H.B. Warner Movies

A pair of con artists, Gorgone (Genevieve Hamper) and Peppo (Stuart Holmes) wreak havoc in the life of Count de Mornay (Robert B. Mantell). The scammers have entered society by obtaining a 20 million franc inheritance that doesn't belong to them, and Peppo discovers that the Count's wife (Genevieve Blinn) is secretly visiting a gambler. The gambler, it turns out, is the Countess' illegitimate brother, and he is blackmailing her. But when Peppo tells the Count about the meetings, he assumes that his wife is having an affair and rushes over to her apartment. He shoots the gambler and divorces his wife so that he can marry Gorgone. But the lover of the Count's daughter uncovers the whole scheme, and the Count and Countess are reunited. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The usual Thomas H. Ince talent lineup -- including director Reginald Gardiner and writer C. Gardner Sullivan -- collaborated on the sublimely constructed Market of Vain Desire. H.B.Warner stars as John Armstrong, a small-town clergyman who discovers that one of his flock, Helen Badgely (Clara Williams), is being pressured by her social-climbing mother (Gertrude Claire) to marry the pompous Count Bernard d'Montaigne (Charles Miller). To prevent this, Armstrong engages the services of prostitute Belle (Leona Hutton) -- not for the reasons one might suspect, but to deliver the sermon the following Sunday! By using Belle as an example of one who has sold her soul for gold, Rev. Armstrong is able to make Helen's mother realize the error of her ways. Things work out well for Armstrong too, inasmuch as he has fallen in love with Helen himself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This Arabian tale starring H.B. Warner (returning to the screen after an extended Broadway performance) may seem racist today, but in the days of silent cinema it was about par for the course. Captain Beverly (Wedgewood Nowell) becomes involved with a colonel's wife. Because Beverly had saved his life on the battlefield, Captain Rand (Warner) protects him by taking the blame. As a result, Rand is court-martialed and it makes him bitter. Disguising himself as Ali Zaman, an Arab, he takes out his resentment on all white men, and kidnaps Ethel Lambert (Barbara Castleton), the girl Beverly loves. She figures out he is white, however, and he lets her go. Later on, dressed as himself, Rand meets her at a restaurant in an Arabian town. He saves her father from an attack and a romance begins to develop between them. Beverly tells Ethel that Rand was drummed out of the service in disgrace. Rand gives her a week to consider their romance. Fanine (Carmen Phillips), a resentful dancer in love with Rand, is part of a conspiracy to kill him and she lures Ethel into the desert. Beverly, meanwhile, has come to regret his actions, and goes into the desert and is killed in the ensuing battle. English soldiers rescue Rand and Ethel, and they are happily united. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Author George Clayton (H.B. Warner) is a skeptic when it comes to hypnotism. Nevertheless, he allows mesmerist Norman Osgood to put him under. The next day, Harrison Kirke (Howard Davies) is found murdered, and Clayton is the prime suspect because Osgood -- who had a grudge against the victim -- supposedly commanded him to do the deed "one hour before dawn." Only through the skilled work of Inspector Steele (Wilton Taylor) is Clayton found innocent of the crime. This mystery story received fine direction at the hands of Henry King, who was beginning to make quite a name for himself. It was based on Mansfield Scott's novel, Behind Red Curtains. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

When Jimmy Doyle (H.B. Warner) is released after serving yet another prison term, his dying pal, jewel thief Bill Preston (J.P. Lockney) asks him to take care of his daughter Nancy (Lillian Rich). Jimmy plans to go straight, and tries to sequester Nancy, who was never a part of her father's affairs. But then he is framed and sent to jail once again. He is there he vows to kill James Tierney (Claude Payton), the detective responsible for his capture. Since he once studied medicine, Jimmy is given work in the prison hospital and he escapes from there. He and Nancy marry and he goes to work at her uncle's hospital. Through the marriage license, Tierney is able to track Jimmy down, but on the train he suffers an attack of appendicitis. He is taken to the uncle's hospital, along with a bum who has been found unconscious. Jimmy now has his opportunity to kill Tierney but he doesn't go through with it -- which is just as well because the tramp comes to and confesses to the crime which Jimmy was thought to have committed. Tierney winds up giving Jimmy and Nancy tickets to Europe for their honeymoon. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Irishman Felix O'Day (H.B. Warner) sees his life crumble when his so-called friend Austin Bennett (Ray Ripley) convinces his father to stake his estate for a money scheme. The scheme fails, and the old man dies of a broken heart. On top of that, Bennett runs off with Felix's faithless wife, Barbara (Marguerite Snow). Felix pursues the couple from Ireland to New York City, where he loses track of them. Both Felix and Bennett gradually spend what little money they have and when they finally do meet up, it's in a tenement apartment. Felix threatens to kill Bennett with his bare hands, but when Bennett tries to use a clothes line to escape through a window and it snaps, the job is done for him. This picture was based on the novel by Edgar Franklin. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Stage star William Elliot (no relation to cowboy hero William "Wild Bill" Elliott starred in this first movie version of the Broadway hit When We Were Twenty-One. The story concerns a college romance, with the undergrad hero wooing the professor's daughter. The film comes to a rugged climax during an all-important football game, in which the real-life Bradhurst Field Club gridiron team was prominently featured. Taking into consideration the usual static nature of Edwin S. Porter's direction, one can safely assume that the "exterior" scenes were handled by co-director Hugh Ford. When We Were Twenty-One was remade, appropriately enough, in 1921. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Virginia Carter (Alma Rubens) has two suitors -- the carefree Robert Whitney (Frank Mayo) and the more restrained, but far wealthier Jordan Southwick (H.B. Warner). Because her family is having financial difficulties, Mrs. Carter (Marie Shaffer) encourages her daughter to choose Southwick. After the wedding, Virginia's no-good brother, Boyd (Walter McGrail), tries to sell Southwick Virginia's old love letters to Whitney, but Southwick destroys them unread. He does, however, decide to put Virginia's love to the test -- the couple go on a yacht cruise, and Southwick invites Whitney along. Disaster strikes when a huge liner collides with the yacht. Whitney and Virginia are rescued by a rum runner, and Southwick is presumed dead. Although Virginia remains true to her husband's memory, she finally decides to marry Whitney. Southwick has been picked up by a sea captain and he returns home. He discovers Virginia and Whitney together, but seeing their happiness, he decides to leave well enough alone and goes back to the sea with the captain. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Produced by Cecil B. DeMille -- but directed by Rupert Julian -- Silence affords new DeMille contractee Vera Reynolds the opportunity to play a dual role. Told in flashback, the story endeavors to explain why Jim Warren (H.B. Warner) is about to be hanged for a murder he didn't commit. A petty crook, Jim is in love with Norma Drake (Vera Reynolds), but circumstances force him to marry Mollie Burke (Virginia Pearson). Rendered pregnant by Jim, Norma marries her old beau Phil Powers (Rockliffe Fellows) so that her baby will be born legitimate. Years pass: Jim becomes a derelict, while his daughter -- also named Norma and also played by Vera Reynolds -- grows up in wealth and comfort. As luck and the screenwriters will have it, one of Jim's former criminal cohorts shows up at the Powers home and begins casting aspersions on the virtue of Norma's late mother. The mortified girl shoots and kills the bounder, whereupon Jim -- who was conveniently in the neighborhood at the time of the shooting -- gallantly takes the blame, going to his own death in stoic silence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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

The piquant Leatrice Joy starred in this frothy marital comedy about a wife who leaves her boring husband (John Boles) to be the companion of a kept woman (Seena Owen). The latter, however, leaves in a huff when she suspects that her gentleman friend (H.B. Warner) may be paying a bit too much attention to the newcomer. Sure enough, the lecherous Warner does indeed propose a similar arrangement for Miss Joy, who promptly turns him down in favor of returning to home and hearth. With her close-cropped and rather mannish hairstyle, Leatrice Joy was one of the era's great trendsetters and excelled at playing naughty but nice. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The Naughty Duchess was the come-on title affixed to this filmization of the novel Indiscretion of a Duchess (apparently "naughty" was easier to spell). Eve Southern plays a woman with a shady history who tries to elude the Law by boarding a train. Here she begs handsome fellow-passenger H.B. Warner to pose as her husband to throw the cops off the trail. It so happens that Warner is a duke, who is so charmed by the breathless Southern that he asks her to become his duchess. The girl tries to live up to her new title and responsibilities, but she finds it difficult not to lapse into her old low-born shenanigans. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide