Lila Lee Movies
A pretty, apple-cheeked WAMPAS Baby Star of 1922, Lila Lee had been a performer since childhood and was widely known as "Cuddles," one of the stars of Gus Edwards' kiddie troupe. She was brought to Hollywood by Paramount's Jesse Lasky and headlined in her very first film, The Cruise of the Make Believe (1918). In typical silent screen style, she played a poor girl secretly supported by a rich admirer and the New York Times thought she had a "limitless future before her."After appearing as the servant wench in Cecil B. DeMille's Male and Female (1919), Paramount began to see the newcomer as a potential successor to that popular film's star, the elegant Gloria Swanson, and embarked on a hefty publicity campaign. Lee's detractors, however, were quick to point out that her work never really lived up to the ballyhoo. "She seemed permanently neutral," as one critic pointed out. Her co-starring turn opposite Rudolph Valentino in the immensely popular bull-fight melodrama Blood and Sand (1922) was still far from persuasive but her jet-black hair, severely braided in coils over each ear, created a trend and the fan mail kept pouring in. Her tumultuous marriage to matinee-idol James Kirkwood, very much an "A Star Is Born" affair, created additional headlines that lasted until their divorce in 1931.
Lila Lee's up-and-down screen career was bedeviled by severe bouts with what was euphemistically referred to as tuberculosis but whispered to be the results of acute alcoholism. As Lon Chaney's leading lady in The Unholy Three (1930) , she was positioned to become one of the new sound era's first major stars but a series of bad judgments and, again, highly publicized bouts with illness, led to supporting roles in Grade-B films. In 1936, she was a witness to the suicide of playboy Reid Russell and the resulting headlines reportedly made her camera shy. There were several aborted stage comebacks in the 1940s, a short-lived marriage or two, and appearances on early television soap operas in the 1950s. Her son with Kirkwood, James Kirkwood Jr., became a noted author and playwright but Lee did not live to see his crowning glory, the legendary Broadway musical A Chorus Line. Retiring from performing after playing country singer Margie Bowes' hayseed mother in the Florida-lensed Cottonpickin' Chickenpickers (1967), the veteran star died of a stroke at Saranac Lake, NY, in November of 1973. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1931
When European princess Lee comes back to her Midwestern hometown, she is thought to be a seamstress and goes along with the ruse in this comedy. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1931
In this western, three rambunctious young cowboys head for the hills after spending a night painting a town red and terrorizing its residents. During their flight, they find a woman from the East alone at her brother's home. They are preparing to rape her, but they do not count on her ingenuity. Using all her feminine wiles, she pits them against each other. She promises one of them anything he desires if only he will protect her from the others. He pays one fellow off and shoots the other in a duel. The honorable woman acquiesces to his wishes and marries him. He then tries to win her heart. In time he succeeds and the two come to an agreement. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lila Lee, Raymond Hatton, (more)
- 1930
A remake of the 1925 Lon Chaney melodrama of the same name, 1930's The Unholy Three makes several concessions to the newly strengthened Hollywood censors, but is still quite entertaining in a macabre sort of way. Chaney reprises his role as Professor Echo, a sideshow ventriloquist who moonlights as a master criminal. Convincingly disguised as a little old lady, Echo stage-manages a series of Park Avenue robberies -- with two of his carnival cohorts, malevolent midget Tweedledee (Harry Earles) and moronic strongman Hercules (Ivan Linow), doing most of the dirty work. Echo's sweetheart Rosie (Lila Lee) plays along with the Unholy Three but changes her mind when their latest burglary, which ended in murder, threatens to send the wholly innocent Hector (Elliot Nugent) to the electric chair. His resolve weakened by Rosie's pleas, Echo contrives to clear Hector in court through a clever vocal trick -- while his two confederates, in true "thieves fall out" fashion, bring about their own gruesome deaths. The Unholy Three creaks a bit at times, and the unintelligibility of Harry Earles often obscures important plot points, but the film is indispensable as the only talkie appearance of Lon Chaney, "The Man of a Thousand Faces," who died only two months after its release. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lila Lee, Elliott Nugent, (more)
- 1930
The first of two film versions of Fulton Oursler's domestic-conflict yarn, Second Wife stars Lila Lee as the bride of Conrad Nagel. Lee's ex-beau Hugh Hunley insists that Nagel's heart is still with his first wife, who now has custody of Nagel's son. When her husband leaves for Switzerland to visit his ailing son, Lee walks out in a huff--and into the arms of Hunley. But when her lover discovers that Lee is pregnant by Nagel, he spurns her. The chastened Lee returns to Nagel and willingly accepts his son as her own. Second Wife was remade--badly--in 1936, with Gertrude Michael and Walter Abel. Trivia note: Lila Lee, star of the 1930 Second Wife, was the mother of actor/playwright James Kirkwood, who fictionalized Lee's later bout with the bottle in the stage play There Must Be a Pony. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Conrad Nagel, Lila Lee, (more)
- 1930
Those Who Dance is not so much a film as a "class reunion" for several former silent-screen favorites. Monte Blue stars as Dan Hogan, a cop who poses as a Detroit gangster, the better to ferret out the murderer of his brother. He does this as much for himself as for his sweetheart Nora Brady (Lila Lee), whose own brother Tim (William Janney) has been accused of the crime. The real villain is Diamond Joe Jennings (William "Stage" Boyd), who is ultimately betrayed by his mistress Kitty (Betty Compson). The title, of course, is derived from the old proverb that ends "must pay the piper." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Monte Blue, Lila Lee, (more)
- 1930
Jack Mulhall stars as Leonard Staunton, a businessman whose future is threatened by a trio of mysterious blackmailers. The villains will stop at nothing to get what they want -- not even murder. From all appearances, the blackmailers are members of a Chinese Tong, but Staunton, teamed with dedicated detective Lt. Caundon (Noah Beery), proves that the dastardly trio are all Caucasians. The film comes to an exciting climax as Staunton, Caundon and heroine Jeanne Baldwin (Lila Lee) rescue the hero's Aunt Pat (Hedda Hopper) from the bad guys' clutches. Like many early Warner Bros. talkies, Murder Will Out was remade more than once by Bryan Foy's "B" unit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alec B. Francis, Tully Marshall, (more)
- 1930
In this crime drama a reformed safecracker is pressured by his ex-cellmate to pull off one last job. The cellmate gives the safecracker a chance for peace and happiness on an isolated farm. There he meets a pretty woman and her grandmother. He falls in love with the young woman. Unfortunately, he soon discovers that they are part of his cellmate's gang. Eventually the two lovers are reunited and truly reformed. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Ames, Lila Lee, (more)
- 1929
In this early sound film, adapted from a play by Somerset Maugham, a WW I veteran is left crippled after a plane crash that occurred on his wedding day. He must spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Meanwhile his loving wife begins an affair with his brother. When his mother finds out about it, she kills her invalid son so he will never know of his wife and brother's treachery. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Conrad Nagel, Lila Lee, (more)
- 1929
Despite what you might think by glancing at the title, The Argyle Case has nothing to do with socks. The film's plot is set in motion when the head of the house of Argyle is murdered. In one of his few talking-picture appearances, silent star Thomas Meighan is the detective on the case. Meighan discovers that the culprit is a member of an espionage ring, intent upon stealing valuable state secrets. Based on a play by Harriet Ford, Harvey J. O'Higgins, and William J. Burns, The Argyle Case was previously filmed in 1917. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thomas Meighan, H.B. Warner, (more)
- 1929
In this sad drama, a nightclub chanteuse gives up everything to have her daughter educated abroad. When her grown-up, highly cultured daughter returns from Europe, she is appalled to learn the truth about her mother -- that she has a low class job entertaining boozy old men. She disowns her mother and the distraught mother begins singing the blues in earnest. Songs include: "I'm The Last Of The Red Hot Mommas," "I'm Doin' What I'm Doin' For Love," "He's A Good Man To Have Around," "I'm Feathering A Nest (For A Little Bluebird)," and "I Don't Want to Get Thin." and "Some of These Days." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sophie Tucker, Lila Lee, (more)
- 1929
Basically a filmed vaudeville presentation, The Show of Shows was Warner Bros.' entry in the "all star, all talking, all singing and all dancing" sweepstakes of 1929. Though slightly better than MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929, the Warners entry pales in comparison to Fox Movietone Follies of 1929 and Paramount on Parade, due mainly to the film's master of ceremonies, the insufferable Frank Fay. Some of the individual acts seen in Show of Shows were pretty good, notably Winnie Lightner's delightful Singing in the Bathtub (a spoof of Hollywood Revue of 1929's Singin' in the Rain) and John Barrymore's brilliant rendition of Richard III's soliloquy from Shakespeare's Henry VI. Also easy to take was "Floradora Sextette," featuring such luminaries as Myrna Loy, Patsy Ruth Miller and cross-eyed comedian Ben Turpin, and "Eight Sister Acts," including such Hollywood siblings as Dolores and Helene Costello, Sally Blane and Loretta Young and Shirley Mason and Viola Dana (also teamed in this number are Ann Sothern and Marion Byron, who were not sisters). But for the most part, the acts are on a par with "Skull and Crossbones," a boring production number showcasing entertainer Ted Lewis, and "Recitations," a one-joke affair in which three different anecdotes (related by Frank Fay, Louis Fazenda, Lloyd Hamilton and Bea Lillie) are melded into one. Show of Shows was originally released in two-color Technicolor but now exists only in black in white, save for the "Chinese Fantasy" number featuring crooner Nick Lucas and Warner Bros. contractee Myrna Loy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1929
This early Frank Capra talkie stars popular screen action team Jack Holt and Ralph Graves as US marines stationed in Nicaragua. The "two guys fighting over one gal" throughline is there because the audience expected it -- and besides, leading lady Lila Lee is awfully cute. But the meat of the story lies in the fact that Holt and Graves are pilots, required to fly their Curtis fighter-bomber on dangerous missions. The flight scenes, shot without the benefit of special effects or back projection, are truly awe-inspiring, and served as stock footage for countless Columbia films in future years. Released in both silent and sound versions, Flight was a major success for the tiny Columbia studios. Its effectiveness is all the more remarkable when one realizes that star Jack Holt had a lifelong fear of flying! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1929
To sophisticated filmgoers of 1929, the designation "queen of the nightclubs" could mean only one person: Colorful Manhattan speakeasy proprietress Texas Guinan, of "Hello, Sucker!" fame. More or less playing herself, the brash, blowsy Guinan is cast as Tex Malone, a New York nightery owner who hires innocent young songstress Bee Wallace (Lila Lee) to perform in Tex's club. This effectively breaks up Bee's vaudeville act with hoofer Eddie Parr (Eddie Foy Jr., the brother of director Bryan Foy). Feeling put-upon, Eddie is the most likely suspect when Tex's close friend Don Holland (John Davidson) is murdered. In the course of the trial, Tex discovers that Eddie is actually her own son. Without ever revealing her relationship with Eddie to the world, Tex manages to prove that the actual killer was rival club owner Andy Quindland (played by veteran movie "drunk" Arthur Housman, in a rare sober characterization). George Raft makes his film debut by re-creating the "hot" Charleston dance solo that first brought him Broadway fame (the details of Raft's move to Hollywood, and his friendships with such gangsters as Owney Madden and Bugsy Siegel, would later be fictionalized in Francis Ford Coppola's 1984 production The Cotton Club). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Texas Guinan, Eddie Foy, Jr., (more)
- 1929
A love triangle between two twin brothers and a lovely young woman provides the framework for this drama (it was the first talkie to feature an actor in a dual role). One of the brothers is a policeman; the other belongs to a band of robbers working the garment district. The cop has orders to shoot the robbers on sight. He warns his evil twin to stay away from the garment district. The twin tells him to stay out of there too. They ignore each other's advice. More trouble ensues when the bad brother abducts the other, steals his uniform, and then gets himself killed. He does this to save his other brother who gets the girl. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Mulhall, Lila Lee, (more)
- 1929
No, Richard Barthelmess doesn't don women's apparel in the 1929 talkie The Drag. Barthelmess plays a Vermont newspaper editor, happily married to Alice Day. That is, he was happy until the day his wife's troublesome in-laws (Lucien Littlefield, Katherine Ward) came to visit. Wifey's parents stay, and stay, and stay--and what a drag it is. The title could also refer to the film itself, since The Drag drags along at an excruciating 118 minutes (plus two arbitrarily inserted songs). This yawn-inducer was based on a (hopefully) more entertaining novel by William Dudley Perry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Barthelmess, Lucien Littlefield, (more)
- 1929
Any movie that starts Jewish entertainer George Jessel as an Italian accordionist named Luigi can't be all bad. In love with the beautiful Margharita (Lila Lee), Luigi lands a job in the music store owned by the girl's uncle. Ultimately, however, our hero does the Pagliacci act when Margharita evinces a preference for handsome Pasquale (David Rollins). The film's best scene takes place in a nursery full of talented tots, a sequence that undoubtedly reminded Jessel of his days with Gus Edwards' "Schoolroom" act. Exercising his droit du seigneur, Georgie Jessel sings the title tune. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Jessel, Lila Lee, (more)
- 1928
In this low-budget romantic comedy, a beautiful model from Paris sets her sights on the heart of an American ex-lover and so sets sail to stop him from marrying his newest girl friend. During the long voyage, the model must evade the persistent romantic advances of a passenger head-over-heels in love with her. After much chaos and many merry mix-ups involving all four main characters the proper romantic alignments are reached and marital bliss ensues all around. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- James Hall, Ruth Taylor, (more)
- 1928
The "man in hobbles" (a reference to his unique trousers) is young professional photographer John Harron. Upon marrying Lila Lee, Harron is taken aback when Lee's large and obnoxious family moves into the couple's tiny honeymoon cottage. Virtually squeezed out of his own home, Harron sullenly heads to New York to seek his fortune. He returns a huge success, whereupon he kicks his bride's family out, kit 'n' caboodle. Lucien Littlefield, at age 34 already well established in "old coot" parts, is seen as Lee's pompous pop. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lila Lee, John Harron, (more)
- 1928
The Little Wild Girl is hoydenish French-Canadian lass Marie Celeste (Lila Lee). Assuming that her sweetheart Jules (Cullen Landis) and her father Duncan (Arthur Hotaling) have died in a fire, Marie wanders aimlessly around in the woods, where she is discovered by Broadway impresarios McBride (Frank Merrill) and Hampton (Bud Shaw). Enchanted by her beauty, the two men take Marie to New York, where she becomes a popular musical comedy star. Her innocent involvement in a nasty murder scandal ruins Marie's career, but she finds happiness at last with her boyfriend Jules, who didn't die after all. Boris Karloff is seen in a secondary "heavy" role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cullen Landis, Arthur Hotaling, (more)
- 1928
In this melodrama, a wealthy girl decides to disguise herself and work as a laborer in her father's factory so she can be near her dad and prove to him that she is capable of helping out in the family business. While there, she falls in love with a shipping clerk, and after revealing her true identity, invites him to a party in her father's mansion. During the party, the girl's weaselly brother robs the house safe to get the money he needs to cover his gambling debts, leaving her boy friend to take the rap. Fortunately, by the story's end, he clears his name, marries his true love and inherits her father's business. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lila Lee, Cornelius Keefe, (more)
- 1928
Ostensibly based on pulp writer James Oliver Curwood, this minor silent Northwest melodrama featured Cornelius Keefe as a city slicker who saves a female logging camp manager (Lila Lee) from being ruined by her evil superintendent (Walter Long). The latter is trying to prevent the heroine from getting her lumber down the river in time. Good triumphs over evil once again, however, when the superintendent is killed by a bolt of lightning from nearby Thundergod Mountain. Thunder God was but one of several faux Curwood stories released to the hinterlands by Poverty Row producer Morris R. Schlank. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lila Lee, Cornelius Keefe, (more)
- 1928
Rookie policeman Cornelius Keefe can't help but run afoul of his superiors. It isn't that Keefe is a screw-up, simply that he considers himself smarter and more "in the right" than anyone else. His know-it-all attitude endangers the young cop's relationship with Lila Lee, who happens to be the sister of a petty crook. Lee's ever-wavering loyalties finally manifest themselves when she rescues Keefe from a gangland ambush engineered by her brother. You Can't Beat the Law was a product of Hollywood's "Poverty Row," where energy and enthusiasm often overcame shoddy production values and uneven performances. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lila Lee, Cornelius Keefe, (more)
- 1928
From small-scale (and typically misnamed) Excellent Pictures, this minor silent melodrama featured handsome Bryant Washburn as Roger Van Dorn, a scion of society marrying a lowly cabaret dancer, Fola Dale (Lila Lee), despite the misgivings of his domineering Aunt Honoria (Martha Mattox). In collaboration with spurned debutante Helen Worl (Jacqueline Gadsden), Aunt Honoria manages to break up the couple by convincing Roger that Fola has been unfaithful during an engagement in Paris. When Roger learns that Fola has given birth to their child, he stops divorce proceedings and rushes to her side. Supporting actress Jacqueline Gadsden specialized in playing the other woman, and is perhaps best remembered as Clara Bow's debutante nemesis in It (1927). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bryant Washburn, Lila Lee, (more)
- 1928
A rather muddled prize-fighting melodrama from low-budget company Gotham Productions, United States Smith featured former Keystone comic Eddie Gribbon and 14-year-old Canadian actor Mickey Bennett). Gribbon played a Marine boxing champ and Bennett the young Russian immigrant he takes under his wing. Lila Lee, formerly of Cecil B. DeMille marital comedies, acted the female lead, for whose sake Gribbon is willing to throw a championship fight. Bennett, however, convinces him otherwise and all live happily ever after. United States Smith took no less than 7 reels to tell its little story and was directed by Joseph Henabery, a Hollywood veteran who had played Abraham Lincoln in Griffith's The Birth of a Nation.(1915). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eddie Gribbon, Lila Lee, (more)
- 1928
Director James W. Horne, best known today for his Laurel and Hardy comedies, called the shots on the inexpensive "emotional" drama Black Butterflies. Heroine Dorinda Maxwell (Jobyna Ralston) enters into a marriage of convenience, even though she cannot abide her new husband. In so doing, she is separated from her true love, David Goddard (Robert Frazer). Fate and the scriptwriters contrive to keep hero and heroine apart for the balance of the picture; at one point, Goddard is blinded in an auto accident. All turns out OK in the end except for the "heavy" of the piece, vampish Kitty Perkins (Mae Busch, likewise a future Laurel and Hardy "regular"), who must pay for her sins with her life. Black Butterflies reaches three possible endings, opting at last for the weakest of the three. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jobyna Ralston, Mae Busch, (more)
