Margaret McWade Movies

Olive Thomas, the star of this innocent and sentimental picture, would tragically die of poisoning in Paris within a couple of weeks of its release. The story line is not unlike Peg O' My Heart: a sweet Irish colleen lightens up the lives of those around her. When her Aunt Agnes (Margaret McWade) writes her a desperate note, Kitty McCarthy (Thomas) decides to leave her home in Ireland for the U.S. When she lands on American soil, she meets playwright Gordon Davis (J. Barney Sherry), who gives her enough money to get to her aunt. It turns out that Agnes has become a dope fiend, but Kitty's sunny influence helps her reform almost immediately. Davis, meanwhile, has written a musical comedy, and he gives Kitty a role. The leading lady, Vera Maxwell (Betty Schade), is having problems with her jealous suitor, the wealthy Savoy (Richard Tucker). Kitty helps bring them back together, which temporarily endangers her own romance with Davis' nephew, Roger (Walter McGrail). Gordon lends his aid in keeping the young couple together. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Wanda Hawley debuted as a star in her previous film, Miss Hobbs. So it is suggested that the poor material in this pointless picture, based on the Paul Kester play Beverly's Balance, is one of the reasons that Hawley's name did not endure beyond her era. Sylvia (Hawley) is the last of the once-wealthy Figueroas. The family fortune has dwindled and the ranch where she lives is falling apart. To fend for herself, Sylvia travels to San Francisco and lands a job as a chorus girl. She's also looking for her sweetheart, Watt Dinwiddie (Harrison Ford), who went to 'Frisco to start his law practice. She thinks he is well-to-do, but in fact, he's struggling as much as she is. Sylvia earns some scandalous publicity because of the way she is promoted in the chorus show, so she quits. Then she discovers that Jack Horner (Lester Cuneo) is seeking a divorce from his wife, Nancy (Ethel Grey Terry), who is infatuated with a nobleman. Sylvia offers to be co-respondent if he uses Dinwiddie as his lawyer. At first, Dinwiddie is perplexed by Sylvia's behavior, but when she helps Horner and his wife reconcile, he understands, and they reunite, too. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This is one of a number of silent pictures in which a young American is raised as a Chinese girl, and even though she has no Asian features to speak of, she never guesses she's white until the film's end. While they are visiting China on business a curio collector, Carmichael (Dwight Crittenden) and his wife (Irene Rich), are killed during a Boxer uprising. A servant, Ah Wing (E. A. Warren), saves their baby, which he takes to America and raises as his own. Sui Sen (Leatrice Joy) grows up in Chinatown really believing that Ah Wing is her father. A wealthy American, Newcombe (J. Frank Glendon), sees Sui Sen and falls in love with her on the spot. But Ling Jo (Wallace Beery) -- the same man responsible for the Carmichaels' deaths -- is living in the very same Chinatown and is determined to make the girl his wife. Ah Wing tells Ling Jo that if he can get him the scepter of the Mings -- a supposedly impossible task -- then he can have Sui Sen. But Ling Jo comes through and Ah Wing has to honor the promise. Newcombe finds out about it, however, and goes to save Sui Sen. But he is captured and taken to the steel room to be crushed to death. With the help of a Chinese boy, Newcombe is able to escape, and Ling Jo winds up being crushed in the steel room instead. Finally Sui Sen learns that she is American as apple pie and weds Newcombe. This picture was the first time author Gouverneur Morris wrote a story directly for the screen, and it was part of producer Samuel Goldwyn's "Eminent Authors" series. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Almost an instant classic, Booth Tarkington's 1921 small-town morality tale reached the screen two years later courtesy of King Vidor and Encore Pictures. Vidor's wife, the beautiful Florence Vidor, played the title-role, a girl of modest means who pretends to be wealthy to her friends in general and socialite Arthur Russell (Vernon Steele) in particular. The highlight of the film -- and the book -- is the disastrous dinner party given in Arthur's honor. RKO remade the story in 1935 as a vehicle for Katharine Hepburn, with Fred MacMurray as Arthur and Evelyn Venable as the debutante Mildred Palmer, a role played in the 1924 original by Gertrude Astor. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

A very young Norma Shearer and a fine supporting cast that includes Adolphe Menjou and Mae Busch all suffered from a hackneyed screenplay in this silent society melodrama from Metro-Goldwyn, the forerunner of MGM. Shearer plays Grace Durland, a debutante forced to leave college when her father (George Fawcett) goes bankrupt. Reduced to working for a living, Grace falls in love with married Ward Trenton (James Kirkwood), whose disagreeable wife (Winifred Bryson) refuses to grant him a divorce. But when Ward sustains severe injuries in a car accident and may not be able to work again, Mrs. Trenton promptly begins divorce proceedings. Happily, Ward makes a full recovery and proposes to Grace. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this western, a cowboy goes on the lam after killing his cheatin' wife's lover and allowing his friend to take the fall. He then begins hitting the outlaw trail pretty hard while back home, his pal tries to prove his innocence. Eventually, the bad guy gives himself up; justice prevails, and the accused is free to make romance. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

A postal inspector finds himself caught in a sticky situation as he tries to pin a rap for mail theft upon the owner of a prominent nightclub owner. The owner is guilty and only stole the mail so he could get the money he needs to pay off a murderous and impatient loan shark. Unfortunately, upon opening the mail sack, he discovers it filled with inane mail-order gadgets and a few letters. Meanwhile as the intrepid inspector closes in, he finds himself falling in love with a singer. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Raymond McCarey, the prolific if less-inspired brother of Leo McCarey, called the directorial shots for Universal's Love in a Bungalow. Nan Grey stars as young real estate agent Mary Callahan, whose job it is to guide potential house-buyers through a "model" bungalow. Enter Jeff Langan (Kent Taylor), a handsome young indigent who moves into the bungalow and steadfastly refuses to move out. Falling in love with the stubborn but charming Jeff, Mary conspires with him to enter a radio contest in hopes of winning the bungalow rent-free. But there's a catch: Jeff and Mary have to pretend to be married. Never a studio to throw anything away, Universal recycled the plot of Love in a Bungalow for one of its mini-musicals of the 1940s. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It took British author James Hilton six weeks to write his visionary novel Lost Horizon. It took director Frank Capra two years-and half of his home studio Columbia's annual budget-to bring it to the screen. After a lengthy preamble, inviting audiences to imagine their own ideas of Utopia, the film opens on a chaotic scene at a Chinese airfield. As hordes of bandits approach, hundreds of refugees scramble to board the last plane out. Only five people make it: Mildly disenchanted Far Eastern diplomat Robert Conway (Ronald Colman), his hotheaded younger brother George (John Howard), embezzler Barnard (Thomas Mitchell), dithery fossil expert Lovett (Edward Everett Horton) and consumptive prostitute Gloria Stone (Isabel Jewell). As the plane flies off towards the Himalayas, Robert realizes that he and his fellow passengers are heading in the wrong direction. They are, in fact, being kidnapped-but why? And where to? The plane crash-lands in the snowy Tibetan interior. The pilot is killed, but the passengers are safe. By and by, a strange caravan approaches, led by an enigmatic Chinese named Chang (H. B. Warner). Joining the caravan, Conway and his party are led through a treacherous mountain pass and into a land of temperate weather and dazzling beauty. This is Shangri-La, the idyllic lamasery presided over by the aged, wizened High Lama (Sam Jaffe). In this fertile valley, people are not encumbered by such exigencies as crime, dictators and hatred; instead, everyone is devoted to the pursuit of wisdom and self-improvement-and best of all, the aging process has been slowed to a walk, allowing people to live well past the two-century mark. Though he still does not know why he was brought here, Conway is quicker to adapt to Shangri-La than his wary fellow passengers. He even falls in love with Sondra (Jane Wyatt), an attractive, intelligent young woman. Finally granted an audience with the High Lama, Conway discovers that the old man is actually Father Perrault, the Belgian missionary who founded Shangri-La-over two hundred years earlier. Dying, the High Lama has selected Conway, whose idealism and even-handedness is world famous, to succeed him-and hopefully spread the "love thy neighbor" edict of Shangri-La to the rest of the war-torn world. Conway is willing to assume leadership, but younger brother George, his mind poisoned by spiteful Shangri-La resident Maria (Margo), insists upon escaping to the outside world. The older Conway warns that, despite her youthful appearance, Maria is well past sixty and will surely perish once she leaves Shangri-La; but Maria retorts that the high lama is insane, and that everything he has told Conway is a lie. Disillusioned, Conway agrees to leave with Jack and Maria. The trek back to civilization is a grueling one, especially for Maria, who-true to Conway's prediction-shrivels from age and dies. Appalled that he has been misled, George kills himself. Weeks later, and amnesiac Conway stumbles into a Tibetan mission, where he is rescued and brought back to England. When his memory is restored, however, Conway runs back to Shangri-La, and into the arms of Sondra. When Lost Horizon was shown to preview audiences, it ran nearly three hours-and it was a disaster. In his autobiography, Capra claims to have rescued his pet project by merely burning the first two reels and opening the film with the evacuation scene; In fact, while Capra did remove the film's "flashback" framework, he made most of his cuts in the body of the picture. The release length of Lost Horizon was 132 minutes, pared down to 119 when it when into general distribution. When it was reissued in the 1940s and 1950s, it was rather clumsily pared down to anywhere from 95 to 100 minutes. Only in the mid-1980s was Lost Horizon restored to its original length, with stills used to illustrate certain scenes for which only the soundtrack existed. While not the enormous hit Capra and Columbia had hoped it would be, Lost Horizon was popular enough to allow the name "Shangri-La" enter the household-word category. In 1973, producer Ross Hunter felt the urge to inflict a wretched musical remake onto an unsuspecting public. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

An airy screwball comedy, Danger--Love at Work explores the lives of a wealthy but wacky family. Ann Sothern plays the daughter, the only remotely "normal" member of the clan. Poor Jack Haley enters the scene as a feckless attorney who tries to get the family to finalize an important land deal. Sothern falls for Haley, and through the machinations of her looney parents the timorous lawyer winds up the object of a "shotgun wedding." The amusing but inconsequential Danger--Love at Work was the second American film of director Otto Preminger. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based upon Arthur Kober’s play (which was subsequently musicalized onstage as Wish You Were Here, Having Wonderful Time stars Ginger Rogers as Teddy Shaw, a typist who goes to a summer camp for a little rest and relaxation. She’s also getting away from Emil (Jack Carson), whose interest in Teddy is no longer returned. Arriving at Camp Kare-Free, she’s offered a ride by Chick (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), who works at the camp as a waiter. Unfortunately, they get off to a bumpy start when Chick spills her suitcase and an argument ensues. Once at camp, she makes friends with Fay (Peggy Conklin), Miriam (Lucille Ball) and Henrietta(Eve Arden). Chick apologizes to Teddy, and over the next six days their relationship blossoms, concurrently with that of Miriam and another guest, Buzzy. However, when Chick makes an improper advance during her last night at the camp, Teddy gets angry and leaves him. She dances with Buzzy to make Chick jealous and makes sure she is seen entering Buzzy’s cabin. She takes steps to see that nothing happens and leaves unscathed the next morning, but not before causing trouble between Buzzy and Miriam. Emil has arrived and plans to bring her home after breakfast. While they are eating, Emil proposes to Teddy. Both Chick and Miriam overhear this proposal, after which Miriam loudly comments that Teddy stayed overnight with Buzzy. In the ensuing confusion, Chick decks both Buzzy and Emil, and offers his own proposal to Teddy – which she happily accepts. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide