J.W. Johnston Movies

Setting something of a record for flashbacks within flashbacks, The Locket recounts the mental disintegration of bride-to-be Laraine Day. As a child, Day was accused of stealing a locket at a fancy party. She has spent her life getting even for this false accusation by becoming a kleptomaniac and ruining the lives of those around her. She drives one man (Robert Mitchum) to suicide, and stands by as another man is executed for a murder which she has committed. Assuming her revenge on the world is complete when she becomes engaged to the son of the woman who'd accused her of thievery, Day is overtaken by the demons within her and collapses on the altar. The Locket is difficult to follow at times, especially when seen in commercialized chunks on the Late Late Show. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

(Preston Sturges) wrote and directed this classic romantic comedy starring Henry Fonda and Barbara Stanwyck, who are involved in a scintillating battle of the sexes, as Sturges points up the terrors of sexual passion and the unattainability of the romantic ideal. Henry Fonda plays Charles Pike, the heir to the Pike Ale fortune ("The Ale That Won for Yale"). An ophiologist (a snake expert), he just spent a year "up the Amazon" looking for rare snakes with his cynical and protective guardian/valet Muggsy (William Demarest). He arrives to board the S.S. Southern Queen bound for New York, and immediately becomes the main order of business for a collection of single women looking to nab the eligible bachelor. Amongst those watching Charles board are a trio of con men and cardsharps -- Colonel Handsome Harry Harrington (Charles Coburn), his partner Gerald (Melville Cooper), and the Colonel's daughter Jean (Barbara Stanwyck). All three see Charles as a pushover and at dinner, while all the women are ogling Charles, Jean wins the day by sticking out her foot and tripping him. Complaining to Charles that he should watch where he is going, she gets him to escort her to her cabin so that she can replace her broken heel. Charles is sexually attracted to Jean, but when Charles is about to make a pass at her, she pulls back, telling him, "You ought to be put in a cage." Back in the dining room, Charles is introduced to the Colonel and the three play cards, Charles winning $500 from the Colonel and $100 from Jean. But Charles is merely being set-up for the next game when the Colonel will come in for the kill. Back at Jean's cabin, Charles and Jean sit close and something happens she hadn't planned -- she becomes attracted to Charles too. The next morning, Muggsy warns Charles that the Colonel and Jean are cardsharks, but Charles won't hear of it. Meanwhile, the Colonel is looking forward to fleecing Charles, but Jean doesn't want any part of it. Jean participates in the card game between Charles and the Colonel, making sure than the Colonel doesn't cheat. But while Jean waits on deck for Charles after the game, the Colonel plays Charles a game of double-or-nothing, with Charles losing $32,000. Jean, angry with her father, makes the Colonel tears up Charles' check. The next morning, Muggsy proves to Charles the three are con artists. Devastated, Charles shows Jean the photograph, claiming he knew she was a criminal the morning after he met her. Jean is determined to get even with Charles ("I hate that mug!"). Docking in New York, the Colonel reveals he merely palmed the $32,000 check. But that's not enough revenge for Jean. Impersonating an aristocratic English woman, Lady Eve Sidwich, Jean has herself introduced to Charles. Planning to make Charles to fall in love with her again, she intends to break his heart like he broke her own. As she explains, "I've got some unfinished business with him -- I need him like the axe needs the turkey." ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

The New Klondike was a satire of two ripe-for-plucking targets: The national baseball craze and the Florida "land boom" of 1925. Thomas Meighan stars as Tom Kelly, a minor-league player who shows up in Florida for spring training, only to be promptly fired by his jealous manager Joe Cooley (J. W. Johnston). Looking for a quick source of income, Kelly agrees to act as the "celebrity endorser" for a Florida real estate firm. Before long all of his former teammates have become investors, which has a bizarre effect on their game: at one point, one of the ballplayers hits a homer, then stops cold while rounding the bases to study a map of his land holdings! Crooked land broker Morgan West (Robert Craig), conspiring with Joe Cooley, sells Kelly some worthless swamp acreage, which immediately causes our hero and his pals to lose all their money. But Kelly manages to recover their savings, whereupon he is appointed manager of the team in Cooley's place. Based on a story by sports humorist Ring Lardner and partly filmed on location in Miami, The New Klondike was successful enough to secure Tommy Meighan a new, long-term contract with Paramount Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Joe (George Beban) is an immigrant ice maker and his girlfriend, Trina (Mary Skurkoy), is crushed when he tells her his "sweetheart" is arriving from the old country. She's happy to discover that this sweetheart is his old mother (Marie di Benedetta). The simple, earthy old lady proceeds to inadvertently get herself in trouble with the law. She takes in laundry and when she finds a diamond bracelet in one of the baskets, she is arrested and convicted of theft. Joe is extremely upset by the situation and a gang of thugs plan to use him to get rid of the district attorney (J.W. Johnston). Joe foils their plan, saving both the D.A. and Trina from an explosives-filled golf ball and certain death. The innocence of Joe's mother is established and he takes her -- and Trina and her father -- to live out in the country. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Although the silent screen of the early '20s was inundated with dramas of the Northwest, many of them based on the novels of James Oliver Curwood, this one stands out for a number of reasons. First off, it benefited from the fine directorial hand of Frank Borzage. In addition, it had star Alma Rubens as the leading woman, and Lew Cody, in those days better known as a heavy, playing the hero. Corporal Kent (Cody) is wounded in the course of duty, and, since he believes he is dying, he confesses to a murder to pay back a debt of gratitude. But he recovers, and is arrested. Marette Radison (Rubens), who has come to live with Inspector Kedsty (George Nash), knows who the real killer is, and she helps Kent to escape. He hides in Kedsty's home and the next day, the inspector is found strangled with a rope of women's hair, the same way the two other men were found dead. Kent is pursued by his friend and fellow Mountie, O'Connor (Joseph King), so he and Marette flee. While heading for "the valley of silent men," the pair are separated, but Kent later finds Marette in the home of her father, Pierre (Mario Majeroni), who reveals that he is the killer. O'Connor arrives and hears the old man's deathbed confession. Kent's name is cleared and he weds Marette. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Filmmaker Ivan Abramson's claim to fame was his heavy-handed, moralistic dramas, but this one misses because its lead characters are not very sympathetic. When her husband, a strikebreaker, is killed, Alice Baldwin (Vivian Martin) finds it hard to support both her daughter Mary (Ruth Sullivan) and her newborn son. With the help of a doctor (Earl Metcalfe), she gives up the infant to the factory owner and his wife. Mary grows up (to be played by Pearl Shepard) and becomes a spoiled, willful young woman. She marries a man who is no better than she is, and Alice, now grown old, realizes she is not wanted in her daughter's home. She tells Mary she is leaving to stay with a friend in the country and throws herself into the river. She is saved by a young man -- who just happens to be her son. He takes her home, where the truth of his origins is revealed. He welcomes her into his home, and she receives the love and appreciation she never got from Mary. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This low-budget melodrama was released by Republic. Nellie Vaughan (Grace Davison) leaves home because of the constant arguments between her father and her brother, Dan (J.W. Johnson). She finds work as a flower girl in a cafe, where she meets the wealthy Pelton Van Teel (Montague Love). Devlin Maddox (Stuart Holmes) sees an opportunity to blackmail Van Teel, and he tells Nellie that the young man has been boasting that he is keeping her. Nellie is infuriated and she offers to help Maddox to get revenge. The idea is to have Nellie marry Van Teel, and then squeeze money out of his father for a separation settlement. Things don't work out as planned -- Nellie falls in love with Van Teel and convinces him to marry her. When his father offers her money to divorce him, she turns him down. Her brother Dan, meanwhile, believes that Van Teel has seduced Nellie, so he shoots and wounds him. Nellie proves that they are married and helps him to escape. Van Teel has been losing money to Maddox, who shows up with a check he claims is worthless and threatens to make trouble. Nellie takes the check from him at gunpoint. A detective, who has been investigating Maddox at the request of Van Teel's father, arrests the swindler, and Nellie and Van Teel find happiness together. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Jack Bartling (Arthur Ashley) loses his job as a press agent when the theatrical company he is working for goes broke. His next job is as a publicist for a women's suffrage group, where he meets and falls in love with Nell Eubanks (Dorothy Green). Nell, like her mother (Lucile LaVerne), is working for women's rights, but her father, a senator (Jack Drumier), is opposed to it. Jack wants desperately to marry Nell, but Senator Eubanks will only approve if Jack keeps his daughter out of jail; meanwhile Mrs. Eubanks will give her consent only if Jack gets the Senator to vote for women's suffrage. Jack manages to do both -- when a cop is about to nab Nell while she is fighting for suffrage, Jack puts an actress from the defunct troupe in her place. Then he puts together a scheme that makes the Senator so financially indebted to him that he prefers to vote for suffrage rather than pay the debt. This was a slight, though amusing feature from World Pictures. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The "love" alluded to in the film's title is twofold. First, we have a man's love for his wife: in this case, the Mister is played by J.W. Johnston, and the Missus by Myrtle Stedman. Second, we have the platonic love between two male friends: specifically, Johnston and his best pal House Peters. When Stedman threatens to break up the friendship between Johnston and Peters, it is she who ends up the loser. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Age could not wither the waiflike beauty of Marguerite Clark, which is why she continued playing Mary Pickford-style roles even as she approached forty. In Molly Make Believe, Clark plays the title character, a "Cinderella" type who vows to save her family home from foreclosure. With the help of her brother, Molly travels to the Big City in a dog cage so as to avoid paying train fare. An accident en route brings our heroine in contact with handsome railroad official Carl Stanton (Mahlon Hamilton), and it is hard to figure out how this association will end up. Molly Make Believe was based on a story by Eleanor Howell Abbott. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Marguerite Clark vehicle was set in London and Switzerland, courtesy of the Famous Players back lot and the snowy peaks of Northern California. Having come to the Alps to cure himself of alcoholism, British ne'er-do-well George Van Rensselear (William Courtleigh Jr.) falls for Swiss miss Elsie (Clark). When the two are trapped in an avalanche, the rakish George tries to seduce Elsie, but she fights off his advances. After their rescue, George realizes he's done Elsie wrong, but before he can make amends he is called back to London. Heartbroken, Elsie begins to waste away, much to the dismay of local mountain guide Rudolph (J.W. Johnston), who has always been in love with her. Upon discovering that George isn't a total rotter, merely a misguided youth, Rudolph selflessly arranges to bring Elsie and the Englishman back together again. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Produced at the famous Lasky barn near Hollywood and Vine, Where the Trail Divides was a sober depiction of the relationship between a white girl (Winifred Kingston) and a college-educated Native American (Robert Edeson). Their marriage breaks up when she cannot face being called a "squaw," but her next lover, a white man, proves a tyrannical brute. One reviewer termed the film "halting, not quite sure of its ground." Featured actress Constance Adams was the wife of Lasky collaborator Cecil B. DeMille. The location for geographical Hollywood's first feature films, the Lasky barn was relocated to nearby Highland Avenue in the 1980s and functioned as the Hollywood Studio Museum. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Although this was only Cecil B. DeMille's fifth feature, it shows some of the qualities that would make his work famous in the '20s: sumptuous, high-society settings and a pleasing blend of both humor and drama. Adapted from a Booth Tarkington play, it involves the Simpson siblings, Horace (Jode Mullaly) and Ethel (Mabel Van Buren). They have inherited quite a lot of money, and Daniel Pike (Charles Richman) is appointed as the estate's executor. Horace and Ethel travel to Europe, where some Russian fortunehunters attempt to swindle them out of their money. By the time Pike arrives on the scene, Ethel is about to marry one of the fakers. The Grand Duke Vasill (Theodore Roberts) helps Pike discredit the con artists in time to prevent the marriage. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide