Harry Todd Movies
- 1922
Future director David Butler plays a hobo who aspires to become a business success. Taking a correspondence course which advises him (in part) to "put on a big bluff", Butler heads to a small town, where he poses as a prominent miner. Before the ruse can be revealed, Butler has rescued the town from financial disaster. He also wins the girl, played by Helen Ferguson. Directing According to Hoyle with his customary express-train speed was Woody "One Take"VanDyke. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1930
Intending to get value for money out of their house leading man Rex Lease, Tiffany Studios cast the personable actor in everything from westerns to sports dramas to domestic comedies like Borrowed Wives. Lease plays Peter Foley, who stands to inherit a fortune from his late uncle. The problem: To increase his allowance from his wealthy relative, Peter pretended to have a wife. Naturally, the will stipulates that Peter still be married, lest he lose his $800,000 legacy. The rest of the plotline is implicit in the film's title, with everyone concerned running around at top speed to convince the audience that something funny is going on. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rex Lease, Vera Reynolds, (more)
Just after completing It Happened One Night, director Frank Capra churned out a bread-and-butter picture titled Broadway Bill. Warner Baxter plays the carefree scion of a wealthy, highly-respected family. Baxter's cold but socially correct wife Helen Vinson forces her husband into the family business, but Baxter would rather spend his time at the racetrack. He buys a nag named Broadway Bill and tries to build the horse into a winner--if he doesn't bankrupt himself first. Only Baxter's sister-in-law Myrna Loy and black stable hand Clarence Muse have faith in Broadway Bill. The horse wins a crucial race, but dies suddenly at the finish line. Baxter is comforted and given encouragement by Loy, who is now his sweetheart, Vinson having long since washed her hands of her "irresponsible" husband. Broadway Bill was remade by Capra as Riding High (1950), utilizing generous portions of stock footage and even going so far as to rehire several of the original film's cast members (Douglass Dumbrille, Clarence Muse, Charles Lane, Raymond Walburn, Margaret Hamilton, Frankie Darro) to recreate their roles and match up their scenes from the earlier production. Long withheld from distribution due to Riding High, Broadway Bill was made available for videocassette in the mid-1980s. Keep an eye out for Lucille Ball as a blonde telephone operator and Alan Hale Sr. as a racetrack announcer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Warner Baxter, Myrna Loy, (more)
- 1927
Little Jackie Coogan, Charlie Chaplin's famous The Kid(1921), starred in this action melodrama from MGM as a young bugler whose stepmother (Claire Windsor) attempts to supplant the mother who only lives in his memory. According to the Motion Picture New Booking Guide, The Bugle Call, which apparently no longer exists, was set in a frontier cavalry post in the 1870s and also dealt with "Indians and adventure." Handsome Herbert Rawlinson played the romantic lead, with Tom O'Brien as a no-nonsense cavalry sergeant and Nelson McDowell and Sarah Padden as weather-beaten frontier types. The Bugle Call was directed by Edward Sedgwick, formerly of Hoot Gibson Westerns. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jackie Coogan, Claire Windsor, (more)
- 1926
A remake of a 1915 Tom Mix/Selig Western, this film was yet another silent oater (loosely) based on a story by popular pulp fiction writer Peter B. Kyne. Hoot Gibson starred as Chip Bennett, a Flying U ranch hand-turned-cartoonist, who despite being a confirmed misogynist falls in love with Della Whitmore (Virginia Brown Faire), a lady doctor and sister of his employer (DeWitt Jennings). To get the woman's attention, Chip fakes an accident and claims to have injured his ankle. Having submitted several of Chip's accomplished drawings to a receptive publisher, Della learns of the cowboy's deception and determines to give him the cold shoulder. Down but far from out, Chip kidnaps the girl from a dance and carries her off to a minister to be married. Like Mix before him, Gibson played the story entirely as a comedy, eschewing most of the usual Western trappings. The 1939 Johnny Mack Brown Western of the same name, although based on the same source material, substituted the original Battle-of-the-Sexes scenario for a straight sagebrush melodrama. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hoot Gibson, DeWitt Jennings, (more)
- 1926
Finding himself accidentally trapped in a girl's boudoir, cowboy Bill Martin (Buffalo Bill, Jr.) is forced to marry her. The girl, Rose Brown (Belva McKay) is not taken with the clumsy young man, until, that is, he saves her mother (Mathilda Brundage) from a burning house. This silly comedy was termed a western only because of its star. The leading lady, Belva Ann McKay was the wife of director Richard Thorpe. Coming An' Going was one of dozens of budget-conscious second features ground out by director Richard Thorpe before he joined MGM in 1935. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1922
This is not one of the better collaborations between director King Vidor and his then-wife, Florence Vidor. She stars as Judith Stafford, who comes from a moneyed family. A recent trip to Europe has turned her into a snobby and pretentious young woman. She returns engaged to a count of no-accounts and refuses to even consider the young man her father wants her to marry, the cowboy son of an old friend (David Butler). To solve this dilemma, Stafford arranges it so that Judith and the young man are marooned on a South Sea island together. It takes the better part of the three months they are there for Judith to realize that, according to filmland tradition, she is supposed to fall madly in love with the rugged Westerner. Finally she does, and when the count comes to fetch her, she dumps him flat in favor of the cowboy. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Florence Vidor
- 1929
A bookish Easterner (Hoot Gibson) is shipped off to a Western ranch for toughening up. Once on the ranch, he falls for a tough dame (Eugenia Gilbert) who is falsely accused of murdering her father's enemy. To the strains of "Courtin' Calamity," the former dude shows what he is really made of by capturing the real killer. This commonplace Western was Hoot Gibson's final part in a talkie. Carl Laemmle, the founder of Gibson's studio, Universal, and a great fan of Westerns, was running scared and didn't think outdoor pictures could do well with dialogue. Consequently, he canned all of his cowboy stars shortly after the release of Courtin' Wildcats, and Gibson's career never truly recovered. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hoot Gibson, Eugenia Gilbert, (more)
- 1920
David Butler plays a soldier home from the war whose tendency to keep to himself foments gossip. According to his detractors, Butler is a drunk, gambler and wastrel. During a town carnival, Butler vanquishes his enemies once and for all, winning the love of Lillian Hall in the process. The independently produced Fickle Women boasts an excellent, cleverly shaded lead performance by David Butler, later to become a top Hollywood director. The film was based on Sitting on the World, a short story by Sophie Kerr. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1924
Jailed for a robbery he didn't commit, Bullets Bernard (Art Acord) enlists an alcoholic jailhouse lawyer (Paul Weigel) to defend him. The lawyer sobers up just enough to be effective, and Bernard is set free -- not a minute too soon. It turns out his girlfriend Shirley (Vane Truant) has been kidnapped and the villain, in cahoots with a crooked attorney, proves to be none other than the man who framed Bullets in the first place. The "Vane Truant" listed in the cast of this obscure silent Western is most likely Acord's real-life wife, actress Louise Lorraine, moonlighting from her steady job at Universal Studios. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paul Weigel, Art Acord, (more)
- 1928
Invited to stage a Wild West show at a dude ranch, rodeo king Bill Hammon (Hoot Gibson) makes an impressive arrival by parachuting into the swimming pool from an airplane in this fanciful Western-comedy produced by Universal. A couple of jewel thieves briefly ruin what otherwise would be a pleasant stay for Hammond. The rodeo cowboy quickly brings the villains to justice and is free to romance lovely Connie Lamont (Olive Hasbrouck). Gibson enjoyed these less than action-packed comedy-Westerns, in which his rustic humor took center stage over smoking guns and fisticuffs. Enough folks agreed to make Gibson Universal's top-grossing cowboy. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hoot Gibson
- 1926
This inexpensive "outdoor" actioner is set in a logging camp, where the crooked supervisor busies himself by stealing lumber from the owner. The villain manages to escape detection, principally because he's engaged to the owner's daughter. A handsome young logger gets wind of the supervisor's scheme, whereupon he and the heroine are marooned in the middle of a raging forest fire. The hero rescues the heroine, losing his eyesight in the process but winning her hand in marriage. Tired of waiting on her incapacitated husband hand-and-foot, the girl begins keeping time with the villain, never suspecting that it was he who set off the forest fire in the first place. But the hero regains his vision in time to take care of the bad guy once and for all. Top-billed in Forest Havoc is one Forrest Stanley, cast in the role of "Ronald McDonald" (no kidding!) ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Forrest Stanley, Peggy Montgomery, (more)
- 1921
Girls Don't Gamble proclaims the opening title of this 1921 drama. The film was based on a magazine story by George Weston, which was more accurately titled Girls Don't Gamble Anymore. Whatever the case, the plot concentrates not on a girl but a guy: poor-but-honest chauffeur David Butler (later a prominent director). Accused of robbing the department store owned by his employer, the chauffeur clears himself in a two-fisted finale. But here's the shocker: he doesn't marry the boss' daughter! Though cheaply produced, Girls Don't Gamble had plenty of "sock" entertainment value. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1932
The second of six sound Westerns starring Jack Hoxie and produced by poverty row company Majestic, this film, like most B-Westerns at the time, features long stretches of what for all intents and purposes is silent action briefly interrupted by somewhat awkward dialogue sequences. Jack (Hoxie) and Jeff Sellers (Lafe Mckee) are partners in search of gold who are joined by the latter's lovely daughter, Marion (Alice Day). Jeff sells his part of the claim to Boss Kramer (Hooper Atchley) and is soon after found murdered. Marion accuses Jack of killing her father and he is arrested by the sheriff (Tom London). Together with sidekick Elmer (Matthew Betz), Jack devises a plan in which Kramer, riding Elmer's wagon, is mistakenly shot by his own henchman (Robert Kortman). With their leader dead, the gang members give themselves up to the authorities, and Jack is cleared of any wrongdoing. This Western marked the last screen appearance for silent screen ingenue Alice Day. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jack Hoxie, Alice Day, (more)
- 1933
In his penultimate Western, former silent screen cowboy Jack Hoxie plays The Sonora Kid, an outlaw who, to spare an old blind woman's feelings, pretends to be her long-lost son. The nasty Nevada Smith (J. Frank Glendon), a cattle rustler, confuses things considerably by pretending to be The Sonora Kid himself, with the real kid unable to defend himself because of his own deception. Nevada is killed in the ensuing fight and buried as The Kid. The U.S. marshal (Bob Burns) realizes the truth but leaves well enough alone. A free man at last, the former Sonora Kid can settle down with the old woman's pretty niece (Betty Boyd). Playing the blind victim of Hoxie's deception, white-haired Mary Carr was Hollywood's most motherly mother. Years younger than she appeared, Carr became a major star playing the prototype of suffering motherhood in the classic tearjerker, Over the Hill to the Poorhouse (1920). But as one noted film historian put it, "Mrs. Carr could arouse sympathy from an audience without evidencing that she could really act." ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1920
When he discovers that his wife only married him for his money, Philip Dorset (Albert Roscoe) leaves her and goes to Africa. There he meets up with some circus men and becomes part of their group. They take charge of a young white girl, Joan, whose missionary father has died, and they return to the States. Joan (Shirley Mason) grows up to be a bareback rider, and Dorset takes care of the elephants. Now that Joan has reached adulthood, she finds herself falling in love with Dorset, but because of his unhappy past, he keeps her at bay. Eventually, this causes him to leave the circus, but finally he and Joan resolve things and are reunited. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1933
Her Splendid Folly is an old-fashioned comedy/drama from the misleadingly named firm of Progressive Pictures. Lillian Bond plays a dual role, a famous film star and her look-alike, a humble stenographer. The plot requires the stenog to pose as the movie queen, and in so doing she falls in love with Theodor von Eltz, the star's boyfriend. Her 15 minutes of fame brings Bond together with her long-lost mother Beryl Mercer, who has taken a job as a studio scrubwoman to be nearer to her daughter. Jewish-dialect comedian Alexander Carr is featured as the obligatory English-fracturing studio boss. Her Splendid Folly seems to have been filmed through the facilities of General Service Studios, then the home of Educational Pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lillian Bond, Beryl Mercer, (more)
- 1924
A lanky cowboy from Nebraska, J.B. Warner, became a star in a series of inexpensive oaters produced in 1923-1924 by Greek-born Hollywood entrepreneur Anthony J. Xydias' Sunset Productions. Warner was personable, a reasonably talented thespian, and handled comedy with more ease than some of his competitors. Sadly, he died of tuberculosis in 1925 and is all but forgotten today. In Horseshoe Luck, Warner and comedy sidekick Harry Todd play miners who get in trouble with a gang of claim jumpers. This Western, like all Xydias product, was released on the states rights market for a flat fee and played only in the hinterlands. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- J.B. Warner, Margaret Morris, (more)
- 1931
A cowpoke is duped and made to appear drunk by an unscrupulous foreman in this Western from small-scale Sono Art-World Widewhich benefited from location filming in the Mojave Desert. Losing his job at the Sutter ranch as a result, Jim (Rex Lease) vows to catch the true culprits, foreman Winslow (Harry Woods) and his gang of horse thieves. Disguised as one of Winslow's henchmen, Jim discovers that the gang is employing a specially trained white stallion to round up Sutter's mares and herd them into a secret mountain pass. Along with his sidekick Ben (Harry Todd), Jim follows the stallion and catches the gang red-handed, earning the love and respect of lovely Helen Sutter (Dorothy Gulliver). In all likelihood the opener of a proposed series, In Old Cheyenne failed to garner much interest. More a general purpose actor than a classic hero, Rex Lease would have to wait until 1935 to star in his own series, and then it was for Superior Talking Pictures, which, despite its name, was even lower on the Hollywood totem-pole than Sono Art-World Wide. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rex Lease, Dorothy Gulliver, (more)
Frank Capra's seminal screwball comedy, which won all five major Academy Awards for 1934, is still as breezy and beguiling today. Claudette Colbert plays Ellie Andrews, a spoiled heiress who has married fortune-hunting aviator King Westley (Jameson Thomas), despite her father (Walter Connolly)'s objections. To keep Ellie from marrying this lothario, her father has been holding her prisoner aboard his yacht. But Ellie bolts from the yacht, swims ashore in her clothes, and eventually slips onto a Greyhound bus bound for New York. Aboard the bus is newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), who has recently been fired for drinking on the job. Peter gets the last seat on the bus -- but when he gets up to argue with the bus driver, Ellie takes his seat. Since it is the last seat on the bus, they have to share it. When Ellie has her purse stolen and she refuses to report it, Peter begins to suspect something. The next morning, they both miss the bus after a leisurely breakfast, and Peter reveals that he knows her identity. She makes a deal with him: if he helps her get to New York, he can write a scoop about her for his paper. Peter thinks she is a spoiled brat, however, and refuses a monetary bribe: "I'm not interested in your money or your problem. You, King Westley, your father -- you're all a lot of hooey to me!" But as they travel northward and engage in a series of misadventures, the gruff newspaperman and the spoiled rich girl, thrown together by circumstances, fall in love with each other. This movie set the pace for the "screwball" comedy, the witty and romantic clash of temperaments between a man and a woman mismatched in both personality and social position, a type of movie often associated with Katherine Hepburn in such classics as Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), and, with Spencer Tracy, Adam's Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952), and Desk Set (1957), among others. The only other movies to win all five major Academy Awards (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay) were One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, (more)
- 1921
Irving Bacheller was a popular American author during the 1910s, but he refused to allow his stories to be filmed because he didn't think that motion pictures could do them justice. He finally relented with this tale of social climbing in a small town, and the resulting picture was amusing and well received. Lizzie (Enid Bennett) is the daughter of Sam Henshaw, the grocer of a small country town (Otis Harlan). Lizzie's childhood sweetheart is Dan Pettigrew (Edward Hearn), the son of Henshaw's rival (Harry Todd). Since Henshaw thinks his Lizzie can do better than Dan, he ships her off to finishing school. Dan's father, meanwhile, is not to be outdone and sends his son to Harvard. Lizzie returns a little too finished -- she has become a social snob and wants little to do with Dan, who has quickly recovered from his own bout of snobbery and come back to earth. Inspired by Lizzie's new ways, the townsfolk all become social climbers and spend money they don't have -- but which Soc Potter (W. Landers Stevens) cheerfully lends them -- to keep up with her. Lizzie accompanies a wealthy widow to Europe and returns with Count Louis Roland (Leo White), whom she intends to marry. Dan senses something fishy about the oily European, and unmasks him as a phony just in time to prevent the wedding. Sadder but wiser, Lizzie finally realizes what -- and who -- is important in her life. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1929
The seventh serial released by Nat Levine's penny-pinching but enterprising little Mascot Pictures, King of the Congo was released in three versions: silent, sound-on-disc, and sound-on-film. The latter came with several dialogue scenes, making Levine and his staff pioneers in the new art of outdoor sound filming. Veteran serial star Walter Miller and Jacqueline Logan, De Mille's Mary Magdalene of The King of Kings (1927), go in search of missing relatives in Darkest Africa. Through ten somewhat stodgily paced chapters, the two innocents battle a devious gang of ivory smugglers -- not to mention a fair amount of stock-footage wildlife -- only to discover that the man they thought was their enemy is actually Miss Logan's long-lost father and their guardian angel. The latter was played in his most menacing way by Boris Karloff, making this his third "red herring" role for Mascot. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1929
One of Hoot Gibson's final silent westerns (and a sequel to the popular Chip of the Flying U (1926)), King of the Rodeo presented the canny star as a rodeo champion from Montana getting himself ready for the big Chicago meet. There are, of course, a couple of bad guys to be dealt with along the way (including Monte Montague, here playing a character aptly named Weasel) and at one point, Gibson chases one of them through the traffic-jammed streets of Chicago. With the hayseed Slim Summerville and veteran slapstick comic Harry Todd to take care of the laughs and character actress Bodil Rosing as Gibson's devoted ma, wringing out a tear or two, a good time was had by all. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1935
Directed by former screenwriter Ford I. Beebe, this Tim McCoy Western from Columbia co-starred Robert Allen, a handsome studio contractee groomed for Western stardom. Allen played Johnny Kane, an escaped prisoner wrongly convicted of murder. McCoy, as Texas Ranger Tim McDonald, believes in Johnny's innocence and prevents a fellow lawman (Charles "Slim" Whitaker) from killing him. Kicked out of the corps for helping Johnny escape, Tim goes to Mill Valley where he takes over the local newspaper, bequeathed to him by Alexander (Samuel S. Hinds), the slain publisher of "the Ledger." He lands in the middle of a political struggle between two factions, one of whom is headed by Daniel Heston (Guy Usher), a corrupt politician, and the man who killed the publisher. Tim takes up the fight against Heston, who hires gunslinger Garvey (Jack Rockwell) to assassinate him. The former ranger is saved by Johnny, who arrives at the last moment to rope the gun from Garvey's hand. Heston retaliates by revealing Tim to have been dishonorably discharged from the rangers and "the Ledger" is mysteriously fire-bombed. Despite the odds, Tim and Gloria (Billie Seward), Alexander's daughter, manage to print an election day edition by using old wallpaper. A button found at the scene of a crime proves to belong to Heston and both Tim and Johnny are vindicated. Leading lady Billie Seward would appear in a total of five Tim McCoy Westerns, Robert Allen in three. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1931
Wolf Hardy (Nelson McDowell), the wounded leader of an outlaw gang, takes great pains to insure that his young protégé, Phil "The Cub" Norris (Bob Custer), will return to the straight and narrow. The hot-headed Norris is almost convinced to join a gang headed by the notorious Blanco Kid (Edmund Cobb), but he is persuaded otherwise by Blanco's bride-to-be, Judy Lanning (Betty Mack). Norris rescues the pretty girl from her brutal boyfriend and is offered a job by her father (Carlton King) in gratitude. Blanco threatens to reveal the former outlaw's past, but a recovered Hardy intervenes. Two former silent screen cowboys -- Custer and Cobb -- came face-to-face in this above-average low-budget oater produced by Harry S. Webb and Flora E. Douglas for release by the redoubtable Syndicate Film Exchange, a forerunner to Poverty Row company Monogram. Nearing the end of his screen career, Custer was a bit long in the tooth to play someone's young protégé. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Betty Mack, Edmund Cobb, (more)
