Eleanor Boardman Movies

Very freely based upon the book by Thomas DeQuincey, Confessions of an Opium Eater is set in San Francisco during the Tong Wars of the 1800s. Lotus is one of a group of women kidnapped from China and brought to the United States, where they are to be traded in exchange for precious opium. Fortunately, Lotus and her compatriots are rescued by mysterious benefactors and are spirited away. Soon after, DeQuincey sneaks into Chinatown and contacts a merchant by the name of Chin Foon. Both men share the mark of the Moon Serpent, signifying that they work for the enigmatic Ling Tang, who is the mastermind behind the human auctions. Foon instructs DeQuincey to locate Lotus. He finds her but tries to escape with her, rather than handing her over to Foon. His treachery is discovered, and he admits that he is working for both sides in the Tong conflict. He escapes and, stumbling through the bowels of Chinatown, discovers many other bizarre secrets. He also learns that another of Tang's employees, Ruby Low, is not as loyal as supposed. DeQuincey continues prowling around Chinatown; obviously, he has some sort of plan in mind – but what is it? And who is he really working for? ~ Craig Butler, Rovi

Forever at odds with the Hollywood studio heads, the fiercely individualist director Harry D'Arrast pitched camp in Spain, where he directed his final feature, La Traviesa Molinera. D'Arrast's then-wife Eleanor Boardman stars as the wife of pompous town mayor Alberto Romea. When the mayor has an affair with Hilda Moreno, wife of miller Santiago Ontanon, the cuckolded husband retaliates by making love to Boardman. The heroine's emergence from her "respectable" shell by performing a lively Spanish dance is the highlight of the picture. Based on a famous 17th-century poem, La Traviesa Molinera was eventually released worldwide as The Three-Cornered Hat and It Happened in Spain. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this historical drama, set in 1775, the hardships faced by a courageous band of settlers traveling from Virginia to Kentucky are chronicled. To get there they must fight the angry natives, open up the forests, and forage for food. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

An aspiring artist leaves his wife and daughter when he gets a chance to spend a year studying in Paris in this melodrama. Although his wife supports the idea, a year later he returns a bohemian and decides to separate from his family. Later he reconsiders his new life style after his little girl is killed in an auto accident. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

One of the most ambitious productions ever to emerge from parsimonious Tiffany Studios, Mamba is also one of the few 1930s horror films to be lensed in Technicolor. The story takes place in East Africa, where bestial August Bolte (Jean Hersholt), also known as Mamba, holds the local Zulu population in a grip of terror. Bolte's villainy apparently knows no bounds, extending all the way to his native Germany, where for $40,000 he "purchases" virginal Helen von Linden (Eleanor Boardman) from her greedy mother. En route to Africa, Helen falls in love with ship's captain Karl von Reiden (Ralph Forbes), who vows to rescue the girl from Bolte's slimy clutches. But Bolte proves a near-invulnerable enemy -- at least until the Zulus rise up against him and mete out their own gruesome justice. Only a few existing prints of Mamba are in color; most available copies are black-and-white dupes. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In spite of its unbelievable storyline, She Goes to War manages to sustain interest from first reel to last. During WWI, spoiled socialite Joan Morant (Eleanor Boardman) heads to France, hoping to be reunited with her soldier sweetheart Reggie (Edmund Burns). Her presence is resented by Reggie's CO, Lieutenant Tom Pike (John Holland), who endeavors to prove to the heroine that social standing means nothing in the face of war. When Reggie turns coward and refuses to march into battle, the newly-responsible Joan, hoping to save Reggie's honor, dons a uniform and marches off in his place! Through a bizarre turn of events, Joan ends up saving the lives of everyone else in the regiment. Currently available from several public-domain videocassette sources, She Goes to War is worth seeing if only for its brief talkie sequences, in which the voice of actress Alma Rubens (cast as ukelele-plucking Rosie Cohen) was heard for the first and only time; within two years, Rubens would be dead, having lost her ongoing battle with drug addiction. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

As was the case with every film project that he cared deeply about, filmmaker King Vidor had to fight long and hard with his studio bosses to get The Crowd produced. Though Vidor's parent studio MGM was certain that this simple story of everyday people would take a bath at the box-office, the film earned back twice its cost. The story concentrates on John Sims, brilliantly played by James Murray, an extra boosted to stardom by Vidor. Born on the fourth of July in the year 1900, John convinced that he's destined to be a man of importance. 27 years later, however, Sims is merely one of the faceless crowd, an underpaid clerk in a huge New York office building. On a blind date, John meets Mary (Eleanor Boardman), a likeable if not overly attractive young lady (Boardman, the wife of director Vidor, balked at the notion of departing from her usual glamorous roles; Vidor prevailed, and as a result the actress delivered what is now considered her finest performance). John and Mary are eventually married, raising two children in their tiny New York tenement (complete with a balky toilet-the first time that this particular bathroom fixture ever appeared in an American film). As John's dreams of glory go unfulfilled, he becomes bitter and argumentative, while Mary grows old before her time. Just when John wins $500 in a slogan contest, tragedy strikes unexpectedly when the Sims' youngest child is killed in a traffic accident. Haunted by the memory of his child, John is unable to function properly at his job, and is soon fired. In despair, Sims contemplates suicide, only to be shaken back to reality by his son, who, oblivious to John's grief and disillusionment, declares proudly that he wants to be just like his daddy when he grows up. By chance, John gets a job as a street huckster for a local department store. Though both John and Mary know that this "triumph" is transitory, at least the family is together again, and at least they're reasonably happy. As the camera pulls back, back, back in a packed movie theatre, we leave John Sims just where we found him-one of The Crowd. At the behest of MGM, Vidor reluctantly filmed an idiotic alternate ending, wherein the Sims family, having inherited a fortune, are seen living in the lap of luxury. This finale was hooted off the screen wherever it was shown; thus, current prints of the film contain Vidor's original, ambivalent ending. A deceptively "small" film, The Crowd was assembled on as large a budget and with as much production polish as any "big" MGM picture. In 1934, Vidor produced a sequel with his own funds, Our Daily Bread. Alas, James Murray, the actor catapulted to the Big Time in The Crowd, was not a part of the project. A headstrong, irresponsible man, Murray had squandered the chance offered him by Vidor, and had descended into drunken dereliction. Unlike the hero in The Crowd, there was no one to pull James Murray back when, in 1936, he fell off a pier and drowned. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Rafael Sabatini swashbuckler Bardelys the Magnificent served as an excellent vehicle for MGM's top male star John Gilbert. Set during the regime of France's King Louis XIII, the story concerns a bold young braggart named Bardelys (Gilbert), whose sexual conquests have become legendary. When informed that there is at least one member of Louis' court who will not succumb to Bardelys' charms, our hero wagers that he will able to melt this "ice princess," a regal beauty named Roxelanne de Lavedas (Eleanor Boardman). But before he can concentrate his efforts on Roxelanne, Bardelys agrees to deliver some important diplomatic documents on behalf of a dying man named Lesperon. When it turns out that Lesperon was a traitor to the throne, Bardelys is sentenced to hang. In the final scenes, our hero desperately tries to escape his fate, while Roxelanne tearfully prepares to marry the only man who can clear Bardelys' name. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The career of Charles Ray was on a downhill slide by the time he made this picture, based on a novel by Rex Beach. It had been filmed once before, in 1917, but this version, made by MGM, played up its comedy aspects. As wealthy city boy Bob Wharton, Ray goes against his usual rube type with mixed results. Wharton is a spendthrift who elopes with Lory Knight (Eleanor Boardman), a beauty contest winner from South Carolina. When she realizes that Wharton knows more about going out on the town than he does about honest, hard work, she leaves him and returns to South Carolina. Wharton follows after her and gets a job as a shoe salesman. While he's making good, Carter Lane (Ernest Gillen) tries to win Lory over. Lane's sister, Bernice (Sally O'Neil), meanwhile, vamps Wharton and compromises him. The irate Lane men are determined that Wharton must marry Bernice or die, but she finally confesses that the situation was all her doing, and he is innocent. Having proved he can be a success, Wharton reunites with Lory. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

The Summons by Katherine Newlin Burt made for such tired movie material that director Robert G. Vignola and scenarist Albert Shelby LeVino decided to have some fun with it. The film version of this boy-gets-girl tale begins in LeVino's office, where he is trying to come up with a screenplay that will be accepted -- several have already been turned down. Allowed to pick his own star, he chooses Eleanor Boardman, who emerges from her photograph in miniature (via double exposure) and insists on picking her own leading man, selecting Matt Moore. From there the story begins in earnest, with occasional cuts back to the chain-smoking LeVino. Rosamond (Boardman) is a spirited girl who is disgusted when her beau, George (Moore), voices the opinion that women need to be treated like horses. After the couple attend a prize fight, Rosamond is arrested for speeding, but she refuses to be released into George's custody, preferring to stay behind bars -- that is, until she gets into a fight with another girl. Then, when George tries to take her to her father in the mountains, she uses an excuse to ditch him and drives off. The car careens down the mountain and she winds up in a stream. She is rescued by Brand (William Russell) and Matt (Matthew Betz), who turn out to be murderers. George tries to save her from the killers, but an avalanche separates them. Unable to think of a solution, Rosamond herself goes to LeVino for an answer and he tells her to shoot her attacker. She does, and then she and Matt return to LeVino's typewriter for a clinch on top of the keys. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

In spite of a fine cast and director, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer somehow managed to turn the stage play by W. Somerset Maugham into merely a classy-looking program picture. The Cheneys are "veddy" proper upper-class Englishmen, so it's a shock in the 1890s when Lady Catherine, wife of Lord Clive Cheney, runs off with Hugh Porteous, who was best man at the wedding. Now, in the mid-'20s, Elizabeth (Eleanor Boardman) is married to Lord Clive's highly dignified and rather dull son Arnold (Creighton Hale), and she is considering running off with Edward Luton (Malcolm McGregor). To help her decide, she invites Porteous (George Fawcett) and Lady Catherine (Eugenie Besserer) to the ancestral castle on the assumption that Lord Clive (Alec Francis) will be in London. Of course, he shows up unexpectedly and is shocked to find his wife has grown fat and silly, while Porteous is an irascible old man. After spending time with the couple, Elizabeth decides she should probably stay home -- until she sees them embracing. That convinces her to take off with Luton. But only a few miles down the road, the car stops and the chauffeur gets out -- it's Arnold, who gives Luton a sound thrashing. That finished, he promptly takes Elizabeth back to the castle. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

The success of dog stars like Strongheart and Rin-Tin-Tin inspired a number of copycats (or should that be copydogs?). Peter the Great was one of those lesser lights, and as is usual with dog films, he's pretty much the whole show. Barbara Jane (Eleanor Boardman) is planning to elope with Jack (Raymond McKee). But, on the night he is to whisk her away, she is attacked by Phil (Earl Metcalfe), a boarder in her house. Her elderly stepfather (Paul Weigel) hears her cries and comes to her aid, but Phil shoves him down the stairs and kills him. He escapes just before Jack arrives. Circumstances point to Jack as the killer and he is arrested. But his dog, Peter, saw the chain of events through a window and he knows who the real murderer is. While Jack is in jail, Peter wins the warden's trust and is able to pass notes from Barbara. Then, when Jack escapes, Peter holds the guards at bay. Jack, Peter, and Barbara cross the Mexican border and find Phil. Peter chases Phil down and guards him until the police can hear his confession. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi

Based on the play Mary the Third by Rachel Crothers, Wine of Youth concerns Mary (Eleanor Boardman), a flapper whose mother (Eulalie Jensen) and grandmother (Gertrude Claire) were also named Mary. The first two Marys worked all their feminine wiles to snare their husbands, but the youngest Mary doesn't know if she really wants to be tied down. Two young men vie for her hand: sweet natured Lynn (Ben Lyon) and the charming but aggressive Hal (William Haines, playing the type of character that would later make him famous). Mary can't choose between the two of them, so, after a wild party, she decides to take them both on a camping trip, along with her pal, Tish (Pauline Garon), and Tish's sweetheart, Max (William Collier Jr.). Tish and Max decide to "do the right thing" and get married. It doesn't take long for Mary, meanwhile, to disqualify the pushy Hal, and insist that the party return home. When Mary enters her house she overhears her mother and father (E.J. Ratcliffe) arguing over her escapade, and she believes that they no longer love each other. This revelation causes her to lose all faith in the institution of marriage. Her mother decides to leave. When she faints, her husband believes she has been poisoned. This makes him realize how much he really does care. When Mary sees this she decides to accept Lynn's proposal. ~ Janiss Garza, Rovi