Carl Stockdale Movies

Having scored big-time box office with his first Biblical epic, The Ten Commandments (1923), Cecil B. DeMille hoped to top this success with his 1927 The King of Kings. Inasmuch as he was now dealing with the life of Christ, DeMille had to be careful to serve up equal amounts of showmanship and reverence. The first creative challenge: how to "introduce" Christ in a tasteful manner? The answer: as a blind child is cured through Jesus' intervention, DeMille cuts to the child's point-of-view, slowly fading in on the kindly countenance of H.B. Warner as the Son of Man. Still, DeMille remained DeMille, especially in his handling of the character of Mary Magdalene (Jacqueline Logan). No longer a tattered streetwalker, Mary Magdalene is now a glamorous courtesan, replete with legions of gorgeous slave girls (one of whom is "bubble dancer" Sally Rand) and dressed in revealing Hollywood-style gowns. In fact, the film opens on this character, as she ruminates over the defection of her favorite customer, Judas Iscariot (Joseph Schildkraut), who is spending far too much time with Jesus of Nazareth. Upon visiting Jesus herself, she immediately repents, casting off all her prior sins. Once again, the efficacy of the Cecil B. DeMille formula is proven: redemption has no dramatic value unless the film shows viewers why the sinner needs to be redeemed. Once he's gotten his box-office considerations out of the way, DeMille adheres faithfully to the particulars of Jesus' life, betrayal, trial, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. (Again, however, the director improves a bit upon his source material: the storm that follows the Crucifixion is of the same spectacular dimensions as the parting of the Red Sea in Ten Commandments, while the Resurrection is filmed in vibrant Technicolor). To back up the authenticity of his images, DeMille -- with an assist from scenarist Jeannie Macpherson -- utilizes Scriptural quotes in his subtitles. And to avoid any untoward publicity while filming, DeMille required all of his actors to sign legal documents preventing them from indulging in any sort of "sinful" activity; this meant that poor old H.B. Warner had to steer clear of alcoholic beverages for nearly a year, though he more than made up for lost time after his contract ran out. Prepared to mercilessly lambaste The King of Kings, DeMille's critics were disarmed by his reverent, tasteful approach to the subject. Years after the film's release, a specially prepared 60-minute version of the 18-reel King of Kings was making the rounds of religious groups, church basements, and Easter-weekend telecasts. The film was remade in 1961 by producer Samuel Bronston and director Nicholas Ray, with Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a story by Harold Bell Wright, this average silent western starred Warner Baxter as the son who almost loses his ranch to cover his late father's debts. Star-billed Bessie Love had little to do other than looking pretty as Baxter's Irish romantic interest. A former leading man with the Oliver Morosco stock company, the handsome, dark-haired Baxter was treading water in programmers before earning a 1929 Academy Award for playing the Cisco Kid in In Old Arizona. Today, however, Baxter is mainly remembered for playing the Crime Doctor in a series of popular whodunits produced by Columbia in the 1940s. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Anne Gray (Ruth Clifford) runs off with Robert Gordon (William E. Lawrence), believing that he is going to marry her. When they arrive at a hotel, another guest, Langdon Van Kreel (Charles Clary), sees though Gordon's ploy and chases him away. While Van Kreel is being thanked by Anne, detectives secretly photograph them together -- his wife, Marcia (May Mersch), is planning a divorce and is trying to drum up evidence. Anne gets a job on a conservative newspaper edited by John Manning (Niles Welch), who falls in love with her. Unbeknownst to Manning or anyone else on the paper, the managing editor, Fred Galvin (Hayden Stevenson) owns a scandal sheet. Anne goes to interview Marcia Van Kreel about her divorce and finds herself accused of destroying the marriage. Manning finally has it out with Galvin, who admits that he was running a blackmail scheme. Anne's name is cleared and the Van Kreels make up. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Rival lumber barons resort to blackmail and treachery to further their businesses in this Northwoods drama. John J. Carlton (Edward Davis) uses a forged check written by his rival's foreman to extract inside information about his competition. John's son Carlton (William Fairbanks) falls in love with the daughter of his father's rival Adams (Eva Novak). Bruce Gordon plays a memorable heavy and co-stars with Carl Stockdale. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Publicized as "A Red-Hot Romance of the Western Plains," this above-average Buck Jones oater features the rootin' tootin' star as Tex Hartwel, a cowboy who saves an old cobbler from being abused by a nasty banker (Carl Stockdale). The banker does not take kindly to Hartwell's interfering and orders his henchman to kill the upstart. Hartwell, alas, is the fastest gun in the territory and gets out of the scrap alive and kicking. He takes a job with rancher Winch (Jack McDonald), who's having trouble with a gang of rustlers headed by -- you guessed it -- the nefarious banker. Future MGM stalwart W.S."Woody" Van Dyke established himself as a first-class action director with this and other Jones oaters. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

William Russell's career was on a downslide when he appeared in this unoriginal program picture (he would make a short-lived comeback a year later when he appeared opposite Blanche Sweet in Anna Christie). Carl Morse (James Gordon) sends his son, Tom (Russell), to the Canadian Northwoods to investigate the goings-on at one of his trading posts. At the post, he finds Jessie McRae (Alma Bennett), who seems to be out to get all the bootleggers in the country. Jessie confesses that she was deserted by her drunken parents as an infant. However, this isn't true -- the man who claims to be her guardian (Charles K. French) is actually her father, Angus McRae. Tom discovers that Bully West (Stanton Heck) is the one responsible for the wrongdoings at the post and fires him. West then convinces McRae to force Jessie to marry him. Tom saves her and marries her himself, while her father atones for his behavior. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

After gaining a wide audience in a succession of two-reelers, "Baby" Peggy Montgomery stars in her first full-length feature. Santussa (Montgomery) is an Italian orphan who is being brought to America by her governess (Estelle Goulder). But the little girl ends up in the hands of an Italian smuggler, who hides a number of precious gems in her rag doll. When the ship they are on lands in New York, a rival crook snatches up Santussa and leaves her in a trash can. She next winds up staying with Levinsky (Max Davidson) and his large family. But she runs away and one of the gang of thieves, the kindly Light Fingered Kitty (Gladys Brockwell), takes charge of her. Police raid the hideout, which catches fire. Kitty grabs up the little girl and jumps into a safety net. The smuggler who originally kidnapped Santussa has decided to go straight and has confessed all to the girl's grandfather (Frank Currier). The girl and her wealthy grandfather are finally brought together for a happy ending. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

A silent Western in the grand old tradition of William S. Hart and Harry Carey, The Grail presented a near epic story of crime and redemption. Dustin Farnum starred as Chic Shelby, a Texas Ranger chasing a couple of outlaws -- John Trammel (Jack Rollens) and his son James (James Gordon -- accused of killing a cattleman in the eternal struggle between ranchers and homesteaders. Chic tricks John out of his hiding place by pretending to be an itinerant preacher. The hardened outlaw is so moved by Chic's sermon on eternal love that he comes forward willingly and is arrested. Sam Hervey (Leon Bary), meanwhile, kills James over a girl (Alma Bennett) and pins the blame on Chic. The latter clears himself by capturing Hervey, John is acquitted because of his newfound faith, and lovely Dora Bledsoe (Peggy Shaw) prepares to make a home for the returning ranger. Dustin Farnum, who had starred in the first feature film to be produced in Hollywood proper, The Squaw Man (1914), suffered ill health in his later years and retired in 1924. He returned to play George Armstrong Custer in The Flaming Frontier (1926), but he died from kidney failure at the age of 53 in 1929. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This melodrama bears no relation to the 1919 Doris Kenyon Western of the same name. It is based on the Cynthia Stockley novel and instead of the Wild West, it takes place in London and South Africa. Sir Hugh (Raymond Blathwayt) wants his daughter, Lady Vivienne (Priscilla Dean), to marry nouveau riche society man Henry Porthen (Noah Beery). But Lady Vivienne is not thrilled with Porthen's lowbrow ways. Porthen nevertheless convinces her to come to his country home, along with an acquaintance, Freddy Sutherland (Lloyd Whitlock). During the visit, his jealous secretary, Joan Rudd (Helen Raymond), kills him and Sutherland, afraid of being accused of the murder, runs away. A few years after this scandal, Lady Vivienne travels to South Africa to inspect her father's holdings. She is saved from bandits by Kerry Burgess, a young homesteader (Robert Ellis). While the pair fall in love, they also uncover a scheme to blow up a dam. Lady Vivienne finds Sutherland and learns the truth about Porthen's murder, and she also rescues her lover, Burgess, when the dam is blown up and the valley is flooded. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Comedienne Mabel Normand was in the middle of production for this comedy-drama when William Desmond Taylor was murdered. She was the last person to see him alive, and the shock of his death, combined with stressful police interrogations, caused her to have a breakdown. Filming was halted for several weeks, then resumed in the spring of 1922, and the picture itself wasn't released until the next year. A pair of Castilian nobles, Don Fernando (George Nichols) and Don Diego (Eric Mayne) want to combine their two estates through the marriage of their children. But Don Fernando's son, Ramon (Walter McGrail), has fallen in love with Suzanna, the daughter of a peon on his father's estate. Meanwhile, Don Diego's daughter, Dolores (Winifred Bryston), has been expelled from boarding school because of her love affair with Pancho, a toreador (Leon Bary). Don Fernando tries to separate Suzanna from his son by sending her away, and she ends up as Dolores' maid, with the two young ladies less than fond of each other. The plot thickens when it is revealed that the girls were switched at birth, and Suzanna is really Don Diego's daughter. Although Suzanna tries to keep quiet out of respect for the two old men, the truth eventually comes out and she is allowed to marry Ramon, while Dolores is happily left with Pancho. This was Normand's next to last film for Mack Sennett, and apparently it did well at the box office in spite of the previous year's scandal. Critics, however, gave the film mixed reviews since it didn't have the kind of slapstick that was Normand's special talent. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Ostensibly a vehicle for Jackie Coogan, the 1922 Oliver Twist refuses to realign the Charles Dickens novel to accommodate the personality of its star. This Frank Lloyd-directed silent film is one of the most faithful of all cinematic adaptations of the Dickens work. The orphaned Oliver, labelled a "troublemaker" because he dares to ask for more food, is farmed out to work as an undertaker's assistant. Escaping his cruel master, Oliver falls in with a gang of pickpockets, headed by the colorful Fagin (played by Lon Chaney Sr., who steals a lot more than a few watches and wallets in the course of the picture). Kindly Mr. Brownlow (Lionel Belmore), Oliver's real grandfather, tries to help the lad, but the evil Bill Sikes (George Siegmann) complicates matters. While Jackie Coogan may seem a bit too well-fed and self-sufficient to play Oliver, he was certainly more suited to the role than the star of the 1916 filmization of Oliver Twist--actress Marie Doro! Long believed to be a lost film, Oliver Twist was painstakingly restored in the early 1970s, using bits and pieces from various foreign prints and negatives. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This comedy-drama marked Mabel Normand's return to producer Mack Sennett after making a number of mediocre films for Samuel Goldwyn. Normand plays one of her typical Cinderella turns, a lower-class Irish girl, Molly, whose father, Tim O'Dair (George Nichols) is a ditch digger. Molly is supposed to be engaged to plumber Jim Smith (Eddie Gribbin, in a particularly ludicrous haircut), but when she sees a newspaper photo of a handsome doctor, John Bryant (Jack Mulhall), she knows he's the man for her. Unfortunately, the doctor is already engaged, but Molly fixes that when she shows up at a charity ball and is mistaken for Bryant's fiancee. O'Dair, who thinks the doctor is using her, throws her out of the house when she comes home late, but Bryant marries her and proves him wrong. This film was originally scheduled for release on October 9, 1921, but it was pushed back a couple of months because of the scandal involving Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle -- Virginia Rap! pe, a minor actress, died shortly after a Labor Day party that he threw and he was accused (falsely) of her murder. One of the parties attendees, Lowell Sherman, had a prominent role as a villain in Molly O, and Sennett wanted the heat to die down a bit before bringing the picture out. Nevertheless, the producer removed Sherman's name from the screen credits (although he's still listed in the Motion Picture News synopsis). Sennett would have even more trouble on his hands a few months later. While Normand was making Suzanna, director William Desmond Taylor was mysteriously murdered. Normand was the last person to see him alive -- except for the killer -- and her innocent but unfortunate association did a lot of damage to her career. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide