Tully Marshall Movies

The "heroine" of The Countess Charming was actually the hero, played by legendary female impersonator Julian Eltinge. The star plays a wealthy bachelor who manages to get himself booted from society when he insults one of the leaders of the "400." Seeking revenge against the insultee, who happens to be a "charity crook," Eltinge disguises himself as a beautiful countess and worms his way into the villain's confidence. Exerting his "feminine wiles," the bogus countess manages to expose the social arbiter as a thief and a reprobate. So convincing was Julian Eltinge's female masquerade that he frequently issued publicity photos of himself smoking cigars and palling around with the likes of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Tom Mix, just in case anyone might assume that he enjoyed being a "girl." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Sometime during the shooting of the landmark The Birth of a Nation, filmmaker D.W. Griffith probably wondered how he could top himself. In 1916, he showed how, with the awesome Intolerance. The film began humbly enough as a medium-budget feature entitled The Mother and the Law, wherein the lives of a poor but happily married couple are disrupted by the misguided interference of a "social reform" group. A series of unfortunate circumstances culminates in the husband's being sentenced to the gallows, a fate averted by a nick-of-time rescue engineered by his wife. In the wake of the protests attending the racist content of The Birth of a Nation, Griffith wanted to demonstrate the dangers of intolerance. The Mother and the Law filled the bill to some extent, but it just wasn't "big" enough to suit his purposes. Thus, using The Mother and the Law as merely the base of the film, Griffith added three more plotlines and expanded his cinematic thesis to epic proportions. The four separate stories of Intolerance are symbolically linked by Lillian Gish as the Woman Who Rocks the Cradle ("uniter of the here and hereafter"). The "Modern Story" is essentially The Mother and the Law; the "French Story" details the persecution of the Huguenots by Catherine de Medici (Josephine Crowell); the "Biblical Story" relates the last days of Jesus Christ (Howard Gaye); and the "Babylonian Story" concerns the defeat of King Belshazzar (Alfred Paget) by the hordes of Cyrus the Persian (George Siegmann).

Rather than being related chronologically, the four stories are told in parallel fashion, slowly at first, and then with increasing rapidity. The action in the film's final two reels leaps back and forth in time between Babylon, Calvary, 15th century France, and contemporary California. Described by one historian as "the only film fugue," Intolerance baffled many filmgoers of 1916 -- and, indeed, it is still an exhausting, overwhelming experience, even for audiences accustomed to the split-second cutting and multilayered montage sequences popularized by Sergei Eisenstein, Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard, Joel Schumacher, and MTV. On a pure entertainment level, the Babylonian sequences are the most effective, played out against one of the largest, most elaborate exterior sets ever built for a single film. The most memorable character in this sequence is "The Mountain Girl," played by star on the rise Constance Talmadge; when the Babylonian scenes were re-released as a separate feature in 1919, Talmadge's tragic death scene was altered to accommodate a happily-ever-after denouement. Other superb performances are delivered by Mae Marsh and Robert Harron in the Modern Story, and by Eugene Pallette and Margery Wilson in the French Story. Remarkably sophisticated in some scenes, appallingly naïve in others, Intolerance is a mixed bag dramatically, but one cannot deny that it is also a work of cinematic genius. The film did poorly upon its first release, not so much because its continuity was difficult to follow as because it preached a gospel of tolerance and pacifism to a nation preparing to enter World War I. Currently available prints of Intolerance run anywhere from 178 to 208 minutes; while it may be rough sledding at times, it remains essential viewing for any serious student of film technique. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This spoof of temperance melodrama is the last two-reeler directed by Tod Browning. The virtuous John (Jack Brammall) learns that he will inherit one million dollars providing that he refrains from drinking beer before he reaches the age of 21. His dastardly cousin Henry (Tully Marshall), knowing that he will receive the inheritance if John should imbibe, goes to extreme lengths to dupe John into drinking beer. When all else fails, he resorts to kidnapping him on the day of he turns 21, but John is rescued in the nick of time by the loyal Nell (Teddy Sampson). 16/2rl ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide

Although this classic Charles Dickens tale was filmed at least twice previously, this Lasky version was the first to really do it justice. Perhaps casting 25-year-old actress Marie Doro as the orphan Oliver Twist was questionable, but then, this was the era where Mary Pickford played children into her mid-thirties. The rest of the casting was utterly solid, with great silent character actor Tully Marshall as Fagin and stage and silent star Hobart Bosworth as Bill Sykes. As much attention was paid to the smaller roles, with James Neil putting in a crusty, yet tender portrayal of Grimwig, the churlish pal of the kindly Mr. Brownlow. London's sordid nineteenth century slums are well-depicted too -- in fact, some critics of the 1910s felt the scenery too unpleasant to appeal to film patrons of the era. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Before getting a "lock" on his "All-American Boy" screen persona, Charles Ray appeared in several films along the lines of A Painted Soul. Ray plays a young artist who, after gaining fame for a portrait titled "The Painted Soul," seeks inspiration for his next work, "The Fallen Woman." He finds it in the form of beautiful but downtrodden prostitute Bessie Barriscale. As work on the portrait progresses, the artist and his model fall in love -- whereupon Ray's mother, evidently inspired by Camille, begs the girl to break off the romance so as not to destroy her son's future. Tearfully conceding that she must be cruel to be kind, Barriscale runs out into the streets and deliberately propositions a detective, knowing that she will be arrested and thus disgraced in Ray's eyes. The Painted Soul was the tenth of Charles Ray's starring vehicles for 1915. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide