Antonio Moreno Movies

Love's Blindness was another bit of hothouse exotica from romance novelist and self-appointed social arbiter Madame Elinor Glyn. This is the story of Jewish maiden Vanessa Levy (Pauline Starke), the daughter of a somewhat disreputable moneylender (Sam De Grasse). Deeply in debt to Vanessa's father, British nobleman Hubert Culverdale (Antonio Moreno) agrees to marry the girl to square his account. Culverdale lets Vanessa know from the outset that she's not "his kind," and that any sort of romance between them is quite out of the question. Eventually, however, the snobbish hero is won over by the heroine's sincerity and devotion. It says something about Elinor Glyn's salability in 1926 that, reportedly, her bungalow at MGM was larger than the one occupied by Love's Blindness star Pauline Starke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Temptress was Greta Garbo's second American film, and while it may strike modern viewers as excessively melodramatic, Garbo is always worth watching. The star plays Elena, the wife of Monsieur Canterac (Lionel Barrymore) -- and the mistress of rich Parisian banker Monsieur Fontenoy (Marc MacDermott). When the banker's Argentine friend Robledo (Antonio Moreno), a dynamic young engineer, pays a visit to Paris, the fickle Elena immediately falls in love with him. Upon learning that Fontenoy has lost his fortune, Elena dumps him and returns to her husband, whereupon the banker kills himself. Evidently not content with ruining one life, Elena heads to Argentina and goes to work on Robledo, leading to a bloody whip duel between Robledo and his rival Manos Duros (Roy D'Arcy). Inevitably, Elena drives Robledo to perdition and indirectly causes the destruction of the magnificent dam upon which he has worked all his life. Banished from Argentina, she returns to Paris, where she spends the rest of her days as a seedy streetwalker. At least, that was the ending of the European version of The Temptress. The American version incredibly ends happily, five years after the above-described events, as Robledo and the reformed Elena triumphantly supervise the opening of his now-repaired dam! Initially, the film's director was Garbo's mentor-lover, the brilliant Mauritz Stiller, but he was replaced halfway through by the competent but uninspired Fred Niblo -- and the finished picture shows this division of interests all too clearly. ~ 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

Once again, Constance Talmadge appears in a film written by John Emerson and Anita Loos -- the combination of star and writer usually turned out a good light comedy. Talmadge plays a character familiar to her fans, the flirtatious heiress. In this instance her name is Patricia Stanhope, and every man within a hundred yards of her falls hard for her, even her professor at school. Patricia gets engaged about every five minutes or so, to her school chum Billy Carmichael (Ray Hallor), Tom Morton (John Harron), whom she meets on a train, and the aristocratic Lord Copperfield (Byron Munson). These suitors, and several others, have to take a back seat, however, when Patricia finally meets her guardian, attorney Scott Warner (Antonio Moreno). She immediately falls in love with the handsome young lawyer who, much to her surprise, refuses to have anything to do with her. Of course this makes her work all the harder to land him. Finally she manages to spend the night at his apartment and they have to wed to avoid a scandal. Warner still keeps his distance until he is sure that Patricia is ready to settle down. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The second of four versions of Zane Grey's story of a dispirited ranch hand who joins a gang of outlaws, this silent western benefitted by the presence of veteran Vitagraph star Antonio Moreno. Moreno plays Jim Cleve, who heads West after being jilted by his girlfriend. He works for a while as a ranch hand but is fired. In anger, he joins a gang of cattle rustlers but repents when gang leader Gibson Gowland kidnaps the lovely Helene Chadwick. The story was filmed the first time in 1918 starring Eugene Strong and would be remade in 1930 starring Richard Arlen and in 1940 starring (of all people) Roy Rogers. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Although the story to this romantic adventure was founded on the Manuel Penella opera El Gato Montes, its utter lack of originality shows that it really could have come from any number of sources. Nevertheless, the performance of Latin lover Antonio Moreno manages to compensate for the material. The Wildcat (Moreno) is a Spanish Robin Hood -- he's a bandit who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. During one of his raids, pretty Marcheta (Estelle Taylor), the daughter of a grandee, is kidnapped. Because he finds himself falling in love with her, the Wildcat softens and he allows her to go free. When her father faces financial ruin, Marcheta agrees to marry Don Ramon (Manuel Camere), the mayor's son. But the Wildcat finds out, and he kidnaps both Marcheta and Don Ramon. The prospective bridegroom proves to be a coward and Marcheta refuses to go ahead with the wedding. Instead, she confesses her love for the Wildcat, and when soldiers arrive to take him away, an old servant reveals that he is really the mayor's son, not Don Ramon. The Wildcat gives up his outlaw endeavors and weds Marcheta. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Starring veteran leading man House Peters, this Raoul Walsh-directed silent melodrama was filmed on location in Tahiti. Peters played Captain Blackbird, who, on the island of Pago Pago meets lovely Lorna (Pauline Starke), a white girl promised by an evil trader, Faulke (eorge Siegmann), to Chief Waki (Carl Harbaugh). Although the frightened girl and her handsome lover Lloyd Warren (Antonio Moreno), beg the captain for his help, Blackbird refuses. That is, until a chance meeting with Faulke discloses that Lorna is actually his daughter. This muddled melodrama marked the screen debut of future MGM star William Haines. The always wisecracking Haines, who appeared unbilled in Lost and Found), had little good to say about the film's leading man, often referring to the British-born star as "Outhouse" Peters. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Gloria Swanson is My American Wife in this farfetched but entertaining romantic drama. Married to Argentinian horse rancher Josef Swickard, Gloria is romanced by handsome aristocrat Antonio Moreno. This one has the whole shootin' match: duels, blood feuds, midnight trysts, and a pulse-pounding horse race. Sam Wood, the director famed for shooting every scene twenty times and declaring to his actors "Now let's sell 'em a load of clams!", manages to turn out a few clams of real class and style. My American Wife was based on a novel by Hector Turnbull. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The rights to Don Cesar, the novel by Vicente Blasco-Ibanez, were originally purchased by Paramount as a vehicle for Rudolph Valentino. When he and the studio had a parting of the ways, the story was rewritten for Pola Negri, with Gypsy dancer Maritana as the lead. This was Negri's third film for Paramount, and it was released around the same time as Rosita, which starred Mary Pickford and had a very similar plot (in addition, Rosita was directed by Ernst Lubitsch, who Negri had wanted for her own film). While Rosita has managed to survive the ages, The Spanish Dancer was considered the better film at the time it came out, and no wonder -- Negri was totally believable as the exotic, temperamental dancer, whereas such a role was quite a stretch for the still-girlish-at-30 Pickford. Don Cesar de Bazan (Antonio Moreno) is about to be seized for his debts, but Maritana helps him to escape. When King Philip (Wallace Beery) gets a look at the beautiful dancer, he wants her for himself and sends his soldiers after her. Don Cesar tries to rescue Maritana, but he violates a royal edict and is sentenced to death. The double-dealing Don Salluste (Adolphe Menjou) takes Maritana to Don Cesar for a secret wedding, but after the ceremony, takes her to the king. Don Cesar, meanwhile, is saved from execution with the help of Lazarillo, a boy he has befriended (Gareth Hughes). Don Cesar winds up in a duel with the king, but the arrival of Queen Isabel (Kathlyn Williams) brings things to a head. Maritana stirs up her jealousy, which so pleases the king that he gives her and Don Cesar his blessings. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

In the days before television and the Internet, faraway places such as the Middle East and Asia -- and their cultures -- seemed especially mysterious and unfathomable. Rudyard Kipling was one author of the late 1800s and early 1900s who fed readers' taste for the exotic with his tales of India and its clashes with English life. In 1892 he co-wrote The Naulahka with Wolcott Balestier, and in late 1917 it was made into a motion picture. The story begins in Colorado where two towns are fighting to become a stop for the new railroad that is being built. When Nicholas Tarvin (Anotonio Moreno), the representative from one town, discovers that the rail owner's wife wants the Naulahka, a jeweled girdle from India, he travels there to get it for her. Tarvin's fiancée, Kate Sheriff (Helen Chadwick), has already gone to India because as a physician, she wants to help India's poor, suffering masses. While they are in India they become involved in halting the machinations of Stahbai, a gypsy queen (played by the famed dancer Doraldina), to depose the rightful heir to a throne. Although imperiled a number of times, Tarvin and Kate make it back home to Colorado to discover that their town has won the railroad. As the Maharajah, Swedish Warner Oland plays one of his usual Oriental characterizations. ~ Janiss Garza, 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

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