Raymond Turner Movies
- 1929
Colleen Moore's starring vehicles were never as "naughty" as their titles suggested. In Synthetic Sin, for example, Moore is cast as virtuous small-town girl Betty. An aspiring actress, Betty scores a huge flop in her local stage debut. Deciding she hasn't "lived" enough to be a good actress, our heroine heads to the Big City, hoping to experience a life of sin and heartbreak. Nothing of the sort happens, of course, and by film's end the girl has managed to find success with her virtue still intact. Based on a play by Frederic and Fanny Hatton (two prolific comedy specialists of the period), Synthetic Sin was released with a synchronized Vitaphone musical score. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Colleen Moore, Antonio Moreno, (more)
- 1929
Director Frank Lloyd was nominated for an Academy Award for this rather sappy gangster melodrama starring Richard Barthelmess and filmed as a silent with dialogue sequences. Sent up the river by a rival gangster, Jerry Larrabee (Barthelmess) is shown the way to redemption by an understanding warden (the silent era William Holden), who encourages the hoodlum's flair for singing sentimental love songs in general and "Weary River" (by Louis Silvers and Grant Clarke) in particular. Pardoned by the governor, Jerry attempts to make a go at it as a vaudeville entertainer billed as "the Master of Melody" but constant whispers of "Convict!" from the audience ruin his concentration and he returns to the old gang. On the night of the final confrontation with Spadoni (Louis Natheaux), the rival who framed him, Jerry is saved by the quick intervention of the warden and reformed gangster's moll Alice (Betty Compson). Watch closely for future stars Sally Eilers as a hat check girl, and Randolph Scott as Compson's theater companion. Weary River may be seen today in a version restored by UCLA and Turner Classic Movies. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Barthelmess, Betty Compson, (more)
- 1928
Fred Thomson, arguably Tom Mix's closest rival in the late 1920s, was one of the few series-western leads to portray historical heroes. Thomson was Jesse James in a 1927 whitewash of that legendary bandit before starring in the title-role of Kit Carson. The famed frontiersman saves Indian girl Sings-In-the Clouds (Dorothy Janis) from being attacked by a huge bear. She, in turn, saves him when he is captured by an Indian war party and later stows away on an expedition. Again and again, Carson must save the stupid girl -- mainly from the lecherous advances of gargantuan trapper Shuman (Raoul Paoli) -- but in spite of her love for him, the frontiersman, in accordance with the miscegenation laws of the time, chooses white-girl Josefa (Nora Lane). This major Thomson effort was filmed on grandiose locations at Lake Mary, Arizona where nearly 500 local Indians, mostly Navajos, were used as extras. Despite all that, the film was not a huge success, and a planned epic depicting the life of Davy Crockett was shelved. As it turned out Kit Carson proved Thomson's final film. He died of pneumonia on Christmas Eve, 1928. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- 1927
Such was Richard Barthelmess' popularity in 1927 that audiences were willing to sit through all 12 reels (approximately 130 minutes) of The Patent Leather Kid. Barthelmess plays a cocky prizefighter who isn't the least bit concerned when America enters World War 1. Doing his best to avoid the army, the boxer is shamed into signing up by his girl friend Molly O'Day. Once on the battlefields of France, Barthelmess forsakes his previous selfishness and begins to pull together with his buddies. While performing a conspicous act of bravery, he is permanently crippled. The finale, in which the paraplegic Barthelmess painfully and courageously salutes the American flag, is still capable of reducing an audience to tears. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Barthelmess, Molly O'Day, (more)
- 1925
Action melodrama factory FBO produced this very average silent western about an Easterner travelling West in search of, of all things, a famous recipe! The fop takes a position as a ranch hand and gets in the way of a cattle-rustling scheme. Maurice "Lefty" Flynn, a burly former socialite, basically played himself in this potboiler directed by Harry Garson, a mediocre filmmaker better known as the husband of silent-screen star Clara Kimball Young. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maurice B. Flynn, Ann May, (more)
- 1925
He may have been Maurice B. Flynn on the studio payroll, but to his fans this popular action star was best known as "Lefty" Flynn. In Smilin' at Trouble, Lefty plays Jerry Foster a construction engineer working on a big-time dam project. Our hero gets wind of a plan cooked up by his foreman to sabotage the dam for fun and profit. The finale is a fairly convincing dam-burst sequence, in which Jerry rescues boss' daughter Alice Arnold (Helen Lynch) while the treacherous foreman meets a soggy demise. In Great Britain, the film was more formally shipped out as Smiling at Trouble. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maurice B. Flynn
- 1925
Stuntman/action star Maurice B. Flynn was better known to his fans as "Lefty" Flynn, and that's how he was billed in 1925's Heads Up. The Fairbanks-like story finds millionaire Breckenridge Gamble (Flynn) looking for excitement in a South American banana republic. He gets more than he bargained for when he's called upon to deliver an important message to the country's kidnapped president. In record time, Gamble foils a revolution and wins the heart of the president's pretty daughter Angela (Kathleen Myer). The excessive slapstick content of Heads Up may be due to the fact that the screenplay was cooked up by former Mack Sennett gag man Rob Wagner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kathleen Myers, Kalla Pasha, (more)
- 1924
A rugged detective is hired by a bank to infiltrate a gang of robbers in this very average silent Western starring former Yale football star Maurice "Lefty" Flynn. Although handsome and a capable actor, Flynn never reached top stardom in Westerns (or anywhere else, for that matter) and was always better known as the husband of Metro star Viola Dana. Produced independently by director Harry Garson for release by FBO, The No-Gun Man was a rare writing assignment for editor and future director Dorothy Arzner. Flynn's leading lady, Gloria Grey, starred that same year as Gene Stratton-Porter's Girl of the Limberlost. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Maurice B. Flynn, Gloria Grey, (more)
