chadwick, a discovery of producer Samuel Goldwyn, is the rancher whom Mix constantly provokes, while William E. Lawrence, a former Universal series star, portrays a rival ranch hand. There is a conspiracy to part Miss Chadwick from her fortune, but Mix, of course, manages to save the day -- and Miss Chadwick. The film also featured performances from such popular silent screen players as sour-faced Emily Fitzroy, comedian Spec O'Donnell, Phyllis Haver, a Mack Sennett Bathing Beauty, and Ethel Grey Terry, who later played Calamity Jane in Wild Bill Hickock (1923). Hard Boiled was based on the short story Ridin' with Youth by Shannon Fife. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

From the minute it opened on Broadway in 1924, Laurence Stallings and Maxwell Anderson's gritty WWI comedy-drama What Price Glory? was a center of controversy. Prudes and blue-noses condemned the play for its explicit language, while a group of politicians tried to bring about a federal action to halt its production because of its "disrespectful" treatment of military officers and traditions. Naturally, any play that engendered that sort of reaction had to be a hit. Two years after its stage debut, the play was adapted for the screen, with Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe as those eternally boozing and brawling U.S. Marines, Captain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt. After a prologue in the Orient, in which Flagg and Quirt duke it out over the affections of the saucy Shanghai Mabel (Phyllis Haver), the scene shifts to France in 1918, with the two male protagonists continuing their private war as all hell breaks loose around them. When they aren't blowing the brains out of the Germans, Flagg and Quirt are vying for the attentions of coquettish French girl Charmaine (Dolores Del Rio). The film alternates effectively between low comedy and grim melodrama throughout most of its running time, reaching a dramatic high point when mamma's-boy Private Lewisohn (Barry Norton), fatally wounded, screams "Stop the blood! Stop the blood!" When the smoke clears, Flagg and Quirt both decide to go AWOL for the sake of Charmaine, but when duty calls, the two friendly enemies march shoulder to shoulder towards new adventures. The battle scenes in What Price Glory? were terrifyingly realistic -- indeed, one man was actually killed during filming -- but the most memorable aspect of the picture is the ribald byplay between Flagg and Quirt (who would later be launched into a series of so-called sequels). This being a silent picture, actors McLaglen and Lowe were permitted to mouth any obscenity that came into their heads, allowing audiences in 1926 the spectacle of seeing two grown men hurling epithets that would never have been heard in any sort of polite society -- all the while strictly adhering to the rules set down by the Hollywood censors, who objected only to printed profanities. What Price Glory was unsuccessfully remade in 1952 by John Ford, who directed one scene of the original 1926 version; Barry Norton, who played Lewisohn in the original, appeared in the remake as a priest. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Fig Leaves is historically important as the earliest extant film of director Howard Hawks. A partial parody of the Cecil B. DeMille historical spectacles, the film opens in the Garden of Eden, where Adam (George O'Brien) tries to read his morning paper (a stone tablet, a la The Flintstones) while Eve (Olive Borden) complains that she has nothing to wear. As Adam goes to work on the 9:15 dinosaur, Eve is led down the road to perdition by a friendly snake. Flash forward to 1926: Eve Smith (Borden again) complains that she has no decent clothes, whereupon her best friend Alice (the "snake" counterpart, played by Phyllis Haver) suggests that the heroine take a job as fashion model, thereby securing herself a free wardrobe. Catching his wife in a state of dishabille at a fancy dress shop, Adam Smith (O'Brien again) angrily declares that he never wants to see her again. Adam forgives Eve after witnessing a cat-fight between his wife and the troublesome Alice. Critics in 1926 were amused by the "prehistoric" contraptions in the opening scenes and enthralled by the film's Technicolor fashion-show sequence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Harrison Ford (no, not that Harrison Ford) plays a hypochondriac who heads to an Arizona health farm to regain his strength. En route, he meets pert Phyllis Haver, engaged to marry the sheriff in the western community where Ford is headed. She hitches a ride-an innocent gesture that leads to a mass of confusing complications-ending up with Ford being chased by every horseman in the region. The excitement "cures" Ford and serves to solidify a romance between himself and Haver. Based on a play by Owe Davis, The Nervous Wreck was later remade with Eddie Cantor as Whoopee (1930) and with Danny Kaye as Up in Arms (1944). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Long thought lost, the silent Three Bad Men is an vital ingredient in the cinematic canon of director John Ford. Often described as a film version of Peter B. Kyne's Three Godfathers (which Ford would direct in 1948), Three Bad Men is actually based on Over the Border, a novel by Herman Whitaker. The plot, which spans several years, is set in motion when three bandits appoint themselves protectors of the heroine, whose settler father is killed early in the proceedings. A subplot involves bandit Tom Santschi's efforts to wreak vengeance on the man who seduced and abandoned his sister. The film was originally supposed to star George O'Brien, Tom Mix and Buck Jones as the title characters, but since the plot required the Three Bad Men to be killed off long before the fadeout, and since all three proposed stars had large and loyal kiddie followings, the roles were recast, with character actors Santschi, Frank Campeau and J. Farrell McDonald. O'Brien was retained, albeit relegated to a less colorful heroic role. Three Bad Men should be seen in its original release form; most commercial prints are chopped up and woefully washed out. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide