Hugh Saxon Movies

Veteran star William S. Hart both produced and starred in this western about a railroad-station agent who loses his job because of a villain's machinations. The villain (G. Raymond Nye) is a major stockholder in the railroad company and covets Hart's girl (Mary Thurman). Working as a ranch hand, Hart discovers that his enemy is actually the leader of a gang of train robbers. According to its publicity, Sand was President Woodrow Wilson's favorite Hart western. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Christine Trevor (Gladys Walton) is a spoiled young society girl who completely neglects her father and her brothers and sister. When her indulgent father dies, she finds out that the family is nearly broke. Thinking only of herself, Christine considers marrying a social-climbing young man. A friend of the family, Dr. Paul Denton (Frederick Vogeding), talks her out of it and helps her create a home for her siblings out of the money they have left. Christine's better nature finally comes out and she dumps the social climber when she realizes his true character -- or lack of it. She also risks her life to rescue Joshua Barton (William Worthington), her crotchety old neighbor. Barton, it turns out, was the one who ruined her father (financially) because of an old grudge. Christine, however, wins his paternal affection. Denton's affection for Christine is something far more romantic, and eventually she comes to realize that she loves him, too. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

This pleasant little programmer features minor Universal star Gladys Walton. Walton is Maisie O'Day, who lives in New York City's "little Ireland" and works as a shopgirl to help out her parents (Walter Perr and Kate Price). Her favorite pastime is reading romantic magazine stories (sort of the forerunner of today's romance novels), and when she sees a well-dressed young man getting thrashed in a brawl, she pictures him as Lord Lytton, the hero of one of these stories. She comes to his aid, only to discover that he is really just Tom Gilroy, a soda jerk (Jack Perrin). Romance blooms anyhow, and together they read the magazine installments about Lord Lytton's adventures. Gilroy is arrested for counterfeiting and Maisie, not knowing what to do, reads the latest episode of the tale to see if it will give her any insight. She uses the ploys she discovers to reveal Gilroy's boss as the guilty party, and to get Gilroy freed. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

Tight-lipped silent Western hero Bob Custer played the Tiger in this low-budget oater from assembly-line producer FBO. Returning from the war, the Tiger (or El Tigre, as he is also known) switches identity with a war buddy (James Sheridan), who is suffering from the effects of nerve gas and therefore incapable of getting to the bottom of the strange feud brewing between his family and the neighboring Claytons. With the help of lovely Helen Hawksby (Violet Palmer), the Tiger manages to settle the feud to everyone's satisfaction. The son of director Robert Emmett Tansey, young supporting player James Sheridan later changed his name to Sherry Tansey. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

According to the trade-paper Variety, this "educational" exploitation melodrama was "possibly the strongest and most daring of so-called hygiene and sex warning pictures ever made." That was certainly the intention of roadshow entrepreneur S.S. Millard, who combined a rather tawdry white slavery melodrama with inserted footage depicting ravaged victims -- including children -- of venereal disease. The film's alternate title being The Girl in the Glass case, Millard advertized his film by having a woman posing in a glass construction outside the theater. The film industry's self-governed censorship board, the MPPDA, refused to give the film its seal of approval, making Millard's little melodrama even more exploitative. Like most late-silent exploitation films, Is Your Daughter Safe? had much more in common with the white slavery dramas of the early 1910s than the more enlightened fare emanating from the major studios, its moralistic views belonging to the "uplift" movement of pre-World War I. Vivian Winston eschews her virtuous boyfriend (Jerome Young) in favor of dallying with a libertine (William Dennis). She is saved in the nick of time from a fate worse than death by refusing to follow the example of a friend (Bernice Breacher), who is led down the garden path to a life of prostitution and venereal disease. Leading lady Winston, who appeared in the B-Western Land of the Lawless that same year, joined a semi-professional cast that also included rotund Henry Roquemore as a character depicted as The Beast; Palmer Morrison as a doctor; Hugh Saxon as a gambler; Joe Bonner, as a seducer of young women; Georgia O'Dell as a madam, and, to insure the film's acceptance by the strict censorship board of Chicago, Mayor William Hale Thompson of that city's Vice Commission, as himself. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Georgia Hale, who scored a hit as Charlie Chaplin's vis-a-vis in The Gold Rush, heads the cast of Gypsy of the North. As in the Chaplin film, Hale is cast as a brassy Klondike dance-hall girl with a heart of gold. This time, she is pursued by such ardent swains as Steve Farrell (Huntley Gordon) and Chappie Evans (Jack Dougherty). Production values in Gypsy of the North are pretty shoddy, save for the well-photographed exteriors, evidently filmed in the snowier regions of Northern California. The film was put together by Rayart Productions, the precursor to Monogram Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi