Otto Hoffman Movies

Charles Ray takes his country bumpkin to Paris, albeit briefly, in this comedy-melodrama. After fighting in World War I, Corporal Luther Green (Ray) is on his way back home to Quigley Corners, New Jersey, but first he has to make a quick stop in Paris. In the hour he is there, he meets a French girl, Ninon Robinet (Ann May). Back in the States, Green discovers that his sweetheart, who had promised to wait for him, is now engaged to someone else. But he doesn't have much time to be depressed -- before long, Ninon shows up. She has come to America to find her missing uncle, Andre (Otto Hoffman), but she is kidnapped. She escapes and heads for Green's little village, since he's the only other person she knows in the United States. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

America has just entered World War I, and because of his name, German-American Oscar Krug (Hobart Bosworth) is thought to be an enemy sympathizer. He fights his foes to prove that they're wrong, then immediately enlists and is assigned to the merchant marines. The night before boarding, he marries his sweetheart, Alice Morse (Jane Novak), and she sails with him, disguised as a Red Cross nurse. A German submarine torpedoes the craft and sinks it. Krug and his bride board a lifeboat, where the sub finds them a couple of days later. The Germans take Alice and leave Krug, who swears revenge to the commander (Wallace Beery). Krug is saved by a passing ship and gets his chance a year later when he is in charge of another ship. It blows up a sub, and Krug sees the commander -- the same man he is looking for -- in the water. He pulls the commander on board and tricks him into telling Krug the details of how the commander ravished Alice and threw her body overboard. Then Krug reveals his identity and skins him alive. The movie's end shows Krug a saddened old man, whose soul rises from his broken body (with the help of double exposure) to join his dead bride. This film was based on a Gouverneur Morris story that appeared in Collier's Weekly. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Stop Thief was adapted from the popular Broadway comedy of the same name, with Mary Ryan repeating her original stage role. The story revolves around a pair of thieves, Nell Jones (Ryan) and Jack Doogan (Harry Mestayer), and their efforts to go straight. But before they can do so, Nell and Jack decide to pull off one last "big job." To this end, Nell takes a servant's job in the home of a wealthy family, intending to allow Jack access into the house in the dead of night. After several items of value are stolen, Nell's employers are convinced that they themselves are kleptomaniacs, whereupon they hire a detective to protect the house from themselves. The "detective" is none other than Jack, in a classic case of the fox guarding the chicken coop! Ultimately, Nell and Jack are caught in the act, but their employers decide to let them go free -- but only on the condition that the larcenous pair get married immediately and promise steadfastly never to steal again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although WWI was clearly winding down in the Summer of 1918, the same could not be said of the cycle of anti-German films coming out of Hollywood. In Thomas H. Ince's The Kaiser's Shadow, an inventor named Boyd (Edward Cecil) develops a super-weapon on behalf of the Allies. The plans for the invention are stolen by German spy William Kremlin (Charles K. French), and for awhile things look pretty bleak for the Good Guys. But Kremlin has reckoned without the valiant Secret Service team of Paula Harris (Dorothy Dalton) and Hugo Wagner (Thurston Hall), who manage to infiltrate the very palace of the Kaiser in order to make the world Safe For Democracy. The Kaiser's Shadow was based on a blood-and-thunder magazine serial co-written by Roy Octavus Cohen, better known for his outrageously stereotypical stories of African American life in the South. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Directed by character actor Otto Hoffman, this silent Western was produced at Long Beach, California, by the Balboa Amusement Producing Company, a busy firm that lasted from 1913 to 1918. Vola Vale starred as Miriam Vale, who takes a job as a schoolmistress in a Western outpost in order to investigate the death of her grandfather, a prospector. She quickly discovers that the killer, one Henry Stanley (J.B. Warner), is a member of an avaricious family with designs on grandpa's hidden mine. With the help of cousin Blake Stanley (Philo McCullough), Miriam learns the truth of her grandfather's murder, and together they locate the hidden treasure. Both leading man Philo McCullough and supporting villain J.B. Warner would enjoy further success in Westerns in the '20s, the former as a dyed-in-the-wool villain and the latter as a Western star in his own right. Warner's success proved short lived, however; he died of tuberculosis in November of 1924. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide