Antrim Short Movies
The son of actor Lewis Short and brother of comediennes Gertrude Short and Florence Short, Antrim Short was a juvenile actor fully living up to his name. On stage from the age of six, Antrim made his screen debut with the old Biograph company in New York in 1912. A major attraction by the late 1910s (The Yellow Dog [1918], Please Get Married [1919]), Short's career petered out in the 1920s, and he was playing unbilled bits by the 1930s. A founding member of the Screen Actors Guild, and from 1937, the head of the organization's claims department, Short later became a casting director for Samuel Goldwyn, Republic Pictures, and Universal, founding his own talent agency in 1947. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide- 1937
Technicolor is the main attraction of this overheated South Seas adventure. Ray Milland, Akim Tamiroff and Barry Fitzgerald play three shifty sailors who commandeer a smallpox-ridden boat and set out to sea. A typhoon washes them ashore on a faraway Pacific island, which is ruled by a white religious fanatic (Lloyd Nolan) who has set himself up as the local god. The three sailors anxiously await an opportunity to appropriate the "god's" valuable stash of pearls and head for the mainland. Only one of the sailors escapes to tell his story; check out the cast list and guess which one survives. The third filmization of Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osborne's novel, Ebb Tide is rough going until Lloyd Nolan shows up to deliver the picture's best and subtlest performance. The story would be filmed again in 1947 as Adventure Island. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Oscar Homolka, Frances Farmer, (more)
- 1936
Actual footage of the 1936 Rose Bowl game is cleverly (if not seamlessly) integrated into the action of this sports-oriented comedy. Longtime chums Paddy O'Reilly (Tom Brown) and Dutch Schultz (Benny Baker) may be heroes of the high-school gridiron, but they're persona non grata with the girls, thanks to campus lothario Ossie Merrill (Larry "Buster" Crabbe). Managing to get on the college football team in time for the Rose Bowl competition, Paddy and Dutch finally win out over Ossie by scoring the winning touchdown. Of interest in the cast as one of the campus cuties is curvaceous Priscilla Lawson, who'd previously starred as Princess Aura opposite Buster Crabbe in the Universal serial Flash Gordon. Also on hand is William Frawley, as-what else? -- a college football coach. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Eleanore Whitney, Tom Brown, (more)
- 1936
The Three Stooges try to break into show business in this Columbia short subject. They're first seen as stowaways on a train headed for Hollywood. While Curly is cooking pancakes (one of which sticks to the boxcar's ceiling) and Larry is ironing sooty burn marks into a pair of Moe's white pants (he tries saving them with white paint), Moe is explaining why they have a chance in Hollywood: "There's a couple thousand people in pictures now who know nothing about it -- three more won't make a difference." They have to work very hard, however, to get past the guards at Carnation Studios. By a stroke of luck, general manager Fuller Rath (Bud Jamison) is expecting three New York executives to show up, and thinks the Stooges are her men. Given free reign at Carnation, the boys interrupt a director while he's attempting to film a love scene. Director and actors all quit, but this doesn't throw the Stooges; Moe takes over the megaphone, Larry plays the leading man, and Curly dons a dress to play opposite him. Everything is going fine (at least in Stooge terms) until Rath discovers that the boys are impostors. The trio escapes -- right into a lion's den. To get away from the lions they jump into a car and drive off. Unfortunately, the lions have leapt into the car right after them. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1936
A New York novelist (Henry Fonda) meets up with an actress (Margaret Sullavan), and the two date and later marry, though neither knows of the other's fame. The real adventure begins on the honeymoon, when this screwball comedy really heats up with insults and arguments. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Margaret Sullavan, Henry Fonda, (more)
One of the funniest, most sharply paced comedies of the 1930s, and perhaps the best of all of Harold Lloyd's talkies, The Milky Way was based on the Broadway play by Lynn Root and Harry Clork. Lloyd plays Burleigh Sullivan, a mild-mannered milkman who intercedes one night when his sister Mae (Helen Mack) is being accosted on the street by two obnoxious drunks -- they turn their wrath on him, his sister runs for help, and when she returns less than a minute later, both men are out cold on the pavement, with Burleigh standing over them. As one of them, Speed MacFarland (William Gargan), is the world's middleweight boxing champion, and the other, Spider Schultz (Lionel Stander), is his sparring partner, Burleigh makes the front page of every newspaper in New York. McFarland's manager, Gabby Sloan (Adolphe Menjou), has to figure out how to salvage the champ's career, but first he has to figure out exactly what happened, since both fighters were too drunk to remember anything about it. It turns out that Sullivan couldn't beat an egg, but he is good at one thing -- ducking. He can dodge any punch, and the two fighters knocked each other out in the process of trying to pummel him. What's more, on hearing this, they're so angry that Schultz accidentally knocks MacFarland out again, just ahead of the press' arrival, and the little milkman is given credit once more by the reporters for decking the champ. Burleigh loves the attention, even though he never claims to have hit anyone. Meanwhile, Sloan comes up with a way of salvaging his fighter's career, and convinces Burleigh to go along with it for a promised cash sum -- all Burleigh has to do is get in the ring in six fights, to build up his standing and reputation, and finish his "career" in a fight with MacFarland, who will win. In the meantime, complications arise when MacFarland falls in love with Burleigh's sister, while Burleigh himself meets and falls in love with Polly Pringle (Dorothy Wilson), a helpful neighbor. Gabby, Spider, and Speed also discover that turning tiny, wiry Burleigh Sullivan into something that even looks like a fighter is easier said than done -- all of his fights have to be fixed (and then some) behind his back to make his victories look remotely genuine. Finally, after starting to believe his own publicity, and then discovering that the fights were fixed, Burleigh goes through with the final match-up against MacFarland, the culmination of a comedy of errors involving horses, foals, and a wild chase to the arena. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harold Lloyd, Adolphe Menjou, (more)
- 1935
When he's shipped off to prison on a tax-evasion charge, millionaire Van Dyke (Walter Connolly) breathes a sigh of relief: at least he'll be free of his dizzy, spendthrift wife (Billie Burke) and spoiled-rotten daughter Carol (Joan Bennett). Once behind bars, Van Dyke strikes up a friendship with amiable reformed bootlegger Ricardi (George Raft). Since Ricardi is to be sprung first, Van Dyke suggests that the ex-crook take on the task of "taming" the incorrigible Carol. Unwilling to be stifled by a former jailbird (even a good-looking one), Carol decides to get even by persuading one of Ricardi's former cohorts, a shady character named Tex (Lloyd Nolan) to stage a fake kidnapping. Trouble is, Tex kidnaps the girl for real, obliging Ricardi to race to her rescue -- but only after deliberately breaking every traffic law known to man, so that he'll be pursued by a veritable battalion of motorcycle cops (this hilarious finale was later re-used in the 1941 Buster Keaton two-reeler So You Won't Squawk). A heady blend of screwball comedy and crime melodrama, She Couldn't Take It is one of the fastest and funniest films of 1935. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Raft, Joan Bennett, (more)
- 1935
MGM loaned Myrna Loy to Paramount to co-star with Cary Grant in the roller coaster-paced romantic drama Wings in the Dark. Loy plays daredevil aviatrix Sheila Mason, who marries Ken Gordon (Grant), a flyer with serious aspirations to set groundbreaking world records. When Ken is accidentally blinded just before he jets off for Paris, Sheila prompts him to continue working at any cost. He decides to become a writer, dictating his work and mailing it off to several magazines; all he receives for his trouble is a pile of rejection slips, but Sheila doesn't let him know that. In the mean time, he works out a fantastic invention -- a plane designed for "blind flying," which enables the pilot to command the craft without the use of his eyes. His plane is repossessed for lack of payment, cluing him into what Sheila has been up to with his articles. Infuriated, he severs all communication with her. In an effort to drive Grant out of her mind, Sheila then undertakes a Moscow-to-Manhattan flight and thus attempts to set a new world record of her own. But on the last leg of her journey -- over Boston -- she becomes surrounded by thick blankets of heavy fog, and cannot locate the airport. At the last moment, Ken steals his own plane from Roosevelt Field, takes it up, and uses it to guide Sheila back to the ground, where he declares his undying love and devotion to her. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Myrna Loy, Cary Grant, (more)
- 1926
Also known as Jack O' Hearts, this inspirational drama was based on Jack in the Pulpit, a play by Gordon Morris. Cullen Landis stars as Jack Farber, a young clergyman railroaded into prison for a crime he didn't commit. At first, Jack nearly succumbs to anger and resentment. As time passes, however, his faith sees him through his awful ordeal. Finally managing to clear his name, Jack emerges a better man from his experience. Though the film includes all the "important" entertainment elements, Jack of Hearts found its biggest audience on the church-basement and civic-group circuit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cullen Landis, Gladys Hulette, (more)
- 1926
Dennis Shawn (Owen Moore) is the overseer of a huge lumber camp inherited by city-girl Marcia Livingston (Constance Bennett). Though they're not overly fond of each other, Dennis and Marcia are compelled to get married as part of a deal to purchase additional lumber property. The wedding ceremony is performed by phone, whereupon Dennis and Marcia prepare to go their separate ways. Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for the plot), the land deal requires them to live together as man and wife for at least three months. Marcia refuses, whereupon Dennis kidnaps his new bride and carries her off to the lumber camp -- where of course, she learns to love him just in time for the fadeout. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Owen Moore, Constance Bennett, (more)
- 1926
A reasonably well-received silent comedy, The Broadway Boob was Merton of the Movies all over again, but with a change of setting. Glenn Hunter, who had played Merton in both the stage and the 1924 screen version, is Dan Williams, a country pumpkin, who, against all odds, lands a chorus job in a Broadway show. To drum up some interest in the newcomer, Dan's press agent (Antrim Short) releases a story that his client is making 3,000 dollars a week. In financial distress and faced with a run on his bank, Dan's father appeals to his "wealthy" son for help and Dan is forced to tell the truth. To make amends, he concocts a scheme that ultimately saves the banks. Returning to his hometown a hero, Dan marries his childhood sweetheart (Mildred Ryan). The Broadway Boob was directed by Joseph Henabery, who a decade earlier had played Abraham Lincoln in D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1925
This horse racing meller was based on the play by George V. Hobart and George Broadhurst. Claire Barrington (Aileen Pringle) wants to see her sister, Myrtle (Edna Murphy), make a fortuitous marriage to Ralph Woodhurst (Antrim Short). Woodhurst's father opposes horse racing, so Claire keeps it a secret that she is owner of the Duffy stables and Wildfire, a very fast horse. The stables' former owner, John Duffy (Lawford Davidson), plans to win Claire anyway he can, even if it means calling in the notes on the stables. Claire, however, loves Garrison (Holmes E. Herbert), who finally shows up after a five-year absence. Garrison, believing that Duffy -- a longtime enemy -- still owns the stables, buys a horse of his own, Jackdaw, the only horse who can beat Wildfire. The Duffy stables are set on fire and Claire believes Garrison did it. Jockey Chappie Raster (Arthur Bryson) is engaged to ride Wildfire in an important race and Duffy plots to have him throw it. Claire foils Duffy's scheme by keeping him away from Raster's view, and Wildfire wins. Duffy, of course, is responsible for the stable fire, so Claire and Garrison are reconciled. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Aileen Pringle, Edna Murphy, (more)
- 1924
The play by William C. deMille and Margaret Turnbull was filmed once before in 1914. This version features Richard Barthelmess as the star and some scenes were actually shot at West Point. Duncan Irving Jr. (Barthelmess) is the son of the village postmaster (Claude Brooke) in a small southern town. He's in love with Sylvia Randolph (Madge Evans, finally old enough to play ingenues), who comes from a wealthy, snobbish family. Her cousin, Bert Stafford (Reginald Sheffield), dislikes the modest Duncan. Duncan goes to West Point and when he's an upper classman, Bert enrolls. Bert hates being ordered around, especially by Duncan, who he considers his social inferior. One day he angrily insults Duncan, who hits him. Bert fakes blindness, then takes off for South America on an expedition. Duncan is expelled and Sylvia refuses to hear his explanations. To save face, Duncan and some of his friends travel to South America to find Bert, who has become lost. After a lot of hardship and adventure, they find him and they return to the States. Bert finally tells the truth about what happened and Duncan is reinstated at West Point. He also reconciles with Sylvia and after he gets his commission, they are wed. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claude Brooke, Richard Barthelmess, (more)
- 1922
Although it wasn't acknowledged publicly for decades, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and actress Marion Davies were quite an item during the silent era -- and beyond. He produced all her pictures, except for her first one, and generally they were mild affairs which did little but show off her remarkable beauty. This was unfortunate because she was also a talented comic who was capable of much more than these films offered. Hearst hadn't yet begun spending the real big bucks to put Davies in elaborate costume dramas (the first, When Knighthood Was in Flower, would be released later in 1922), and this romantic comedy-drama is pretty typical Davies fare. Even though Prudence Cole (Davies) is a modest little Quaker miss, her prim outfits do not hide her ravishing beauty. Artist Cheyne Rovein recognizes her as a looker right away and offers to design some outfits that will do her justice. Since Prudence is in love with Henry Garrison (Halam Cooley) and he hasn't yet returned her affection, she decides to give it a try. Her new clothes prove she is a stunner, and when she wins a game of charades, it shows she also has personality-plus. Garrison winds up proposing, but Prudence realizes she doesn't care for him after all -- it's Rovein, who recognized her beauty from the start, that she really loves. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marion Davies, Forrest Stanley, (more)
- 1921
The great silent western hero William S. Hart was no longer in his prime when he produced (for Paramount-Artcraft) this moralistic tale of a Mountie chasing down the murderer of a saloon keeper. Along the way, the lawman encounters a gang of robbers and, to gain their confidence, pretends to rob a bank himself. The ruse works, and he is admitted to the gang's mountain lair. There, he falls for the sister (Eva Novak) of one of the bandits (Antrim Short). A jealous rival (Leo Willis) gets wise to the ruse, however, and the Mountie is sentenced to be hanged by the gang leader. He is rescued, in the nick of time by the girl and her brother. As it turns out, the boy is the wanted killer of the saloon keeper. Rather than arrest the brother of his beloved, officer Hart nobly resigns from the force, returning, as an inter title explains, " to his loved one no longer O'Malley of the Mounted." In accordance with changing tastes, the usually reticent Hart added several scenes of rodeo excitement to this otherwise average potboiler. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- William S. Hart, Eva Novak, (more)
- 1919
Like many another Constance Talmadge vehicle, Romance and Arabella was based on a popular stage play, this one written by William J. Hurlbutt. Cast in the role originated on Broadway by Laura Hope Crews, Talmadge played young widow Arabella Cadenhouse. Having been wed for several years to an elderly and unexciting fellow, Arabella now hopes to enjoy life to the fullest, and to that end she simultaneously inaugurates romances with four different men. Left in the lurch is Arabella's erstwhile sweetheart Bill (played by the "first" Harrison Ford), whom our heroine has rejected because he represents the conservatism and frugality practiced by her late husband. Even without seeing Romance and Arabella, one can safely predict who will be Arabella's ultimate matrimonial selection. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1918
Fannie Ward plays Marion Clark, a manicurist who gets involved with a family who live in the boardinghouse where she resides. She is in love with the son, Dick Strong (W.E. Lawrence); the mother is an invalid and the sister, Gladys (Irene Aldwyn), is pretty but naive. Gladys falls in with a fast crowd and becomes involved with Malcom Dunn (Sam DeGrasse), who happens to be one of Marion's clients. Dunn is married but that doesn't stop him from playing around. The troubled Gladys goes to Marion with her problem, and Marion is determined to confront Dunn. Unfortunately, Marion becomes the one who is accused of an affair with Dunn and when Mrs. Dunn (Mary Alden) starts divorce proceedings, the innocent manicurist is named corespondent. It is up to Marion to set the facts straight and save her reputation. In an era that had very strict moral values, a film with this subject matter was potentially problematic; the studio thought they solved this by inserting a bunch of sermonizing subtitles at the beginning of the picture. All this served to do, according to reviews of the day, was bore the audience before the picture had even started. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
Coming as it did on the heels of what many consider to be Mary Pickford's greatest triumph, Stella Maris (1918), this film seemed almost too lightweight in comparison. The situation -- a poor girl's introduction to High Society -- was already old hat in 1918, but luckily, the star and her director, Marshall Neilan, made what could have been a poor imitation of Pygmalion into one of the best social satires of the era. Amarilly Jenkins is a beloved Lower East Side urchin by day and no-nonsense cigarette girl at the tough Cyclone Café -- an establishment complete with prostitutes and leering "Johns" -- by night. She is in love with bartender Terry (William Scott), but when society sculptor Gordon Phillips (the grandly mustachioed Norman Kerry) is beaten up in a brawl, Amarilly brings the young man home to her mother, an Irish laundrywoman (Kate Price). Gordon's own mother, Mrs. Stuyvesant Phillips (Ida Waterman) of the Park Avenue Stuyvesant Phillipses, looks upon Amarilly as an interesting social experiment, inviting the girl to stay at their palatial home. The dowager, however, is alarmed when Gordon falls in love with Amarilly. To prove a point, Gordon's mother invites Mrs. Jenkins to tea with the Phillips family, and Amarilly's Irish immigrant mother doesn't disappoint, entertaining the assembly by dancing an impromptu jig with the family butler. The haughty Mrs. Phillips might have avoided this spectacle had she only known that both Amarilly and Gordon had long ago realized that they were wrong for each other. Having wryly observed how the other half lived, Amarilly returns happily to her bartender in Clothes-Line Alley. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mary Pickford, William Scott, (more)
- 1918
Advertised as a sequel to director William Desmond Taylor's Tom Sawyer, Huck and Tom was actually an extenuation of the earlier film, utilizing incidents from Mark Twain's novel that had gone unfilmed the first time around. Repeating their roles from Tom Sawyer are Jack Pickford as Tom and Robert Gordon as Huck, neither of whom were exactly the adolescents depicted in the novel. Having witnessed a graveyard murder committed by Injun Joe (Frank Lanning), the superstitious heroes swear each other to secrecy. But when town drunk Muff Potter (Tom Bates) is accused of the killing, Tom and Huck put their own lives on the line to finger the guilty party. Injun Joe escapes prosecution, only to meet his doom at Tom's hands in a spooky old cave. Apparently, director Taylor was unhappy with both Tom Sawyer and Huck and Tom, and when time came for him to film Huckleberry Finn in 1920, he did his best to correct the "mistakes" in the two earlier films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Gordon, Jack Pickford, (more)
- 1918
Popular silent-movie child star Baby Marie Osborne is the Cupid by Proxy in this frolicksome 5-reeler. Baby Marie's older sister Mildred Harris is in love with boy-next-door Antrim Short, but their social climbing parents will have none of this union. It's up to Baby Marie to set things right in her usual little-miss-fixit fashion. Audiences knew exactly what to expect from the opening titles, but familiarity seldom bred contempt in Ms. Osborne's vehicles. In 1936, Mildred Harris and Antrim Short would be reunited, after a fashion, as supporting players in the Three Stooges 2-reeler Movie Maniacs. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1914
Produced at the famous Lasky barn near Hollywood and Vine, Where the Trail Divides was a sober depiction of the relationship between a white girl (Winifred Kingston) and a college-educated Native American (Robert Edeson). Their marriage breaks up when she cannot face being called a "squaw," but her next lover, a white man, proves a tyrannical brute. One reviewer termed the film "halting, not quite sure of its ground." Featured actress Constance Adams was the wife of Lasky collaborator Cecil B. DeMille. The location for geographical Hollywood's first feature films, the Lasky barn was relocated to nearby Highland Avenue in the 1980s and functioned as the Hollywood Studio Museum. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1914
The talent line-up for this 6-reel melodrama was quite impressive by 1914 standards: It was produced and directed by its star, Hobart Bosworth, scripted by actress-director Lois Weber, and adapted from a novel by Jack London. Based on London's own desperate (and, sadly, losing) battle against alcoholism, the film details the unhappy life and times of a gentleman identified only as Jack. Played at various junctures of his life by Matty Roubert, Antrim Short and Elmer Clifton, Jack is shown as a slave of Demon Rum from childhood onward. Apparently predestined for a life of drunken dissolution, Jack is ultimately saved through the love of a good woman (played by Viola Barry). Filmed in and around San Francisco, John Barleycorn was as potent an argument against booze as The Lost Weekend or The Days of Wine and Roses. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
