Mary Nolan Movies

Upon her release from prison, Joyce Greeley (Edwina Booth) is promptly and mysteriously murdered. Fledgling crime reporter John Martin (Regis Toomey) wants to find out why and also wants to discern the role of Joyce's lawyer Judson (Earl Foxe) in this whole sordid mess. Martin befriends the dead woman's sister Ellen (Betty Bronson) then extracts an important piece of evidence from deaf-mute Dummy Black (Mischa Auer in his pre-comedy days). Things come to a head when the villain is trapped in his own web of deceit -- and by his own accomplice. Former boxing great Jim Jeffries and silent comedy star Snub Pollard appear as themselves in a nightclub sequence. This Midnight Patrol is sometimes confused with the 1933 Laurel and Hardy two-reeler of the same title. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this crime drama, the writer of a Broadway newspaper column finds himself accused of murder after a showgirl, who had been suing his paper for libel is found murdered. Just before she died, the columnist had been seen leaving her apartment. He launches his own investigation and discovers that he has met the real killer. The whole matter comes to a head during the ensuing trial and in the end, the writer and the killer end up locked in a room and are forced into a shoot out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

The Big Shot is Ray (Eddie Quillan), a go-getting but incredibly naïve real estate speculator. Duped into purchasing some worthless swamp land, Ray is kept in the dark by the villains when the land turns out to be harboring a profitable sulphur spring. On the verge of selling back the property at a ridiculously low sum, our hero is saved from making a sap of himself again by true-blue heroine Doris (Maureen O'Sullivan). The film is at its best when former Mack Sennett star Eddie Quillan converses with an octogenarian Civil War veteran, played by another alumni of silent two-reelers, Arthur Stone. The Big Shot was released in Great Britain as The Optimist, lest English audiences mistake it for a war picture. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Johnny Mack Brown stars as Paul, who wants nothing more out of life than to take charge of a lighthouse. Falling in love with Sally (Mary Nolan), Paul talks her into sharing his life as a lighthouse keeper. Evidently staring into the beacon once too often, Paul goes blind, and it's quite a chore for footloose Sally to remain faithful. Making matters worse is the arrival of a double-dyed villain (Robert Ellis) who intends to "have his way" with the long-suffering heroine. Some poor miniature work in the climactic scenes serves only to make Undertow look as cheap as it obviously was. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Desert Nights was the last silent film made by MGM's resident heartthrob John Gilbert -- and the last of his truly successful efforts. The melodramatic plot revolves around the robbery of a diamond mine, masterminded by Steve (Ernest Torrence). The criminals have taken Rand (Gilbert), the mine's manager, hostage, spiriting him off to the desert waste. Hopelessly lost, Steve turns to Rand, who knows the territory like the back of his hand, to lead the crooks back to civilization. Rand refuses but relents for the sake of Steve's partner-in-crime Diana (Mary Nolan). A spectacular climactic sandstorm effectively eliminates the villain and facilitates a happy ending for Rand and Diana. Likewise spectacular was the precipitous fall from popularity of John Gilbert after it was revealed that his voice, though pleasant enough, did not match his dashing screen image -- but this revelation was still several months in the future when Desert Nights was released. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mary Nolan, whose own private life was as sensationally scandalous as any of her screen roles, starred in this cinemadaptation of the stage play Drifting. Having spent several wasted months in a Shanghai opium dem, former prostitute Cassie Cook (Nolan) yearns to start her life afresh. Likewise, ex-convict Badlands McKinney (James Murray) also wants to clean up his act. Upon meeting one another, Cassie and McKinney each assume that the other is a pillar of respectability. This mutual self-deception eventually blossoms into love and opens the door for redemption. The fly in the ointment is Repen (Wheeler Oakman), an unforgiving detective who knows the truth about both Cassie and McKinney; fortunately for the plot, Repen is conveniently knocked off by one of the minor characters, a stereotypical Chinaman. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Charming Sinners was a stilted adaptation of Somerset Maugham's play The Constant Wife. Robert Miles (Clive Brook) starts the ball rolling when he falls in love with Anne-Marie Whitley (Mary Nolan), the best friend of his own wife Kathryn (Ruth Chatterton). In retaliation, Kathryn begins a flirtation with her former boyfriend Karl Kraley (William Powell). After reels and reels of verbal fencing, the status quo is re-established, and Robert and Kathryn are reunited. So dour and restrained was Clive Brook's performance that one film critic pretended to mistake him for the family butler! Charming Sinners was also filmed in several foreign-language versions. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Veteran German cinematographer Karl Freund made his directorial debut with the 1926 production Die Abenteur eins Zehnmarkscheines, released in the U.S. as Uneasy Money. Credit for the direction, however, was bestowed upon Freund's assistant, Bertold Viertel, which may be why 1932's The Mummy is listed as Freund's first "official" directorial effort. The multistoried plotline is tied together by a ten-mark banknote, which causes no end of tragedy for the main characters. When mill-worker Anna (Mary Nolan) brings home the note as her first week's wages, the money is stolen by her no-good brother. He buys a knife, kills a man, and is sentenced to hang. Grief-stricken, Anna takes to wandering the streets, ultimately falling into the hands of a white-slavery ring. She escapes with her virtue intact and returns to her lover -- but that's not the end of the story, as the ten-pound note continues to pass from hand to hand, spreading disaster wherever it goes until it ends up where it began, in Anna's purse. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this lurid Tod Browning melodrama, boasting a thoroughly creepy performance by Lon Chaney, Chaney plays Phroso, a limehouse magician who is thoroughly in love with his wife Anna (Jacquelin Gadsdon). Also in love with Phroso's wife is ivory-trader Crane (Lionel Barrymore). After a performance, Anna tells Phroso that she is leaving him to go away with Crane to Africa. After Phroso confronts Crane, Crane kicks him down a second-floor landing, crippling him. Months later, Phroso, now known as "Dead Legs" Flint, is now seen to be paralyzed from the chest down, and he gets around by pulling himself forward by his hands. He enters a church where he sees Annie has returned, but she is dead at the altar, leaving her child Maizie, whom Dead Legs assumes to be Crane's child, crying next to her. Hate consumes the soul of Dead Legs, and he swears vengeance on Crane. Years pass. Dead Legs is now lording it over a group of African savages as their god. Maizie (Mary Nolan) has been installed at a brothel in Zanzibar and is now a broken-down alcoholic prostitute. Dead Legs conspires to steal some of Crane's ivory so Crane can appear before Dead Legs, and his revenge can be redeemed. He sends for Maizie and reveals her to Crane. He plans on killing Crane and, due to an African tribal custom that says a man's daughter must be burned at the stake when he dies, have the savages have their way with Maizie. But when Crane arrives and he tells Dead Legs that Maizie is not his daughter but Dead Legs' daughter, Dead Legs is stupefied. Crane leaves and is shot by the savages, his body returned to Dead Legs. Now the bloodthirsty savages want Maizie, so that she can be sacrificed at the stake. Dead Legs, as her father, must now conspire a way to save his daughter from certain death. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide