Antonio Moreno Movies

Playboy Jean de Segni Antonio Moreno pays A Price for Folly that is a dear one in this 5-reel Vitagraph melodrama. After an extended drinking binge, Jean picks up a couple of chorus girls and celebrates some more. Meanwhile, his father, the Duke de Segni (Charles Kent), lies on his deathbed, wondering what will become of his beloved wife (Louise Beaudet) when Jean assumes leadership of the family. Ultimately, the Duke rallies long enough to kill his wife rather than allow her to be dragged into the gutter by her no-good son. At this point, Jean realizes that the previous events have all been a horrible dream, whereupon he instantly vows to reform his ways. The only "loser" in the story is Mlle. Dorothy Jardeau (Edith Storey) a gold-digging actress who had very nearly snared Jean as her husband. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The plot of Aladdin from Broadway is predicated on the actual turn-of-the-century native uprising in Damascus. An Englishman and his infant daughter are kidnapped by insurgents and spirited away to the desert stronghold of wicked Otto Lederer. Eighteen years later, an American adventurer (Antonio Moreno), disguised as an Arab to win a bet, attempts to rescue the now-grown-up daughter (Edith Storey) from the villain's harem. At the time Aladdin From Broadway was filmed, Antonio Moreno was the Vitagraph studio's biggest star; thus no one questioned the logic of the obviously Latino Moreno portaying a Broadwayite named Jack Stanton. Aladdin From Broadway was based on a novel by Frederick Lewis Isham. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Darrow (Antonio Moreno) is a wealthy young man who uses his money to help educate slum children. However, when he helps out a young woman, Florence (Helen Chadwick), who has been thrown out of her home, it draws the wrath of both Betty, his fiancée (Margaret Greene), and Tony (Armand Cortez), a gunman who loves the slum girl. Betty invites Florence to a social dance, hoping to embarrass her, but instead Florence is a hit. Tony's anger is then expressed a bit more violently -- he tries to kill Darrow. But Florence sees him climbing a pole to Darrow's office and takes a shot at him. He falls to the ground, and Darrow's revolver is found at the scene, so he is arrested for the crime. Things look mighty bleak until another slum dweller, Sailor Bill (Frank Conlan), is fatally wounded in a fight. He admits to both possessing the gun and the shooting. Darrow finds happiness not with his snobbish girlfriend, but with Florence. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Agnes Ayres, who'd once been topbilled over Rudolph Valentino, was beginning the slow downward slide when she starred in Bluff. Ayres plays a young woman who must raise a great deal of money in a hurry to afford medical treatment for her brother. Thus she poses as a world-reknowned fashion designer, and in this guise is able to accrue the necessary funds. Her plan backfires when she is arrested for crimes committed by the designer. Attorney Antonio Moreno saves the day. Bluff was directed by Sam Wood, whose more famous endeavors included A Night at the Opera, Goodbye Mr. Chips and The Pride of the Yankees. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This two-part silent Western melodrama starred Mary Anderson as a woman mine owner who manages to quell a riot with the assistance of a brave sheriff (Antonio Moreno). They marry and leave the mountains in favor of the prairie. The second half of the film is set in a ranching community. Moreno is again the sheriff, but his plucky wife is planning to run against him in an upcoming election. There is a nasty villain who threatens to blow up a dam and the battling spouses reunite to prevent a disaster. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This early talkie, set in French Indochina, centers around the conflict between a French magistrate's wife and his lecherous boss who requires that all wives sleep with him before he will promote their husbands. This wife refuses. Instead she marches into his office and demands an explanation. Her hasty actions do not help matters and she is just about to let him have his sleazy way with her when a native, who was hiding in the closet, is found. The men scuffle and the boss is killed. Unfortunately, it is her husband who is assigned the case. He does not know his wife witnessed the whole thing. It doesn't take him long to start drawing conclusions; suddenly he suspects his wife was unfaithful, but eventually she convinces him otherwise and justice is done. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Olive Borden closed out her Fox Pictures contract with the mild murder thriller Come to My House. Though she's just become engaged to Murtaugh Pell (Cornelius Keefe), socialite Joan Century (Borden) accepts a midnight-dinner invitation from wealthy bachelor Floyd Benning (Antonio Moreno). While entering Benning's home, Joan is spotted by blackmailing Fraylor (Ben Bard), who threatens to tell all to Pell unless the girl pays up. Benning gallantly offers to "take care" of Fraylor himself -- and when the blackmailer is murdered, Benning is promptly picked up for the crime. Though the cops have him dead to rights, Benning refuses to explain his motives, thereby ruining any chances for leniency from the judge. At the last moment, however, Joan willingly puts her own reputation on the line to save Bennings from the gallows. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cary Grant's utter credibility in the role of a brilliant, world-famous brain surgeon Dr. Eugene Norland Ferguson is the single element that keeps Crisis afloat. While vacationing in a politically unstable Latin American country, Ferguson and his wife, Helen (Paula Raymond), find themselves the unwilling house guests of dictator Raoul Farrago (José Ferrer). Suffering from a brain tumor, Farrago insists that Ferguson operate at once. The "crisis" of the title arises when revolutionary leader Gonzales (Gilbert Roland) demands that Farrago be killed on the operating table -- and kidnaps Dr. Ferguson's wife to bind the bargain. Unaware of his wife's plight, Ferguson proceeds with the operation, setting into motion a series of events leading to a grimly ironic denouement. Director Richard Brooks adapted the screenplay of Crisis from a story by George Tabori. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Esther Williams moves from the swimming pool to the bull ring in this musical drama. Antonio Morales (Fortunio Bonanova) was once a champion bullfighter; now in retirement, Antonio and his wife (Mary Astor) have high hopes that their son Mario (Ricardo Montalban) will follow in his father's footsteps as a matador. However, Mario's great passion is music, and he longs to pursue a career as a composer. But there is a budding toreador in the family: Mario's sister Maria (Esther Williams), who has learned the basics of bullfighting from her sibling. Not wanting to be thought a coward, but with no desire to enter the ring, Mario allows Maria to disguise herself as him and take his place in the bullring, allowing her to compete in a traditionally male sport while Mario devotes his time to his music. Fiesta gave Ricardo Montalban his first English-speaking role, with Cyd Charisse appearing as Conchita, his love interest and dancing partner. Classical music buffs might notice that Mario's composition "Fantasia Mexican" is actually Aaron Copland's "El Salon Mexico." ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A matinee idol of the pre-1920 years, Antonio Moreno was on the wane when, in 1921, the emergence of Rudolph Valentino sparked a demand for "Latin Lover" types. Moreno's 1924 vehicle Flaming Barriers was directed by George H. Melford, the man who started the Valentino craze with his direction of The Sheik. In Flaming Barriers, Moreno plays an adventurer-for-hire, assigned to steal a revolutionary fire-fighting machine from its creator. Upon falling in love with the inventor's daughter (Jacqueline Logan), our hero changes his duplicitous ways. The inventor, incidentally, was played by Charles Ogle, who in 1910 played The Monster in the first cinemadaptation of Frankenstein. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Leon Kent (Walter McGrail) is a ne'er-do-well who throws wild parties. His wife eventually tires of him. She finds sympathy with Ross Brewster, a banker (David Torrence), which angers Kent. After an argument, Kent walks out with the couple's little boy. A couple of decades later, Brewster's daughter, Judy (Patsy Ruth Miller), comes home with her sweetheart, Elliot Owen (Antonio Moreno). Brewster senses that Owen is no good, and lets Judy know it. Judy reveals that she has already married him. Owen then confesses that he is the son of Mrs. Kent, which gives Brewster the opportunity to assert that he's just like his father. Owen is already in trouble and facing a jail term, and Brewster tells him that the only way to make good is to commit suicide. When Owen finds out that Judy is pregnant, he feels unworthy enough to actually leap off a cliff. The jump doesn't kill him, however, and after he heals, he proves his worth. Brewster finally welcomes him as his son-in-law. This unrealistic drama was based on the Saturday Evening Post story by May Edington. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Contrary to popular belief, Clara Bow was already Paramount's biggest box-office draw when she starred in this delightful rags-to-riches comedy. But It, from the fertile mind of bizarre best-selling author Elinor Glyn, remains perhaps the quintessential Bow picture. Not that the story of a poor shopgirl falling for her rich employer was anything new (by 1927, Bow could play that role in her sleep), but It came complete with one of the best publicity campaigns in Hollywood history. Glyn herself publicly pointed to Bow as the personification of It, "that quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force." Paramount made sure that Glyn's lofty description of the word sunk in and even convinced the author to explain It in the film to leading man Antonio Moreno (who, according to Glyn, simply oozed It as well). The lightweight comedy behind all this hoopla centered on little Betty Lou Spence, a vivacious salesgirl invited to dinner at the Ritz by foppish wastrel and self-described "old fruit" "Monty" Montgomery (William Austin in one of those roles later personified by Edward Everett Horton). Betty is not paying attention to her dinner companion, however, but is ogling department store heir Cyrus Waltham (Moreno). He notices her too, and takes the salesgirl on a whirlwind tour of Coney Island. But when Betty is mistakenly assumed to be the unmarried mother of an infant (actually her roommate Molly's), stern Cyrus no longer sees her as proper marriage material. Betty, of course, gets her man in the end and Waltham's snooty girlfriend ("other woman" specialist Jacqueline Gadsden) ends up in the drink. Delivering all the vivacious punch expected of a Bow comedy, It takes time out for a couple of rather poignant scenes. With the hindsight that Brooklyn's own Bow was never fully accepted by Hollywood society despite her stardom, it is touching to watch Betty being ostracized at the snobbish Ritz; and Bow is never more affecting than when she realizes that Moreno is offering diamonds and pearls instead of marriage. Priscilla Bonner, as Bow's drab, single-mother roommate, adds a touch of realism to her brief role, enviously observing Betty's frivolity. If It only added to Bow's brilliant success, the film did little for the intelligent Bonner. To the end of her life, Bonner maintained that accepting featured billing in It lost her any chance of true stardom. A very young Gary Cooper, has a bit as a reporter and director Josef Von Sternberg reputedly took over for Clarence Badger during a brief illness. Despite its rather trite Cinderella plot, It magnificently demonstrates why Bow's guileless flapper came to define an entire decade. It is heartbreaking to realize that her decline had already set in, and Bow's very public troubles and eventual career destruction were lurking right around the corner! ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

A Southern gentleman's alcoholism nearly costs him the love of his life in this silent drama set just before the Civil War. Fortunately for the troubled lovers, a wiser, more experienced friend is around to help the young man overcome his addiction and reunite with his lady love. The duo hold an engagement party. Unfortunately, the bride-to-be finds herself threatened by the amorous advances of an inebriated partygoer. To defend her honor and his own, the disgruntled groom challenges the drunken lad to a duel at dawn. The fiance wins, but his father is so angry that he disowns his son. In shame the son, who still loves the girl, moves to the New York home of the wise friend and remains there until his father dies. Surprisingly, he left his son a small inheritance and the young man uses it to head for South America to look for rubies. He finds them and soon becomes extremely wealthy and returns home. There he finds that his old friend has become impoverished. With little hesitation the young man shares his wealth and then gets to marry his true love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide