Julia Hurley Movies
- 1926
Dennis Shawn (Owen Moore) is the overseer of a huge lumber camp inherited by city-girl Marcia Livingston (Constance Bennett). Though they're not overly fond of each other, Dennis and Marcia are compelled to get married as part of a deal to purchase additional lumber property. The wedding ceremony is performed by phone, whereupon Dennis and Marcia prepare to go their separate ways. Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for the plot), the land deal requires them to live together as man and wife for at least three months. Marcia refuses, whereupon Dennis kidnaps his new bride and carries her off to the lumber camp -- where of course, she learns to love him just in time for the fadeout. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Owen Moore, Constance Bennett, (more)
- 1925
This romance was based on the best-selling novel by Anne Douglas Sedgwick. While serving in the Great War, Owen Bradley (Anthony Jowett) tells his fiancée, Toppie Westmacott (Esther Ralston), that his leave has been canceled so that he can spend time with the seductive Madame Vervier (Alice Joyce). Later he is killed in action, but he has asked his brother, Giles (Neil Hamilton), to take Madame Vervier's daughter, Alix (Mary Brian), to London. Alix is a hit in London society and is soon engaged to marry a viscount. Meanwhile, Giles, who loves Toppie, tries to prevent her from entering a convent. Alix confesses to Toppie that her mother had an affair with Owen. Word gets around that Madame Vervier has had affairs with many men, not just Owen, and her reputation in London diminishes rapidly. The viscount breaks off his engagement with Alix and Toppie still enters the convent. Giles finally realizes that it's Alix he loves and he follows her to France. Although she is being courted by Andre Valenbois (Paul Doucet), Giles still manages to win her. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alice Joyce, Mary Brian, (more)
- 1924
Argentine Love is based on a novel by Vincent Blasco-Ibanez, whose Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse made a star of Rudolph Valentino. Not surprisingly, leading man Ricardo Cortez plays a Valentino clone: a headstrong Argentinian in love with fetching senorita Bebe Daniels. But Daniels prefers the company of American engineer James Rennie. Argentine Love is kept moving at a fast clip by Allan Dwan, who was far less lugubriously self-indulgent than Four Horsemen helmsman Rex Ingram. In retrospect, it is understandable that Paramount wanted to make a Valentino film without Valentino: he had recently ankled the studio in a bitter (and well-publicized) dispute over story material. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bebe Daniels, Ricardo Cortez, (more)
- 1921
Hugo Ballin directed his wife Mabel Ballin in this slow and unmoving adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's oft-filmed novel. Jane Eyre (Mabel Ballin) is sent to an orphanage because her aunt hates her willful nature. Now that she is a young woman, she is sent to the home of Fairfax Rochester (Norman Trevor) to become governess to his ward, Adele (June Ellen Terry). At first the moody Rochester is cool towards Jane, but eventually he falls deeply in love with her. They plan to marry, but at the church, Mason (John Webb Dillon) appears and reveals that Rochester is already married to his sister (Elizabeth Meriens). Because Mrs. Rochester has become hopelessly insane, she has been hidden away for many years. Jane leaves Rochester, and not long after, his wife burns down the house. Mrs. Rochester dies in the fire, and Rochester is blinded. When Jane hears the news, she goes to him. The couple make up and are reunited. Eventually Rochester's sight returns. This silent film doesn't come close to the 1944 Orson Wells/Joan Fontaine version of the novel. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1920
The Cost is what wayward lass Violet Hemming must endure for lovely not wisely but too well. Seeking an escape from the drudgery of boarding house life, Hemming marries cotton merchant Edwin Mordant, convincing herself that she cares for him. By the time she realizes her mistake, it is too late, both for Hemming and the man she truly loves, Ralph Kellard. Meanwhile, Mordant carries on an affair with a colleague's wife. Hemming leaves him, but loyally returns when he loses his fortune. Only when Mordant conveniently dies is Hemming finally able to follow the dictates of her heart. A novel by David Graham Phillips served as the basis for this tear-stained drama. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1920
Completely forgotten today, Romaine Fielding was voted America's favorite male screen actor in 1913, beating out such stiff competition as J. Warren Kerrigan and Broncho Billy Anderson. Interestingly, all three enjoyed the biggest successes in westerns, Fielding for the Lubin Company in Philadelphia. By the time of Woman's Man, a minor oater about a man who almost loses his fortune, not to mention his fiancée, to society scion William H. Tooker, Fielding's popularity had waned. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Romaine Fielding, William H. Tooker, (more)
- 1920
Former ingenue Alice Brady took her first step towards the dizzy society matrons she'd play in the talkie era in the 1920 silent The New York Idea. The film concerns the rock-solid marriage of upper-crust couple Alice and Lowell Sherman. Despite the most alluring of temptations, the couple insists upon keeping their union intact. Contrasting this fidelity are the extramarital hijinks of such socialites as Hedda Hopper (the same) and George Howell. The New York Idea was based on the play by Langdon Mitchell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1920
The popular silent-film team of Marguerite Clark and Harrison Ford star in Easy to Get. While on their honeymoon, newlyweds Milly (Clark) and Bob Morehouse (Ford) have a falling out. It's all hubby's fault: Milly has overheard Bob insist that all girls are "easy." To prove otherwise, Milly spends the rest of the film playing very hard to get, going so far as to stage-manage a fake kidnapping (which, of course, ends up being the real thing). Pushing 40 in 1920, Marguerite Clark was nearing the end of her "ingenue" stage, but she remained an audience favorite. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1920
In this so-so adaptation of the play This Man, This Woman by Avery Hopwood, Dorothy Dalton plays Thelma Miller, who is forced to seek gainful employment after the death of her father leaves her penniless. She gets work as a governess for a wealthy family and becomes involved with the son, Norris Townsend (Edward Langford). He promises to marry her, but when he returns from Europe to find she is pregnant, his enthusiasm is considerably dampened. Thelma, however, is determined that the child will have a name, so she forces him to wed her at gun point, then disappears. After she's gone, Townsend decides he really does love her and goes searching for her. It takes him five years, but he eventually locates Thelma, working as a schoolteacher in a country village. She tries to make him leave, but when he refuses to go without his son, she finally agrees to reconcile. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1916
Written by Irish-born scenario writer Mary Murillo, Gold and the Woman was merely another Theda Bara "Vamp" melodrama about a woman whose insatiable lust destroys every man in her path. This time she is Juliet De Cordova, a "half-breed" taking revenge on the descendants of a Spanish Conquisdator. The film used flashbacks spanning several centuries, but Bara remained Bara throughout. According to surviving stills (the film itself, sadly, appears to be lost), Theda looked downright frumpy whilst "vamping" leading man Harry Hilliard. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1914
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair's searing expose of the meat-packing industry, was given a reasonably realistic screen treatment in 1914. The film traces the "progress" of a Lithuanian family as they head for the purportedly greener pastures of the USA. The family ends up in Packingtown (a thinly disguised Chicago), where they go to work at the stockyards and slaughterhouses. The famous scene wherein a man accidentally falls into the rendering vat is vividly realized. Upton Sinclair himself appears at the beginning and end of The Jungle as a form of endorsement. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
