Johnny Hines Movies

After making a hit in the Torchy series of two-reelers, Johnny Hines chose this lively picture as his first full-length comedy. It was one of the year's hits. Young Barnes (Hines) is called "Burn 'Em Up" because of his love for fast driving, both on the track and on the street -- much to the annoyance of the local traffic cops. When Barnes shows no interest in business, he gets in an argument with his father, a millionaire car manufacturer (J. Barney Sherry), and leaves home. Almost immediately he is attacked by a gang of thugs who steal his clothes and toss him, unconscious, into a freight car. When he comes to, Barnes meets two tramps (Edmund Breese and George Fawcett) who adopt him as one of their own. The three of them land in a small town where Barnes falls in love with Madge (Betty Carpenter), the daughter of the town's bank president (Richard Thorpe). He has competition for the girl's affection, however, and his rival is glad to see him falsely arrested for kidnapping a baby. But through a series of adventures and misadventures, Barnes manages to prove his innocence and he winds up in a race which wins him a nice sum of money. This picture was remade as both a serial and a feature in 1934. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Sylvia (Barbara Castleton) is struggling along in a cheap boarding house. When she gets a job modeling for Madame Lillian's modiste shop, her life picks up. She meets the newly rich, socially ambitious Hicks -- husband Zebulon (Jack Drumier) and wife Octavia (Gertrude Berkeley). Out of the blue, the Hicks are visited by "Count de Boeuf" and "Princess Karalyn of Sylvania" -- actually a pair of con artists, Frank (Anthony Merlo) and Anna (Eloise Clement). Sylvia also meets the Hicks' grown son, Henry (Johnny Hines) when she is at a country club, posing as a Countess to model some of Madame's outfits. She is invited to the Hicks' place where she is surprised to find Anna being called "Princess." The cons wheedle a huge sum out of the family and steal Mrs. Hicks' jewels, but Sylvia thwarts them. However she's accused of the jewel theft until a representative a Sylvania appears and addresses her as Princess Karalyn. Frank and Anna take off, while Sylvia turns down a kingdom to marry Henry. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Director Maurice Tourneur transformed Frances Marion's perfunctory scenario Girl's Folly into a visual delight that resulted in not a few oohs and ahhs from 1917 audiences. June Elvidge plays an impressionable country lass who is thrilled when a movie company sets up camp near her home. She falls in love with the troupe's handsome leading man Robert Warwick, who responds by offering to surround her in luxury if she will live with him--not marry him, mind you, but live with him. Only the arrival of the girl's kindly mother dissuades Warwick from deflowering the lovely June. He Does the Right Thing by bidding her a chaste farewell when his film-making responsibilities are completed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A young Russian woman rises to become one of the world's most famous ballet dancers in this romantic silent drama. Her story begins as she, the lead dancer of the Imperial Ballet, becomes the love object of Russia's Grand Duke. They marry, but because the government disapproves of the union she is exiled to France, forcing her to leave her little daughter in the academy where she is raised by the head mistress. Under her loving guidance, this girl becomes world famous and begins touring. While dancing in Paris, she is kidnapped by a would-be suitor. Just as he is about to forcibly steal her virtue, the girl's mother appears and shoots the cad dead. When the Grand Duke learns of the shenanigans he rushes over before the police arrive and takes the rap for the murder. Fortunately, all is righted by the end, and the family finally comes back together. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Vivian Martin, one of the most attractive and successful of Mary Pickford's professional rivals, played the title role in Little Miss Brown. Adapted from a play by Philip Bartholomae, the story takes place in a busy Connecticut hotel. Through no fault of her own, Betty Brown (Martin) gets entangled in the marital warfare between Mr. and Mrs. Glenton (played by Edward M. Kimball -- who, incidentally, was the father-in-law of director James Young -- and Julia Stuart). Essential to the outcome of the story is a $10,000 endowment, which will be presented to the battling Glendons if they can prove that theirs is a happy marriage. Comedian Johnny Hines, not yet a star but already a pleasing screen presence, scored a comic bullseye as a hyperkinetic bellboy. Another future star in the cast of Little Miss Brown was perennial sourpuss Ned Sparks, here cast as a cynical night clerk. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Lee Randall (Robert Warwick) is a man who leads a double life. By day he is a respectable person; by night he robs banks. His gang stages an elaborate break-in at a bank, but they are discovered while fleeing the scene of the crime, and the gang is captured. (During their stay in jail, real shots of prisoners in Sing Sing are shown -- though some of the prisoners didn't want their faces in the movie!). When Randall is released from prison after serving his time, the film becomes a traditional melodrama, telling the story of a man who tries to go straight and the difficulties that he encounters after he and his cronies get out of prison. When Randall has established a new life (keeping the books at a bank), a detective comes calling. The detective wants to pin an old bank heist on Randall. At the same time, a small girl is accidentally locked in the bank vault. Randall must use his safe-cracking skills to free her, even though it may send him back to prison. This film is one of several important gangster films released in the mid-teens. Director Maurice Tourneur's most imaginative camera work of the film is in the first 15 minutes when the gang executes a bank heist. There are several deep-staged set-ups that have characters in real locations (like a train) instead of just on studio sets. The heist features an over-the-head shot of the cubicles in the bank to show the night watchman just missing the crooks. ~ Bruce Calvert, All Movie Guide

A pleasant but trivial stage play by R.H. Cochran served as the basis for The Arrival of Perpetua. Vivian Martin plays a boarding school student who inherits a fortune. A codocil of the will demands that she live with one of her two court-designated guardians. Martin can't stand her stuffy aunt Nora Cecil (an actress who played stuffy aunts for nearly thirty years!), so she moves in with "man's man" Milton Sills. A perfect gentleman, Sills tries to keep his distance, but ends up falling in love with his young ward. Making his motion picture debut, Milton Sills already possesses the natural charisma that would elevate him to the pinnacles of film stardom in the 1920s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this convoluted drama a chauffeur falls in love with his boss's daughter and marries her, causing his aged father to suffer a fatal coronary. She quickly becomes pregnant and after the child's birth finds out that her husband is an abusive drunk. She tries to force him to stop drinking, but this only causes him to take all their money, and the baby. He heads back for his native New England, leaves the baby with his mother, and then becomes a merchant seaman. The abandoned wife ends up coming to the Cape Cod village where he left the baby and staying in his mother's boarding house without realizing her identity. Things really get tangled up when she falls in love with her husband's brother, an upstanding minister. Unfortunately, the day she is to marry the minister, a terrible shipwreck nearby brings a most unwelcome visitor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide