George MacQuarrie Movies

Like virtually all of Theda Bara's starring vehicles, The Eternal Sappho is a lost film. Contemporary historians, however, have been able to piece together its plot from publicity releases and the studio's cutting continuity. In this one, Bara plays a contemporary woman who imagines that she's under the spell of libertine Greek poet Sappho. Her quest for eroticism rather than true love proves disastrous. The film's script was taken (as far as possible, it seems) from the best-selling novel by Alphonse Daudet. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Given the ludicrous nature of The Iron Ring, it is little wonder that Charles Stokes Wayne, the author of the story upon which the film was based, elected to use the pseudonym of Horace Hazelton. Though she loves her husband Aleck (Edward Langford), Bess Hulette (Gerda Holmes) cannot pass up the opportunity to "fool around" with handsome Jack Delmore (Arthur Ashley). Likewise inclined to wander astray from her marriage vows is Mrs. Georgie Leonard (Alexandria Carewe). While Bess realizes the error of her ways before it is too late, Georgie does not, and the sorry result is the suicide of Mrs. Leonard's husband Ellery (Herbert Frank). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Child actress Madge Evans plays the title role in The Adventures of Carol. One of those sugary miss-fixit types, Carol spreads a little sunshine wherever she goes. By film's end, she has straigthened out her selfish and insensitive family, through the simple expedient of running away to join the circus. Yes, this is the same Madge Evans who matured into a slim and lovely MGM leading lady in the 1930s. Adventures of Carol is based on a short story by Julia Burnham. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The "Maid of Belgium" is sad-eyed Adoree, played by Alice Brady. When her town is destroyed by the invading Germans during WWI, the shock causes Adoree to completely lose her memory. The girl is rescued from the rubble by Mr. and Mrs. Hudson (George MacQuarrie and Louise de Rigney), a wealthy American couple. Despite her newfound happiness, Adoree does not snap out of her near-catatonic amnesia and sits silently in her room pathetically clutching an old doll. It soon turns out that the heroine is expecting a baby. Upon the child's birth, it is promptly appropriated by the barren Mrs. Hudson, who claims that the baby is hers. Not wishing to be deprived of the only thing she genuinely loves, Adoree steals the baby and hides away on a remote island. Believing the child has been drowned, the grieving Hudsons arrange to dynamite the river in hopes of recovering the body. The sound of the explosion shocks Adoree back to her senses, and at long, long last she remembers that, just before the Germans marched in, she had been married to a prominent Belgian nobleman -- thereby "legitimizing" her baby and paving the way for a happy ending. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

June Elvidge is legally married to Douglas Redmond Jr., but no one in her small town believes this. Thanks to a jealous rival, a rumor is spread that Elvidge is living in sin with her husband. She'd like to prove the validity of their union, but all court records have been conveniently lost. Elvidge is on the verge of having her child taken from her when the story takes a wholly unexpected twist. Appearance of Evil was one of the last features produced by the World Film Organization, which collapsed after executive Lewis J. Selznick withdrew in favor of independent production. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Captain Jim Craig (William Russell) is not pleased that his foster brother Lieutenant Ralph Harrison (James Morrison) is carrying on a flirtation with the wife of Major Marston (George MacQuarrie). He goes to the woman's home to argue it out and a fight ensues between him and Harrison. Harrison is shot through the shoulder. Later the Major kills the Lieutenant, and to cover up the scandal, the wife convinces Craig that he is the killer. So Craig deserts, believing that he is preserving the wife's honor. He winds up as a bum in the city and meets Madge Summers (Agnes Ayres), whose mission it is to urge deserters to return to the army. But when she hears Craig's story, she tells him to keep running. Nevertheless Craig decides to allow himself be captured. Meanwhile, the Major has become fed up with his wicked wife and strangles her. Then he goes to the Colonel (Tom Brooke) and confesses to both her murder and that of the Lieutenant, whereupon Captain Craig is set free and he marries Madge. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

From its title, one would think this picture was a light comedy, but it isn't -- it's a World War I spy drama, a subject which was growing increasingly stale by early 1919. Carlyle Blackwell plays Charles Conant, a young, wellto-do man who is masquerading as a muleteer on a tramp steamer. He quits the boat in England to look up some distant relatives, Lord and Lady Dartridge. Lady Dartridge's daughter, Lady Joan Templar (Evelyn Greeley) helps him out by giving him work on the estate, but his behavior is suspicious. There are several workers who are secretly plotting to smuggle titanium on board a German submarine, and Conant is quite interested in their activities. Of course by the end of the film, he has proved himself a true-blue American by capturing these bad men -- it turns out that the titanium belongs to his father's company and was inadvertently sold to the Germans. Before Conant goes off to join the Lafayette Squadron in France, Lady Joan has decided to throw away her title and marry him. This convoluted film was originally a Saturday Evening Post story by Kenyon Gambier with an equally convoluted title: "A Huge, Black One-Eyed Man." Some of the English countryside in the picture looks an awful lot like Fort Lee, New Jersey, where World Pictures had its studio. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Even though this is a lesser D.W. Griffith film, the casting is intriguing. Richard Barthelmess, who usually played a "good boy," portrays Dan McGuire, a lazy beachcomber who likes his gin. The girl is Clarine Seymour, whose spirit was far earthier than Lillian Gish's, and whose talent was far more spontaneous than Carol Demptser, the star of most of Griffith's later films. Unfortunately, Seymour died later in the year (1920) at the age of 21, so her talent was never fully realized. The real problem with this film was its South Seas setting, which was very foreign territory for Griffith, since his brand of sentiment just didn't mix with primitive backgrounds. On this particular South Seas island lives Mary (Seymour) a dancing girl who has a French father and Javanese mother. Two men come along who vie for her heart: McGuire, the drunken bum, and Walter Kincaid (Creighton Hale), the invalid nephew of an island missionary (George MacQuarrie) who has come to the tropics for his health. Natives from a nearby island attack, and the nephew is heroically and conveniently killed. Mary confesses that she loves McGuire, who promises to reform. She, in turn, agrees to become civilized and which brings them together for the fade out. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Jim Montgomery (Thomas Meighan) is the country mechanic who comes to New York to seek his fortune. The naive rube is talked into accompanying some prospective employers to a bank. The men are crooks, and Jim is framed for the murder of a guard. Sent to Sing Sing prison, he is befriended by Old Bill (Paul Everton), a kindly long-time prisoner. After Old Bill helps him to escape, ravels to California Jim takes a new name and prospers. He even makes plans to marry a local girl. Unfortuneatly, New York detective Mike Kearney (George MacQuarrie) has diligently tracked him down and arrives on Jim's wedding day. Jim thrusts his hands into a machine, mangling them to avoid fingerprint identification. The hard-boiled gumshoe is inclined to let Jim go free. Old Bill arrives after his release from prison with information about the real killers in this implausible crime drama. Kate Bruce is Jim's mother, with Lois Wilson his fiancee and Guy Oliver as her father. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This second film version of the Victor Hugo novel Notre Dame de Paris (the first was a Theda Bara vehicle, The Dancer of Paris) was a super-duper-spectacular as only Hollywood of the 1920s could make them, but it is never so large that it dwarfs the contribution of its star, Lon Chaney. As the hunchbacked bellringer Quasimodo, Chaney adorned himself with a special device that made his cheeks jut out grotesquely; a contact lens that blanked out one of his eyes; and, most painfully, a huge rubber hump covered with coarse animal fur and weighing anywhere from 30 to 50 pounds. While Quasimodo is but one of many interconnecting characters in the original Hugo novel, he dominates the narrative of this expensive Universal production. Set in the walled city of Paris in the 16th century, the story is set in motion when the evil Jehan (Brandon Hurst), brother of saintly Notre Dame archdeacon Dom Claude (Nigel De Brulier), orders the dog-like Quasimodo to attempt to kidnap gypsy girl Esmeralda (Patsy Ruth Miller). Quasimodo is captured and flogged for his crime, whereupon Esmeralda shows him kindness by offering him water. He reciprocates when Esmeralda, framed on a murder charge by the obsessed Jehan (if he can't have her, no one can), is sentenced to be hanged. Quasimodo grabs a rope and swings down from the towers of Notre Dame, rescues Esmeralda from the gallows, and carries her into the church, shouting "Sanctuary! Sanctuary!" Through a series of convoluted plot twists, Clopin (Ernest Torrence), the king of beggars, leads an army of the Parisian poor to storm the gates of the cathedral and reclaim Esmeralda. Quasimodo defends both the girl and his church by tossing heavy objects and pouring molten lead upon the invaders. This climactic scene was filmed at night, requiring the services of literally every arc light in Hollywood. The Notre Dame set (which wasn't quite as large in real life as it seems on screen) remained standing on the Universal back lot for years after this film was completed, doing background service in the 1925 Lon Chaney starrer The Phantom of the Opera. With Hunchback of Notre Dame, Lon Chaney rose from mere leading player to major star, which led him to even greater success at MGM, where his reputation as "the man of a thousand faces" really got a workout. The story would be remade by in 1939 with Charles Laughton, in 1955 with Anthony Quinn, in 1982 with Anthony Hopkins, and again in 1996 as a sanitized Disney animated musical. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

When she is deserted by her husband, the Stranger (Anna Q. Nilsson) leaves her baby on a doorstep with half a dollar bill pinned to his chest, and a note saying that one day she will return for the child with the other half as identification. The baby is found by Captain McTeague (William T. Carleton) and his one-legged chef, Noodles (Raymond Hatton). The two men awkwardly but lovingly raise the child (who, as a boy, is played by Frank Darro). When one of the captain's mates, Martin Webber (George MacQuarrie), makes fun of little Bill, McTeague fires him. It turns out that Webber is the boy's father, so he kidnaps him in retaliation and uses the law to keep him. Ultimately Webber is killed in a fight and the Stranger returns for the boy. She and McTeague wind up raising him together. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

John Leslie (Conrad Nagel) and Craig Burnett (Antonio D'Algy) land their plane near a small Quebec town. Leslie becomes infatuated with Diane DuPrez (Alma Rubens), although her father (George MacQuarrie) wants her to marry Jean Gagnon (Bela Lugosi, who had just recently begun making films in the U.S.) During a walk, Diane and Leslie are caught in a snowstorm and forced to seek shelter overnight. The hamlet is scandalized. When Leslie returns to New York because of the death of his millionaire father, DuPrez sends his "ruined" daughter there to stay with her aunt. Leslie finds her rural ways a lot less appealing in the big city. His business manager, James Dunbar (Wyndham Standing), takes her aside and offers to send her to Europe to gain some polish. When Diane returns in style, Leslie falls in love with her all over again and they marry. Then Dunbar reveals that he spent the money to send Diane to Europe and Leslie presumes the worst. When he discovers that it was all a plot on Dunbar's part to get his hands on the Leslie fortune, the two men battle it out with their fists, and Leslie and Diane reconcile. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

To date, this D.W. Griffith epic is the only talking-picture effort to encapsulate the entire life of Abraham Lincoln, from cradle to grave. The script, credited to Stephen Vincent Benet, manages to include all the familiar high points, including Lincoln's tragic romance with Ann Rutledge (Una Merkel, allegedly cast because of her resemblance to Griffith favorite Lillian Gish), his lawyer days in Illinois, his contentious marriage to Mary Todd (Kay Hammond), his heartbreaking decision to declare war upon the South, his pardoning of a condemned sentry during the Civil War, and his assassination at the hands of John Wilkes Booth (expansively portrayed by Ian Keith). This was D.W. Griffith's first talkie, and the master does his best with the somewhat pedantic dialogue sequences; but as always, Griffith's forte was spectacle and montage, as witness the cross-cut scenes of Yankees and Rebels marching off to war and the pulse-pounding ride of General Sheridan (Frank Campeau) through the Shenandoah Valley. Thanks to the wizardry of production designer William Cameron Menzies, many of the scenes appear far more elaborate than they really were; Menzies can also be credited with the unforgettable finale, as Honest Abe's Kentucky log cabin dissolves to the Lincoln Memorial. As Abraham Lincoln, Walter Huston is a tower of strength, making even the most florid of speeches sound human and credible; only during the protracted death scene of Ann Rutledge does Huston falter, and then the fault is as much Griffith's as his. Road-shown at nearly two hours (including a prologue showing slaves being brought to America), Abraham Lincoln was pared down to 97 minutes by United Artists, and in that length it proved a box-office success, boding well for D.W. Griffith's future in talkies (alas, it proved to be his next-to-last film; Griffith's final effort, The Struggle was a financial disaster). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide