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
- 1921
Because of the scandal that befell comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in 1921, his Paramount starring feature Gasoline Gus never received an American release. A pity, since the film was (from all accounts) his best feature-length vehicle thus far. Arbuckle of course plays the title character, a young man saddled with a phony oil well. Still, he manages to make a great deal of money off this fraudulent gusher, which inevitably proves to be the Real McCoy by film's end. Gasoline Gus was one of three Arbuckle features which were shelved by Paramount at great expense after the comedian was banned from the screen after his sensational rape trial (and never mind that he was acquitted). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1921
While Cecil B. DeMille busied himself with lavish sex comedies and garish historical melodramas, his director brother William C. deMille (note the lower case) was content with subtler human dramas. The "other" DeMille's After the Show was adapted from Rita Weiman's story "The Stage Door." Lila Lee plays Eileen, a starry-eyed young girl employed as a chorus dancer in New York. Eileen can never be certain if the men in her life are sincere, or if they perceive her as mere temporary plaything. Among the "stage door johnnies," "tired businessmen" and "sugar daddies" surrounding Eileen are Jack Holt and Carlton S. King. Also on hand is Charles Ogle as the lovable old stage manager, named-what else?--Pop. Like most of William deMille's films, After the Show has long been missing and assumed lost. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1921
Crazy to Marry was one of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's most delightful feature-length vehicles. Arbuckle plays a doctor who hopes to cure criminals via brain surgery. In one hilarious sequence, Fatty surgically recovers several valuables-watches, gems etc.-from the abdomen of plug-ugly Bull Montana. A film that has evidently vanished from the earth (though rumors of a extant European print resurface from time to time), Crazy to Marry represented the last Arbuckle silent film to be released before outbreak of the scandal that ruined his career. It was also the third collaboration between Fatty and director James Cruze (they'd planned a fourth, One Glorious Day, which had to be refashioned as a Will Rogers picture). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Lila Lee, (more)
- 1921
The star power of Wallace Reid kept the silent farce Charm School afloat. Auto salesman Reid inherits a school for proper young ladies. Realizing that the students are withering on the vine thanks to the antiquated curriculum, Reid transforms the establishment into a charm school, complete with athletics and dancing lessons. It must needs be that Reid sneaks into the school in the dead of night and is forced to disguise himself as a girl to escape detection. The popular if not particularly innovative James Cruze directed Charm School, adapting the screenplay from a novel by Algonquin Round Table habituee Alice Duer Miller. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wallace Reid
- 1921
Maurice Travers (Robert Gordon) attends college, funded by the sweat and blood of his widowed mother (Blanche Davenport). But he spends too much time on sports and not enough on his studies and flunks out. He elopes with Donna Wayne (Virginia Lee), the flirtatious daughter of a wealthy man and they go to the big city. Meanwhile, Madeline Marshall (Madeline Claire), the girl back home who really loves him, takes care of his mother, who is going blind. She sells a collection to Donna's father (Frederick Burton) and tells old Mrs. Travers that the money came from her son. When the mother dies, Madeline goes to the city to find Maurice and discovers that he is miserable with his selfish, shallow wife and has been arrested for striking an officer. Madeline goes to the courtroom and gets him a pardon because of the death of his mother. Maurice and Donna divorce and he ends up with Madeline. This picture was adapted from the Honore de Balzac story, Meditations on Marriage. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1921
Seafarer/novelist Leonard Fayne (Thomas Meighan) takes The Easy Road when he weds wealthy Isabel Grace (Gladys George). Once an ambitious workhorse, Fayne degenerates into a slothful lounge lizard and drunkard. Despairing over his fall from grace, Fayne gets a new lease on life by rescuing suicidal Ella Klotz (Lila Lee) and encouraging her to persevere. When wife Isabel returns from a desultory affair, she finds that her husband is a "new man"--one worthy of her unconditional love. Billed third in The Easy Road is Grace Goodall, who spent the rest of her career playing society dowagers in two-reel comedies. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thomas Meighan, Gladys George, (more)
- 1920
After directing him as the title character in Huckleberry Finn, William Desmond Taylor again used boy actor Lewis Sargent in this picture. His character, known merely as "the boy," has been raised in an orphanage where he has caused as much trouble as possible. He finally can't stand living there anymore and runs away. On the streets he finds a friend in Mike (Ernest Butterworth), a newsboy. Mike teaches him how to survive but inevitably the boy gets hauled into court. However, the judge sees potential in him and hands him over to be adopted by a young politician. The judge, incidentally, is played by Judge Ben Lindsey, who was famous in his day for his efforts to give delinquent boys a decent chance in life. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1920
The careful direction of William C. DeMille (brother of Cecil) brought fresh life to Cosmo Hamilton's all-too-typical story, His Friend and his Wife. Because Bob Meredith (Jack Holt) spends all his time working, his wife Margaret (Lois Wilson) feels the romance has ebbed away from their marriage. One night, while Meredith is at the office, family friend Julian Osborn (Conrad Nagel) -- whose own spouse (Lila Lee) is out of town -takes Margaret to a dance. They wind up at a hunting lodge and begin to get carried away, but stop before things get out of hand. The pair agree to keep their encounter a secret, but unfortunately, they've been seen and word gets back to their spouses. Finally everyone gets together, confessions are offered and all is forgiven. Incidentally, Midsummer Madness was released in the dead of winter. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1919
When her father, a lunch-wagon owner, dies suddenly, Jane Neill (Vivian Martin) pluckily takes charge of the family business, acting as surrogate mother to her twin sisters. When her added responsibilities threaten to overwhelm her, Jane takes a job as a stenographer for millionaire David Lyman (Spottiswoode Aitken), leaving the lunch stand in the care of her erstwhile boyfriend Micky Donovan (Casson Ferguson). Not long afterward, Lyman also dies, bequeathing his entire fortune to Jane. At first, Jane is inclined to hand the money over to Lyman's nephew Monty (Niles Welch), with whom she has fallen in love. When Monty reveals himself to be a spineless wastrel, Jane elects to return to Donovan, allowing Monty to keep the money anyway. Things turn out well for all concerned when a play written by Monty becomes a hit, whereupon the heretofore worthless nephew hands over all the royalties to Jane and her new husband. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1919
In this Pollyanna-ish story, Lila Lee plays Mary Lenox, who is orphaned when her parents die during a cholera epidemic in India. Archibald Craven (Spottiswoode Aitken) is appointed her guardian, and she is sent to England to live with him. Craven is a crotchety old man who has never been the same since his wife died in childbirth. His son, Colin (Dick Rosson), is a cripple -- or at least, that's what Craven's doctor brother, Warren days. But the doctor is trying to drive Colin to an early grave, figuring that when both Archibald and his son die, he'll wind up with the family fortune. When Mary brings her sunny self to this situation, she stirs things up. First she convinces Colin that he's better off without the heavy brace his uncle is making him wear, then she talks the help into opening up the walled-in garden that has been sealed since the death of Mrs. Craven. The doctor, seeing that Colin is beginning to thrive, decides to poison him -but both Mary and Colin see him put the poison in the drinking water. Mary goes for help, but gets stuck in a bog. Colin saves her, and the doctor, his plans thwarted, takes off. Craven becomes a whole lot less crotchety and Colin enters the British army and weds Mary. This picture was based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lila Lee, Spottiswood Aitken, (more)
- 1919
Douglas Fairbanks starred in the original Broadway production of James B. Fagan's Hawthorne of the USA, but Doug was too busy setting up United Artists in 1919 to appear in the film version. The popular Wallace Reid takes over as Anthony Hamilton Hawthorne, a young man who wins a tidy sum at Monte Carlo. He then vacations in a mythical middle-European country, where he foils a Bolshevik uprising. As a bonus, he wins the hand of Lila Lee, daughter of the rightful ruler. Is it really necessary to note that the "Harrison Ford" who co-stars in Hawthorne of the USA is not the same guy who starred in Raiders of the Lost Ark? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Don't let that title fool you: Male and Female is really James M. Barrie's The Admirable Crichton, as interpreted by Cecil B. DeMille. Thomas Meighan plays Crichton, the very proper butler in the British household of Lord Loam (Theodore Roberts). When masters and servants go on a yachting excursion, the vessel is destroyed in a storm, marooning everyone on a desert island. The helpless aristocrats must turn to the resourceful Crichton for survival. Before long, Crichton is ruling the roost, while his masters are cheerfully performing the most menial of tasks. Haughty Lady Mary (Gloria Swanson) foregoes her class-conscious upbringing and falls in love with Crichton. Once the castaways are rescued and brought back to England, however, the original class distinctions are restored. Lady Mary goes ahead with a marriage to stuffy Lord Brockelhurst as scheduled, but it is obvious that she will be unhappy in this "socially correct" union. Meawhile, Crichton finds happiness with scullery maid Tweeny (Lila Lee), who has loved him all along. Feeling that the Barrie play didn't have sufficient "punch" to go over with 1919 filmgoers, DeMille interpolated a dream sequence in which Gloria Swanson imagines herself a Babylonian princess; this gave the actress the opportunity to share a scene with a live and none-too-docile lion. One would think that critics of the era would haul DeMille over the coals for taking so many liberties with The Admirable Crichton, but such was not the case. One reviewer of Male and Female even congratulated DeMille for making Barrie "filmable"! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Thomas Meighan, Gloria Swanson, (more)
