Claire McDowell Movies

This family drama set in Argentina was filmed at low-budget Tec-Art Studios in Hollywood by fringe filmmakers Arthur Varney and Ralph Cloninger. The latter also headed a "no-name" cast as Don Rafael Casandos, the son of Argentinean rancher Don José (Harry Holden). The latter is engaged in a long-standing feud with his foster-brother, Don Escamillo (Edwards Davis), who each year presents him with a "gift of hate." As the time for the gift draws near, Don José sends his son to spy on the enemy. Naturally, Don Rafael falls in love with the daughter of the house, Mariquita (Anne Drew). Their mutual affection eventually settles the feud for good. A low-budget Romeo and Juliet variant, Winds of the Pampas was distributed by Poverty Row company Hi-Mark, a clearing house for independent product. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Because of his impressive work in Brown of Harvard and Tell It to the Marines, William Haines had just achieved stardom when he was featured in this simple little comedy, based on the play by Rachel Crothers. But he's nearly upstaged by Harry Carey who, without his usual Western gear, makes a memorable appearance. Urged on by her parents, Julia Rutherford (Claire Windsor) agrees to marry an old family friend, Alexander Smith (Carey). She heads for San Francisco to meet up with him, but on the train she meets handsome, brash George Manning (Haines). The two of them fall madly in love, completely unaware that Smith has boarded the train early to surprise his fiancée. At the end of the trip, Julia and Manning know they must part and give each other a tearful farewell. But they are seen by Smith, who realizes that Julia has found real love. For the sake of her happiness, he is willing to let the couple be together and releases her from the engagement. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Jean Paul Fippany (J. Farrell MacDonald) is so wrapped up in his horse, a filly named Marseillaise, that he neglects his wife, Josephine (Claire McDowell), and his daughter, Aida (Madge Bellamy). Finally, Josephine is fed up and walks out on him. Aida also leaves after her romance with Jimmy Pickett (Jack Mulhall) sours. Fippany is miserable without his family, and he comes to realize that his obsession has driven them away. In an attempt to right his wrongs, he sells Marseillaise to Jimmy's father (Edward Martindale), sends his wife the check, and disappears. Jimmy tracks Aida down and reconciles with her. Marseillaise, meanwhile, is badly driven and loses a race. Fippany returns from his self-imposed exile, takes control, and rides the filly to victory. He and Josephine are reunited. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This first film version of George Kelly's stage comedy The Show Off stars former Keystone Kop Ford Sterling in the title role. Though he's only a thirty-dollar-a-week clerk, Aubrey Piper (Sterling) is an incorrigible braggart, brimming full of grandiose get-rich-quick schemes. Quickly ingratiating himself with the family of his fiancee Amy Fisher (Lois Wilson), Aubrey inveigles them into an investment scheme that nearly results in ruination for all concerned. Even though he and his victims are saved from penury by a last-minute miracle, Aubrey shows no signs of having learned his lesson by film's end -- but Amy loves him anyway. Critics in 1926 were amused by Ford Sterling but impressed by the coolly authoritative performance of up-and-coming Louise Brooks in a minor role. The Show-Off was remade with Spencer Tracy in 1934 and with Red Skelton in 1947. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a James Oliver Curwood yarn, the outsized Northwest Mountie adventure The Flaming Forest stars Antonio Moreno as RCMP sergeant David Carrigan. Taking a breather from fighting off Indians, Carrigan must bring headstrong young Roger Audemard (Gardner James) to the authorities to stand trial for murder. Though he realizes that Roger acted with justification, and despite the fact that he's in love with Roger's sister Jeanne-Marie (Renee Adoree), Sgt. Carrigan holds fast to the Mountie credo "We Always Get Our Man." But things change radically when a tribe of hostile Indians sets fire to the forest surrounding Carrigan's Mountie camp. The climactic conflagration was originally filmed in Technicolor, adding considerably to The Flaming's Forest box-office appeal. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Director Victor Sjostrom and stars Lon Chaney and Norma Shearer made an impressive team on He Who Gets Slapped. They came together again for this dour and less interesting film, based on the novel The Emperor of Portugallia by the Swedish author Selma Lagerlof. Jan (Chaney) is a farmer whose hard life is brightened by the birth of a daughter, Glory. Love for the little girl transforms him and his wife, Katrina (Claire McDowell). The little family faces financial devastation when their landlord dies, and his son withdraws credit from the tenants. To find the 300 dollars her family needs, Glory, now a young woman (played by Shearer), goes to the city. The son follows after her and seduces her. Glory manages to get together the 300 dollars, but when she returns home, the neighbors shun her. Jan is driven mad by the knowledge that his daughter sold her body. Glory is about to leave on a boat when the landlord's son falls into the paddle wheels and dies. Jan tries to follow and is drowned when he falls off the pier. Glory returns and marries August (William Haines), her childhood sweetheart. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The advertising tag "four years in the making" is usually so much press-agent puffery. In the case of the 1926 silent version of Ben Hur, it was the unvarnished truth--and the filmmakers had the scars to prove it. The story behind the film is now part of Hollywood folklore: the cast and production crew changes (star George Walsh summarily dumped in favor of Roman Novarro, director Charles J. Brabin replaced by Fred Niblo, writer-supervisor June Mathis-who'd spearheaded the project in the first place-abruptly fired); the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on the troublesome location shooting in Italy--money that was lost when most of the footage proved unusable; the extra expenditure of refilming in Hollywood; and the huge chunk of the film's profits eaten up by the 50% royalty deal set up with theatrical producers Klaw and Erlanger, who controlled the rights to General Lew Wallace's novel. The end result reflected the turbulent production conditions: Ben Hur is an extraordinarily uneven experience, with moments of cinematic brilliance and pulse-pounding thrills alternating with long stretches of stagey boredom. The film follows the original Wallace story to the letter: Judah Ben-Hur (Novarro), a wealthy Jew living under the reign of the Caesars, is betrayed by his best friend, ambitious Roman centurion Messala (Francis X. Bushman). Ben-Hur's family is sent to prison, while he himself is condemned to the galleys. During a violent sea battle, Ben-Hur saves the life of galleon commander Quintus Arrius (Frank Currier). The grateful commander adopts Ben-Hur as his son and bankrolls his desire to become a champion charioteer. Thirsting for revenge, Ben-Hur agrees to race against his old nemesis Messala. The latter is fatally injured during the race; with his dying breath, Messala reveals that Ben-Hur's family, previously reported dead, are actually alive--but living as lepers. The story is subtitled A Tale of the Christ because, at various junctures in his life, Ben-Hur has been touched by the hand of Jesus. Ben-Hur must totally embrace Christ's edict of love and forgiveness before he can be reunited with his family. As Jesus is crucified in Jerusalem, Ben-Hur's mother (Claire McDowell) and sister (Kathleen Key), having also embraced the Christian philosophy, are miraculously cured of their leprosy. Most of these plot elements, together with the romance between Ben-Hur and the lovely Esther (May McAvoy), reappeared in the 1959 remake of Ben-Hur--which, fortunately, did not include the ridiculous subplot involving the alluring Iras (Carmel Myers), who attempts to seduce Ben-Hur just before the big race. The film's highlights--the sea battle, the now-legendary chariot race--were produced on a far grander scale than in the 1959 version; unfortunately, both highlights took place in the first half of the picture, leaving the viewers with a rather dreary, drawn out denouement (the remake wisely placed the sea battle in part one, and the race in part two). The Technicolor Nativity sequences were condemned in 1926 as being in poor taste, but when seen today are beautifully handled and restful on the eye (oddly, no one complained about the nude female revellers during a later Technicolor pageant scene!) Ben Hur cost $4 million and grossed $9 million on its first release. The aforementioned royalty arrangement left MGM with only a $1 million take. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Another variation on Abie's Irish Rose, the low-budget One of the Bravest focuses on the romance between Irish fireman Dan Kelly (Edward Hearn) and Jewish lass Sarah Levin (Marion Mack, best remembered as Buster Keaton's vis-a-vis in The General). When money raised for the Fireman's Ball turns up missing, Dan, the firehouse treasurer, is held responsible. Sarah's father Morris (Sidney Franklin) recoups the loss. This still doesn't compensate for the fact that Dan is deathly afraid of fire (!), but our hero redeems himself by rescuing his fireman father (Ralph Lewis) from a roaring blaze, simultaneously capturing the rat who stole the Ball funds. One of the Bravest was photographed by Ray June, a mainstay at poverty-row Gotham Pictures whose work was invariably better than his material. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Palmer School of Photoplay Writing decided to try its hand at film production, and this drama was its first release. John Trevor (Lloyd Hughes) is shocked when he discovers that his mother (Myrtle Stedman) has been running a gambling den to put him through college. His sweetheart, Mary Heath (Lucille Ricksen), has a brother, Dave (Bruce Gordon), who is accidentally killed during a brawl at Mrs. Trevor's establishment. To atone for this, John takes Dave's position at the Heath farm. Ignoring the taunts of Bob Heath, Dave's overworked and resentful brother (George Hackathorne), John braves the abuses he receives at the farm. When John and his mother save Dave's twin children (Fay MacKenzie and Frankie Darro) during a blinding snowstorm, both mother and son redeem themselves in the eyes of the Heaths. After that, there is nothing standing in the way of John's romance with Mary. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Dorothy Davenport billed herself by her private name, Mrs. Wallace Reid, for this melodrama about drug addiction. She was making a powerful point by doing so because her husband, film star Wallace Reid, had died at the beginning of 1923 as a result of his morphine habit. An exploitative bit of propaganda, Human Wreckage was nevertheless well made -- Davenport was supported by a solid cast that included James Kirkwood, Bessie Love, and Robert McKim, and the screenplay was written by C. Gardner Sullivan. Jimmy Browne, a junkie (George Hackathorne), is arrested after robbing a pawnshop, and his friend Mary Finnegan (Love) approaches Ethel MacFarland (Davenport) about the dilemma. Ethel's husband Alan (Kirkwood) is a lawyer of note, and he gets Browne released to a sanitarium to be cured. MacFarland is overworked, and his doctor (McKim) prescribes narcotics. Soon he is hooked, adverselt affecting his life and his work -- he even makes sure that Steve Stone (Harry Northrup), the head of the drug ring, gets acquitted of charges. Eventually he begs his wife to take him away so that he can kick his habit., but he is only able to quit for good when he believes that Ethel herself is succumbing to the lure of drugs. Now cured, he heads a campaign to wipe out drugs. Stone tries to escape, but Browne, who is driving him away, runs the car into a train, killing them both. This picture was made in the wake of several notorious Hollywood scandals -- Reid's drug addiction being only one -- and was a weak attempt to convince Middle America that the film capital was willing to clean up its act. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The massacre of the Huguenots, previously dramatized in broad strokes by Griffith's Intolerance, served as the basis for director Frank Lloyd's Ashes of Vengeance. Norma Talmadge stars as a Huguenot lass who stands defiant against the persecution of the French royal court. She is protected by Conway Tearle, a French noble who refuses to go along with the de Medici's murderous machinations. Josephine Crowell, who played Catherine de Medici in Intolerance, here repeats the role. Director Lloyd and H. B. Somerville adapted the screenplay of Ashes of Vengeance from Somerville's novel of the same name. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This old-fashioned drama was based on the novel Youth Triumphant by George Gibb. Patsy, a little slum girl (Virginia Lee Corbin), runs away from Ma Slavin, her alcoholic guardian (Eugenie Besserer). She is found and adopted by the wealthy Godfrey sisters (Lucy Beaumont and Claire McDonald). The girl, now known as Patricia, grows into adolescence (to be played by Anna Q. Nilsson), and Ma Slavin comes looking for her. But instead she finds Christopher Van Leer, an eccentric cripple (Raymond Hatton), and he believes that Ma Slavin can help him trace the girl's origins. But it takes a group of detectives to finally discover that Patricia is the daughter of Van Leer's brother (Joe Dowling) and a granddaughter of one of the town's most influential citizens. Since she apparently hails from a respectable lineage, Patricia is able to marry the man of her choice. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide