Carl Miller Movies

A best-selling nonfictional book of the 1920s provided the title for this Will Rogers vehicle. Rogers plays a small town newspaper editor who prints all the news that fits his own homespun view of the world. Against the wishes of the town higher-ups, Rogers tries to clear the name of Richard Cromwell, a young man accused of a long-ago bank robbery. Along the way, the genial editor smooths the path of romance between Cromwell and sweet Rochelle Hudson. Life Begins at 40 contains some great bits of dialogue, notably Rogers' comment after unloading a box of canned goods that the American emblem should be changed from an eagle to a can opener. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This brisk Monogram melodrama includes all the requisite entertainment elements: Talented cast, solid story, a plenitude of suspense, and a few bonus song numbers. Arnold Gray plays Grant Murdock, a popular radio crooner who, truth be told, can't sing a note. For appearance's sake, the handsome Murdock is propped up before the microphone while his voice is supplied by homely hunchback Norman Wilder (Ralph Forbes). When Murdock is murdered, suspicion immediately falls upon Wilder -- who in fact had intended to bump off the phony, except that someone beat him to it. Knowing that no one will believe his story, Wilder scurries off into the night, with police hot on his heels. The actual culprit very nearly gets off scot-free but is ultimately undone by a sudden attack of conscience -- too late, alas, to save Murdock from his inexorable fate. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The peripatetic spouses referred to in the title are all travelling salesmen, scooting to and from their wives via train. In Detroit on business, young unmarried salesman Barry (Frank Albertson) finds himself at a wild party where his fellow drummers, husbands all, are being entertained by a bevy of call-girls. One of these cuties is Ruby (Evelyn Brent), who ends up shooting libidinous salesman Ben (Carl Miller). For a while, it looks as though the cops are going to pin the shooting on Barry, but Ruby confesses at the last moment; meanwhile, Ben recovers from his wound, but may not be able to patch up his marriage when his wife shows up unexpectedly at the scene of the crime. Some much-needed laughs are provided by Hugh Herbert, dropping his usual "woo woo" gestures in favor of a philosophical Jewish characterization. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Why Sailors Go Wrong was directed by Henry "Pathe" Lehrmann, whose comedy technique hadn't changed much since his days with the Keystone studios. Sammy Cohen and Ted McNamara play a pair of silly sailors, the best friends of hero Nick Stuart. In love with wealthy Sally Phipps, Stuart has been forbidden any contract with the girl by her domineering father. Daddy ships Phipps off in the family yacht, with Cohen and McNamara at the controls, while Stuart sneaks on board. The yacht is shipwrecked on a desert island, chock-full of hungry cannibals. Stuart rescues Phipps from the natives, proving himself a worthy potential husband, while Cohen and McNamara contend with a mischievous monkey. The film's "high point" finds the two comedy-relief gobs feeding an alligator castor oil so that the huge reptile will cough up their life savings. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on "The Owner of the Aztec", a 1926 magazine story by Murray Leinster, this typical silent Buck Jones Western presented Jones as Buck Brady, the son of a prospector whose valuable claim was stolen when Buck was a child. Brady grows up with revenge on his mind and retaliates by holding up the mine's payroll messengers. Until, that is, he falls in love with Janet Laurier (Frances Lee), the new owner. Forgetting all about revenge, Buck helps the girl defeat Tilford (Carl Miller), the mine's crooked foreman. The final battle is fought on a moving car that eventually careens over the inevitable cliff. Leading lady Frances Lee was a red-headed WAMPAS Baby Star of 1927 who resembled Fox star Nancy Carroll, a fact that shortened her career considerably. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Tom Mix's lucrative contract with Fox Studios was drawing to a close when the World's Most Popular Cowboy starred in Canyon of Light. The story begins as Tom Mills (Mix) rides off to fight in WWI. Leaving his ranch in the care of his sister Ellen (Carmelita Geraghty) and her husband Ed (Carl Miller) Mills returns from the battlefield two years later to find that his brother-in-law has deserted, and the ranch is in a state of ruin and disrepair. Even worse, Ed is now top man in a vicious outlaw gang. On her deathbed, Ellen begs Tom to find Ed and bring him back for one last reunion. Rescuing Ed from a lynch mob, Tom promises to deliver him to the sheriff before the final meeting with Ellen, but Ed escapes, forcing Tom to take his place in jail. As our hero awaits his fate, his no-good in-law lives high on the hog by impersonating one of Tom's dead army buddies. The plot gets even thicker before Tom is sprung from the calaboose to hastily set things right. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Silent-film leading lady Alice Calhoun always tried hard, but she was defeated by the "B"-grade melodramas in which she usually found herself. In Power of the Weak, Calhoun plays Mary, the young owner of a thriving lumber camp. When a shipment of lumber fails to arrive on time, young logger Raymond (Carl Miller) is blamed, whereupon the enraged Mary lets him have it with a bull-whip (this woman definitely needs to hire an employee-relations expert!) Instead of whimpering in pain, Raymond emerges from his whipping determined to prove his manhood by capturing the Benedict Arnold responsible for sabotaging the lumber shipment. After surviving a train explosion, Raymond gets his man and demands an apology from Mary -- who, by now, has fallen in love with the boy. Perhaps wisely, the director of Power of the Weak declined to take on-screen credit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Three of Hollywood's more enterprising women created this sentimental treatise on sin and redemption: Mrs. Wallace Reid (the former actress Dorothy Davenport) produced and co-directed (with Walter Lang) and Dorothy Arzner's screenplay was based on a story by influential journalist Adela Rogers St. Johns. Priscilla Bonner starred as Gabrielle Darley, a real-life prostitute acquitted of murdering her procurer in 1917. Left in a New Orleans brothel by a bounder she mistakenly believed to be her fiancé, Gabrielle tracks down the man (Carl Miller) in a Los Angeles jewelry shop and kills him in cold blood. Immediately regretting her brutal act, Gabrielle is resigned to her fate when the jury surprisingly returns a verdict of not guilty. A free woman, Gabrielle wants to change her wayward life by becoming a nurse, but is instead invited to live in the palatial Wilshire Boulevard estate of Mrs. Fontaine (Virginia Pearson). With Freddy the chauffeur (Theodore Von Eltz) as her only ally, Gabrielle is cruelly paraded in front of Mrs. Fontaine's society friends, some of whom "have skipped a matinee to see you." Tiring of the notoriety quickly enough, Mrs. Fontaine arranges for an interview with the local hospital, knowing full well that Gabrielle's sordid past will prohibit her ever becoming a nurse. Distraught and penniless, Gabrielle returns to New Orleans, never realizing that Freddy is desperately searching for her. Chased by a pimp in the French Quarter, the exhausted girl runs out into the crowded street and is hit by a passing car. While recovering in the hospital, she fortuitously learns that the hospital needs personnel due to the devastating influenza epidemic and is soon employed as a cleaning woman. It is in the hospital where she is finally found by Freddy as he arrives with soldiers wounded overseas. Despite being shipped off to fight the war in Europe the following day, the former chauffeur vows to return and make Gabrielle his wife. A huge box-office success, The Red Kimono ended up nearly bankrupting Mrs. Reid when the real Gabrielle Darley sued for libel. In the end, Darley won a huge settlement that included the Beverly Hills home which Reid had shared with her late husband, 1910s matinee-idol Wallace Reid. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

People do all kinds of nutty things in this silent melodrama from producer/director Maurice Tourneur. Take Ramon Martinez (Earle Williams) for example: When Ramon's wife Alice (Jane Novak) is accused of adultery, the jealous husband simply hands over their young son Bobbie (Ben Alexander) to a band of gypsies -- to spite the presumably faithless wife, who was actually only trying to protect Ramon's sister Carmen (Carmelita Geraghty), a victim of blackmailer Harvey Clegg (Carl Miller). Ramon and Alice separate, and Carmen perishes in a shipwreck. Bobbie, now known as "Spuds," takes matters into his own hands, however, and successfully proves his mother's innocence, paving the way for forgiveness. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The Kid was Charles Chaplin's first self-produced and directed feature film; 1914's 6-reel Tillie's Punctured Romance was a Mack Sennett production in which Chaplin merely co-starred.

The story "with a smile and perhaps a tear," begins with unwed mother Edna Purviance leaving the Charity Hospital, babe in arms. Her burden is illustrated with a title card showing Christ bearing the cross. The father of the child is a poor artist who cares little for of his former lover, carelessly knocking her photo into his garret fireplace and cooly returning it there when he sees it is too badly damaged to keep. The mother sorrowfully leaves her baby in the back seat of a millionaire's limousine, with a note imploring whoever finds it to care for and love the child. But thieves steal the limo, and, upon discovering the baby, ditch the tot in an alleyway trash can. Enter Chaplin, out for his morning stroll, carefully selecting a choice cigarette butt from his well used tin. He stumbles upon the squalling infant and, after trying to palm it off on a lady with another baby in a carriage, decides to adopt the kid himself. Meanwhile Purviance has relented, but when she returns to the mansion and is told that the car has been stolen, she collapses in despair. Chaplin outfits his flat for the baby as best he can, using an old coffee pot with a nipple on the spout as a baby bottle and a cane chair with the seat cut out as a potty seat. Chaplin's attic apartment is a representation of the garret he had shared with his mother and brother in London, just as the slum neighborhood is a recreation of the ones he knew as a boy.

Five years later, Chaplin has become a glazier, while his adopted son (the remarkable Jackie Coogan) drums up business for his old man by cheerfully breaking windows in the neighborhood. Purviance meanwhile has become a world famous opera singer, still haunted by the memory of her child, who does charity work in the very slums in which he now lives. Ironically, she gives a toy dog to little Coogan. Chaplin and Coogan's close calls with the law and fights with street toughs are easily overcome, but when Coogan falls ill, the attending doctor learns of the illegal adoption and summons the Orphan Asylum social workers who try to separate Chaplin from his foster son. In one of the most moving scenes in all of Chaplin's films, Chaplin and Coogan try to fight the officials, but Chaplin is subdued by the cop they have summoned. Coogan is roughly thrown into the back of the Asylum van, pleading to the welfare official and to God not to be separated from his father. Chaplin, freeing himself from the cop, pursues the orphanage van over the rooftops and, descending into the back of the truck, dispatches the official and tearfully reunites with his "son". Returning to check on the sick boy, Purviance encounters the doctor and is shown the note which she had attached to her baby five years earlier. Chaplin and Coogan, not daring to return home, settle in a flophouse for the night. The proprietor sees a newspaper ad offering a reward for Coogan's return and kidnaps the sleeping boy. After hunting fruitlessly, a grieving Chaplin falls asleep on his tenement doorstep and dreams that he has been reunited with the boy in Heaven (that "flirtatious angel" is Lita Grey, later Chaplin's second wife). Woken from his dream by the cop, he is taken via limousine to Purviance's mansion where he is welcomed by Coogan and Purviance, presumably to stay.

Chaplin had difficulties getting The Kid produced. His inspiration, it is suggested was the death of his own first son, Norman Spencer Chaplin a few days after birth in 1919. His determination to make a serio-comic feature was challenged by First National who preferred two reel films, which were more quickly produced and released. Chaplin wisely gained his distributors' approval by inviting them to the studio, where he trotted out the delightful Coogan to entertain them. Chaplin's divorce case from his first wife Mildred Harris also played a part; fearing seizure of the negatives Chaplin and crew escaped to Salt Lake City and later to New York to complete the editing of the film. Chaplin's excellent and moving score for The Kid was composed in 1971 for a theatrical re-release, but used themes that Chaplin had composed in 1921. Chaplin re-edited the film somewhat for the re-release, cutting scenes that he felt were overly sentimental, such as Purviance's observing of a May-December wedding and her portrayal as a saint, outlined by a church's stained glass window. ~ Phil Posner, All Movie Guide