Edith Storey Movies
One of the most popular action heroines of the early silent era, brunette Edith Storey later became one of the screen's great tragediennes, winning accolades for her starring roles in The Christian (1914) and A Florida Enchantment. A child actress who had starred opposite stage actress Eleanor Robson in Audrey, Storey gained further fame touring America as The Little Princess and traveling to Australia with the original production of Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. In 1908, she joined the New York-based Vitagraph company, where she supported stage diva Julia Arthur in the civil war melodrama Barbara Fritchie (1908) and played in one-reel versions of King Lear (1909), The Life of Moses (1910), and Twelfth Night (1911). On loan to the Méliès company of San Antonio, TX, she played the brave Lucy Dickinson in the one-reel The Immortal Alamo (1911) and was stalwart as A Western Heroine (1911). There were many other such roles and by 1914 she had become a major box-office attraction for Vitagraph. The Christian made her a household name but she was equally popular in such fare as The Island of Regeneration (1915), which also featured Antonio Moreno and an earthquake, and The Two Edged Sword (1916) in which she played a vengeful secretary. Leaving Vitagraph after Aladdin from Broadway (1917), Storey signed instead with newcomer Metro. By then, however, America had entered World War I and she would spend most of her time as a volunteer ambulance driver in France -- much like Clara Bow did in Wings (1927). Returning to films after the duration, Storey was mainly seen in potboilers and she retired after a couple of minor melodramas for low-budget company Robertson-Cole in 1921. Despite being awarded one of the first stars on Hollywood's "Walk of Fame" (hers is located at 1501 Vine), Storey was all but forgotten by even the most ardent of silent screen fans and died in complete obscurity. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide- 1921
Maury (Edith Storey) is a shoplifter and safecracker from New York's Lower East Side. She's caught stealing, but is saved from a prison sentence by the wealthy Mrs. Hardage (Lillian Rambeau). Mrs. Hardage brings her to her home and puts her to work investigating food prices for the Fair Price Committee. Maury meets Ward Ransom (Pell Trenton), who has recently returned from the Great War. Maury welcomes Ransom's attentions, even though he's supposed to be courting Mrs. Hardage's daughter, Rhoda (Dorothy Wood). She's not so thrilled, however, with the attentions of Mr. Hardage (Ogden Crane), and lets him know it. Crawkins, an associate of Maury's from the old days (Lloyd Bacon), causes a rift when he lies to Ransom about her past. The heartbroken Maury decides to return to her old life and rifles the Hardage's safe before she leaves. She finds some papers there which reveal that Mr. Hardage is working with the profiteers. She tells Ransom, who is about to go into partnership with him. She also approaches Hardage with her information and makes him halt his wrongdoing. Ransom finds out that Crawkins lied about Maury, and the couple are reunited. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edith Storey, Pell Trenton, (more)
- 1920
Edith Storey plays a French girl who, as a child, wandered into an Arab tribe after her mother was murdered. The tribe raises her as their own, and when she reaches adulthood, the chief's son proposes to her. But she decides she'd rather run off with a French artist who brings her to Paris. After a couple of reels, the artist turns out to be worse than a mere cad -- he's the one who betrayed her mother. The girl discovers this when her long lost father barges in and kills the artist. The young Arab man then shows up in Paris, and the girl decides that he can make her happy after all. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1919
Although a New Yorker by birth, silent screen actress Edith Storey had appeared in westerns as early as 1910 when she was engaged by Gaston Mèliés as the leading lady of his San Antonio-based Star Film Ranch. Storey's career was on the wane, however, when she played the dainty "Colonel Billy" in As the Sun Went Down, a rather commonplace western melodrama in which a romance with a handsome would-be crook (Lew Cody) is rudely interrupted by a blackmailer. A true screen pioneer who was one of the Vitagraph company's strongest assets in the mid 1910s, Storey retired in 1921. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1918
The seeker of the eponymous revenge in this five-reel western is Alva Leigh (Edith Storey), whose fiancé was killed under mysterious circumstances in a small town located in the deserts of Arizona. She leaves the East and confronts the Arizona locals in her search for the truth -- and for vengeance. 18/5rl ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edith Storey, Wheeler Oakman, (more)
- 1918
The Eyes of Mystery was one of the first full-blooded melodramas directed by Tod Browning, who soon became an acknowledged master of the genre. Based on a short story by Roy Octavus Cohen and John U. Geisy, the film was a classic "old dark house" affair, replete with hidden stairways, sliding panels and portraits with eye-holes. Happily living with her Uncle Quincy (Frank Andrews), Carma Carmichael (Edith Storey) has no desire to return to her abusive father Roger (Harry S. Northrup). Alas, Roger insists that Carma come back to him, and the stress proves too much for Quincy, who dies of an apparent heart attack. Fortunately, Roger gets his comeuppance when he comes into possession of Quincy's supposedly "haunted" Southern mansion, where he gets the scare of his life at the hands of -- who? The trick ending in Eyes of Mystery was later emulated in Tod Browning's 1927 Lon Chaney vehicle London After Midnight and its 1935 remake Mark of the Vampire (also directed by Browning). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Edith Storey, Bradley Barker, (more)
- 1917
The plot of Aladdin from Broadway is predicated on the actual turn-of-the-century native uprising in Damascus. An Englishman and his infant daughter are kidnapped by insurgents and spirited away to the desert stronghold of wicked Otto Lederer. Eighteen years later, an American adventurer (Antonio Moreno), disguised as an Arab to win a bet, attempts to rescue the now-grown-up daughter (Edith Storey) from the villain's harem. At the time Aladdin From Broadway was filmed, Antonio Moreno was the Vitagraph studio's biggest star; thus no one questioned the logic of the obviously Latino Moreno portaying a Broadwayite named Jack Stanton. Aladdin From Broadway was based on a novel by Frederick Lewis Isham. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1917
Mrs. Gilman (Laura Winston), who runs a camp hotel in a rugged mining town, is doomed to a life of drudgery. Her daughter Bertha (Edith Storey) can't bear to watch her struggle anymore, so she marries a rich invalid, even though she doesn't love him. But complications arise when she meets Ben Fordyce (Antonio Moreno) who has come West to be with his consumptive fiancee, Alice Heath (Florence Dye). Bertha and Ben fall in love. Alice tells Bertha's husband that they are both standing in the way of the lovers' happiness, and then she breaks off her engagement and returns East. Bertha's husband, meanwhile, deliberately travels up a mountain, even though his doctor has told him his heart can't stand altitudes, and obligingly dies. None of this exactly throws sympathy on the two leads, and the films negative reviews reflected that. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1917
Vitagraph leading man Antonio Moreno played just about everything but a cocker spaniel during his pre-1920s prime. In Captain of the Gray Horse Troop, the Latino heartthrob is cast as Captain George Curtis, assigned to a post in Indian territory. Here he discovers that the Native American inhabitants are being victimized by crooked ranchers and paid-off government officials. At the risk of his own career, Captain Curtis does his best to protect the Indians from their white predators. As opposed to later eras, Native Americans were treated with some respect in early silent films. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1917
Compiled by the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry and distributed to theaters across the United States, National Association's All-Star Picture, features selected scenes from various popular films, offering glimpses of many of the biggest stars of the day. Included are clips of Charlie Chaplin, Francis X. Bushman, Douglas Fairbanks, and many others. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1916
This 1916 Vitagraph 5-reeler would seem to be the spiritual ancestor to the 1992 melodrama The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. A seemingly guileless country girl is hired as the secretary of a famous author. What the author doesn't know is that the girl is planning to wreak vengeance upon the author's unfaithful wife, who years earlier caused the suicide of the girl's brother. Manners and mores being what they were in 1916, the two-timing wife was the villain of the piece. With this in mind, the wife's ultimate punishment -- wrought not by the girl but by an automobile accident -- could be interpreted as Divine Retribution. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1915
On Her Wedding Night is when young society bride Helen Carter (Edith Storey) abruptly becomes a widow. In fact, she is on the phone with her new husband Denton (Denton Vane) when he is shot and killed. The sole witness to the crime, Italian immigrant Carlo Picalli (William Dunn), is so shocked by the experience that he loses his memory, at which point he is "adopted" by Denton's best friend Henry Hallem (Antonio Moreno), who also appoints himself Helen's protector. Together, Henry and Denton manage to uncover the murderer's identity, whereupon the grateful Helen agrees to marry Henry, who of course has been in love with her all along. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1915
Long before he was kindly old Dr. Meade in Gone With the Wind, Harry Davenport was a sort of renaissance man of the American theatre, serving as actor, writer, producer and director. Wearing his director's cap, Davenport helmed the 1915 silent feature Island of Regeneration. Juvenile star (and future Warner Bros. director) Bobby Connolly plays the young gadfly in a group of tourists trapped on a desert island. While Connolly remains pretty much the same from first reel to last, each of the adult members undergoes a life transformation during their enforced stay. A well-handled earthquake sequence climaxes this adaptation of a novel by Cyrus Townsend Brady. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1915
Playboy Jean de Segni Antonio Moreno pays A Price for Folly that is a dear one in this 5-reel Vitagraph melodrama. After an extended drinking binge, Jean picks up a couple of chorus girls and celebrates some more. Meanwhile, his father, the Duke de Segni (Charles Kent), lies on his deathbed, wondering what will become of his beloved wife (Louise Beaudet) when Jean assumes leadership of the family. Ultimately, the Duke rallies long enough to kill his wife rather than allow her to be dragged into the gutter by her no-good son. At this point, Jean realizes that the previous events have all been a horrible dream, whereupon he instantly vows to reform his ways. The only "loser" in the story is Mlle. Dorothy Jardeau (Edith Storey) a gold-digging actress who had very nearly snared Jean as her husband. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1914
This film is one of the strangest silent films ever made. It's a comedy by Mr. Sidney Drew (before the Mr. & Mrs. comedy team was married) about an strong-willed young woman (Edith Story) who is irritated with her (much-older) fiancé, Dr. Cassadene (Drew). She finds some magic seeds that cause the person who eats them to switch gender, and she eats one. Lillian, has a great time as a man. She kisses other women, dances with them, smokes cigarettes, applies for a man's job, and she dresses in men's clothing. This causes complications when her clothes are found and she is presumed murdered. At the end of the film, she gives a magic seed to her fiancé, and he believes that he is a woman. The film has no special artistic merit, but the subject matter makes it interesting. Based on an 1891 book and a 1896 play by Archibald Gunter and Fergus Redmond, the film actually pokes fun at homosexual conduct without condemning it too much -- which is pretty remarkable for the time period. While the film may be progressive on one front, it is regressive on another. The parts of Lillian's maid and the hotel porter are played by Caucasian actors in black-face. While the white players' acting is mostly restrained (well, at least until Sidney Drew puts on women's clothes), the black-face actors mug and over-act. The filmmakers do use African-American actors as railroad porters and carriage drivers, so they can't use the excuse that no blacks were available. The daughter whom Edith Story flirts with a lot was Lucille McVay (AKA Jane Morrow), who was to later become the "Mrs." of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew. ~ Bruce Calvert, All Movie Guide
- 1914
On the strength of his performance in The Christian, Earle Williams was voted the screen's most popular actor by the readers of Motion Picture Magazine. Based on the novel by Hall Caine, the film depicts the efficacy of religion in uplifting the lives of several Londoners. While Williams, cast as a cleric, is the nominal lead, the film is largely carried by Edith Storey, who not only handles the dramatic passages with expertise, but also gets a chance to show off her athletic skills. According to several historians, The Christian was instrumental in bringing "respectability" to the upstart motion picture industry. And at 8 reels (approximately 96 minutes), it was one of the longest American-made productions to be released before The Birth of a Nation. The Christian was remade in 1923, with Richard Dix in the Earle Williams role. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
