William Orlamond

This tale of the high seas -- based on the novel by Ben Ames Williams -- is as much character study as it is adventure. It involves the rivalry between the two Shore brothers, Mark (Lon Chaney) and Joel (Malcolm McGregor). Mark is the captain of a whaling ship and he looks down on Joel, who has never gone to sea. But when Mark's ship arrives in port sans its captain, Joel takes over the command. His new bride, Priscilla (Billie Dove), insists on coming along and they head for the South Seas, where Mark was last seen. Because he's so green, the crew ridicule Joel, but he eventually proves he is a capable and manly seaman. He finds Mark not far from where he was lost, but after seeing how well his younger brother has done he becomes jealous. He starts a mutiny when Joel refuses to change his course to search for some treasure. But brotherly love wins out when Joel's life is threatened, and Mark sacrifices his own life to save him. This picture was released only a few months before Lon Chaney achieved superstardom with his role as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Mr. and Mrs. Weedle (William Gillespie and Charlotte Mineau) are in a jam: For years, they've been receiving substantial amounts of money from their rich uncle (William A. Orlamond), who has been led to believe that the Weedles have two children to support. Now Uncle is coming to town, and the duplicitous couple must come up with a pair of babies in a hurry. Naturally, the Our Gang kids hope to get the job, but they're given a run for their money by a mischievous 27-year-old midget (Harry Earles). Meanwhile, Gang member Joe Cobb tries to curb his fighting blood, with less than successful results. Making good use of Hal Roach Studios' standing hotel sets, the silent, two-reel Our Gang comedy Baby Clothes was originally released on April 25, 1926 (an abbreviated TV version, retitled The Rich Uncle, is best avoided; without the original subtitles, the story makes virtually no sense). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Hoping to build their own amusement park, the Our Gang kids are disheartened to discover that their favorite vacant lot has been purchased for development. Fortunately, the developer, 60-year-old Henry Mills (Paul Weigel), is a big kid at heart. Over the protests of his hide-bound board of directors, Mr. Mills not only agrees to let the kids keep the lot, but also offers to help them build their park. Beyond the inherent pleasures in seeing the gang's elaborate homemade amusement devices, Boys Will Be Joys doesn't have much to recommend it; still, it's hard to dislike any film that opens with live-action titles showing a group of laughing youngsters. This silent, two-reel comedy was originally released on July 26, 1925. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Charley Chase will do just about anything to marry his sweetheart Madge (Corliss Palmer) in this amusing two-reeler. So she promises herself to him -- providing that he play Romeo to her Juliet in the Shakespeare/variety benefit show she's holding. He agrees, though reluctantly, and once he's in costume it's easy to see why he balked -- the tights make his toothpick legs seem even skinnier. With the use of some sponges he gives his legs some shape. But when he has to pick up Madge's inebriate father (William A. Orlamond), it looks like he may never get to the show -- a cab driver (Oliver Hardy) won't let them go until he gets the forty dollars the old man owes him, and when Charley tries to sell some bootleg liquor to raise the money, he's forced to drink it. But after being chased by the driver and a cop and running through sprinklers (making his legs even more ridiculously shapely than before), Charley does arrive -- intoxicated to the point of insensibility. He proceeds to turn the show into an crazed melee -- but instead of being its ruination, he's the hit of the night. Madge is delighted with his performance and tells him, "There were times when I imagined you had really been drinking!" ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Cimarron was the first Western to win the Oscar for Best Picture--and, until Dances with Wolves in 1990, the only one. The film begins on April 22, 1889, the opening day of the great Oklahoma Land Rush on the Cherokee Strip. Boisterous Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix) is cheated out of his land claim by the devious Dixie Lee (Estelle Taylor). Instead of becoming a homesteader, Cravat establishes a muckraking newspaper, and with pistols in hand he becomes a widely respected (and widely feared) peacekeeper. He also displays a compassionate streak by coming to the defense of Dixie Lee, who is about to be arrested for prostitution. Cravat's insistence on sticking his nose into everyone's affairs drives a wedge between him and his young wife Sabra (Irene Dunne), but she stands by him--until he deserts her and her children, ever in pursuit of new adventures. Sabra takes over the newspaper herself, and with the moral support of her best friend, Mrs. Wyatt (Edna May Oliver), she creates a powerful publishing empire. Cimarron makes the mistake of placing most of the action early in the film, so that everything that follows the spectacular opening land-rush sequence may feel anti-climactic. While it's always enjoyable to watch Irene Dunne persevering through the years, it's rather wearing to sit through the overblown performance of Richard Dix, who seems to think that he can't make a point unless it's at the top of his lungs. Cimarron creaks badly when seen today, but it still outclasses the plodding 1960 remake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It is said that every actor wants to play Shakespeare. Will Rogers would seem a likely exception to that rule, but here he is in this silent, taking a stab (albeit comic) at Romeo. Slim (Rogers), of course, begins as a cowpuncher but his boss switches from cattle to sheep, throwing him out of work. In addition his sweetheart, Lulu (Sylvia Breamer), says he should learn to be a real lover, like Douglas Fairbanks. So Slim decides to go work in motion pictures to discover how film folk make love. After he doubles for villains and heroes alike, Lulu changes her mind -- now she thinks Romeo and Juliet is the yardstick by which all lovers should be measured. So Slim obligingly gets his hands on a copy of the play and tries to read it. Naturally he falls asleep, but he dreams the story with himself and his girl in the title roles. When he awakes, however, he throws all technique out the window, grabs Lulu away from his rival (Raymond Hatton) and drags her off to the preache r. His show of force is what she wanted after all and the film ends happily. This was the final picture of Rogers' contract with the Goldwyn Studios. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

A bulky, verbose novel by Herman Suderman was the source for the exquisitely silent Flesh and the Devil. On leave from the Austrian army, lifelong friends John Gilbert and Lars Hanson return to their loving families. At a reception in Hanson's honor, Gilbert makes the acquaintance of the hauntingly beautiful Greta Garbo, whom he'd previously glimpsed for a few fleeting seconds at the railway depot. Those few seconds were enough to thoroughly captivate Gilbert, thus paving the way for a feverish sexual liaison with Garbo. Gilbert is shocked to discover that Garbo is married to aristocrat Marc MacDermott, who challenges Gilbert to a duel--on the proviso that the "official" reason for their argument is a disagreement at cards, so that McDermott will suffer no disgrace. Gilbert kills the husband on the field of honor; as punishment for his unmilitary conduct, he is "invited" to accept a post in Africa. Honoring his promise to the late McDermott, Gilbert reveals his love of Garbo to no one, not even his dearest friend Hanson. As he departs for his five-year exile, Gilbert asks Hanson to look after the "bereaved" Garbo. Pardoned after three years, Gilbert returns home, only to discover that Garbo has remarried--to Hanson. Minister George Fawcett, evidently the only person to know of Gilbert's tryst with Garbo, advises Gilbert to give up his friendship with Hanson so as to avoid the temptation of cuckolding his best friend. But when Hanson falls seriously ill, Garbo begs Gilbert to renew the friendship. He does so, not suspecting that Garbo merely wants to trap him in her web again. Gilbert is caught in a compromising position by the distraught Hanson; he regretfully challenges Gilbert to a duel, to be fought on their favorite childhood playing site, "The Island of Friendship". As Hanson nervously aims his weapon at the repentant, unresisting Gilbert, he realizes that he can't go through with the duel. The two friends embrace, begging one another's forgiveness...while Garbo, who has belatedly headed across the frozen lake to prevent the duel, comes to an icy end. While the overly intense "male bonding" between John Gilbert and Lars Hanson tends to evoke knowing chuckles when seen today, Flesh and the Devil otherwise holds up quite well. Clarence Brown's innovative directorial touches still seem fresh after years of imitation by lesser talents. Ostensibly a John Gilbert vehicle (he receives sole over-the-title billing), Flesh is utterly dominated through sheer force of personality by the divine Garbo; in anyone else's hands, her enigmatic, impulse-driven temptress would have been just another cardboard vixen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally released on January 10, 1926, Good Cheer was Our Gang's Yuletide present to the series' legions of fans. 'Tis the day before Christmas, and all through the snowy streets, the Our Gang kids are confronted not by Christmas cheer, but by the crass commercialism of the holiday. Happily, the Spirit of Christmas -- who looks a lot like Santa Claus -- pays a surprise visit to Gang members Mickey Daniels and Johnny Downs, inspiring the boys to earn enough money to buy presents for the rest of their friends. With their usual business acumen, the youngsters come up with a sure-fire moneymaking scheme -- selling heated bricks to keep the last-minute shoppers' feet warm. As a bonus, the gang captures a bunch of bootleggers, thereby earning a huge reward. The film's most memorable sequence, in which a gathering of wind-up toys dance and cavort in a department store window, is unfortunately missing from most TV prints of Good Cheer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This first film version of Andre Picard's stage success Kiki stars Norma Talmadge in the title role. A saucy Parisian dancer, Kiki begins keeping time with theatrical manager Victor Renal (Ronald Colman). Her rival for Renal's affections is icy "legitimate" actress Paulette (Gertrude Astor), but Kiki is willing to go to any lengths to claim her man. In the original play, Renal and Paulette were married, making Kiki the interloper, but this was altered so that producer Joseph M. Schenck could cast his star (and then-wife) Norma Talmadge in a more sympathetic light. Kiki was remade in 1931, with Mary Pickford incongruously cast as the oo-la-la heroine. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Clara Bow plays an inveterate flirt who impulsively marries much-older mountain man Ernest Torrence. When city lawyer Percy Marmont shows up on a camping trip, Bow can't help but lead the poor fellow on. He resists her advances, but finally succumbs, leading to disaster. Very typical of the silent films that catapulted jazz-baby Clara Bow to stardom in the late 1920s, Mantrap benefits immeasurably from Bow's boundless vivacity and from the breathtaking location photography by James Wong Howe. One nagging question: what does twentysomething Bow see in either of her superannuated leading men--particularly the cadaverous Percy Marmont? ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Richard Dix stars as a heroic riverboat captain in this lurid action-melodrama produced under the aegis of David O. Selznick. Trapped at a hotel in a Mandarin town under siege, a group of Occidentals turn to alcoholic riverboat captain Chauncey Carson (Dix) for help. Among the besieged are Helen (Arline Judge), an American entertainer; her admirer, Busby (Edward Everett Horton); a German doctor (William Orlamond); Carson's cowardly boss, Johnson (Dudley Digges); and Natascha (Gwili Andre), a Russian whom everybody takes for a spy. Carson, who has a long history with Voronsky (C. Henry Gordon) and his Tartar bandits, manages to keep the attackers at bay while at the same time romances the mysterious Natascha, who is no spy after all. A machine gun manned by a self-sacrificing Busby eventually decides the outcome in favor of the westerners, who manage to escape on Carson's riverboat. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Jack Mulhall stars as Jerry Marsden, the wastrelly son of millionaire milk wholesaler J. Marsden Sr. (George Fawcett). After bailing Jerry out of one scrape too many, the elder Marsden cuts off the boy's allowance and tells him he's on his own. While looking for work, Jerry is hired by wealthy Roger Whitney (Crauford Kent) to serve a brief jail term on Whitney's behalf. Locked up in a minimum-security prison especially designed for "celebrity" convicts, Jerry is ensconced in a luxury cell and waited on hand-and-foot by the supplicative guards. He enjoys the occasional visits from Whitney's pretty sister Ruth (Alice Day). Entering into a business deal with another of the millionaire prisoners, Jerry strikes it rich, pleasing his dear old daddy to no end. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide