Clarence G. Badger

In this romantic comedy, a school teacher moves from his home in the country to a small town. He attends a party and becomes a hit when he suggests the partygoers stage a mock wedding with the loveliest girl in town. Much to his surprise, they are married by a bona fide reverend and the marriage is real. Later the town crook tries to make moves upon the beauteous bride and she begs her "husband" not to anull their union. As a result, the spurned bad guy decides to destroy the bank of the young wife's father. Lucky for her, the former school teacher has just sold his big novel. He uses his advance money to save her and then marry her for real. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Peep O'Day (Will Rogers) is the illiterate pauper of a small Southern town. When he gets the news from Judge Priest (Edward Kimball) that he has inherited a fortune from a relative back in Ireland, Peep's life changes overnight. He decides to use his money to experience the childhood he never got to have, and spends all his time having fun with the boys of the neighborhood. Meanwhile, the widow Hunter (Cordelia Callahan) has him pegged as husband material and is trying to catch him. The scheming Cassius Sublette (Sydney Ainsworth) wants to get his hands on Peep's fortune, so he tries to have him declared incompetent. His accomplice is a girl from Cincinnati who poses as Peep's "niece," who will be more than happy to handle his money. Judge Priest sees through scam, the accomplice has a change of heart, and the case is dismissed. Peep returns to his young pals, leaving a broken-hearted widow Hunter in his wake. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Madge Kennedy plays Primrose, a shepherdess who still believes that romantic fairy tale about the white knight who will come to take her away from the little duck farm where she lives. She's being courted by a prosaic but moneyed concrete manufacturer, and he doesn't interest her at all. A young writer (John Bowers) comes floating in on a yacht, and when he shows an understanding of her dreams, she is convinced that he is her "knight." The concrete manufacturer can only compete with material goods, but they can't shatter her day dreams. Unfortunately, the film itself seemed to suffer from the same clash between the poetic and pragmatic and couldn't hold onto the illusions it tried to create. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

It is said that every actor wants to play Shakespeare. Will Rogers would seem a likely exception to that rule, but here he is in this silent, taking a stab (albeit comic) at Romeo. Slim (Rogers), of course, begins as a cowpuncher but his boss switches from cattle to sheep, throwing him out of work. In addition his sweetheart, Lulu (Sylvia Breamer), says he should learn to be a real lover, like Douglas Fairbanks. So Slim decides to go work in motion pictures to discover how film folk make love. After he doubles for villains and heroes alike, Lulu changes her mind -- now she thinks Romeo and Juliet is the yardstick by which all lovers should be measured. So Slim obligingly gets his hands on a copy of the play and tries to read it. Naturally he falls asleep, but he dreams the story with himself and his girl in the title roles. When he awakes, however, he throws all technique out the window, grabs Lulu away from his rival (Raymond Hatton) and drags her off to the preache r. His show of force is what she wanted after all and the film ends happily. This was the final picture of Rogers' contract with the Goldwyn Studios. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Although Dorothy Dean (Madge Kennedy) doesn't believe in marriage and has no desire to settle down, she must find a husband if she wants to collect a large inheritance. She picks Don Morton (Rockcliffe Fellowes), who works as a law clerk for Judge Roan (comedian George Bunny), the family advisor. Even though he is paid off for this "marriage of convenience," Don falls in love with Dorothy and wants them to be a real couple. Dorothy will have none of it, though, even after he kidnaps her and takes her to a deserted island. Don gives up and leaves just as a group of crooks land. Dorothy thinks that they have been sent by Don and haughtily tells them off. Don comes back to the island just in time to save Dorothy from these criminals, and by the time the authorities arrive to take charge of the bad guys, Dorothy has decided that she wants Don as a real husband after all. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Joe Jackson plays a bumbling Gypsy who is given the task of stealing a child (Betty Marsh). As with all Keystone heroes, he bungles the job horribly, much to the chagrin of the rest of the Gypsy camp. It turns out that the squire (Lew Morrison) who has possession of the orphan is all too willing to give her up and sends her over to the Gypsies. But later, he finds out that the child is due to come into money and wants to get her back. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

A lot of famed silent comedians -- among them Charles Chaplin, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Harry Langdon -- worked for Mack Sennett before breaking out on their own and achieving superstardom. One actor who left Sennett and came back was Ford Sterling, a solid funnyman who just missed having the talent and charisma of his more high profile contemporaries. He co-directed this uneven two-reeler with Clarence Badger. A tailor (Sterling) plans an elopement with a woman (Polly Moran) whose husband (Guy Woodward) is an expert marksman. They leave a note for the husband, and their first stop is at a movie theater. In the film they are seeing, a man is killed by an irate husband, and this causes the illicit couple to have second thoughts. They return to the wife's home, but the husband arrives soon after they do, and Sterling hides in a closet. Unfortunately, the marksman decides to do some practicing, and the handiest place to put the target just happens to be the closet door, with amusing results. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Contrary to popular belief, Clara Bow was already Paramount's biggest box-office draw when she starred in this delightful rags-to-riches comedy. But It, from the fertile mind of bizarre best-selling author Elinor Glyn, remains perhaps the quintessential Bow picture. Not that the story of a poor shopgirl falling for her rich employer was anything new (by 1927, Bow could play that role in her sleep), but It came complete with one of the best publicity campaigns in Hollywood history. Glyn herself publicly pointed to Bow as the personification of It, "that quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force." Paramount made sure that Glyn's lofty description of the word sunk in and even convinced the author to explain It in the film to leading man Antonio Moreno (who, according to Glyn, simply oozed It as well). The lightweight comedy behind all this hoopla centered on little Betty Lou Spence, a vivacious salesgirl invited to dinner at the Ritz by foppish wastrel and self-described "old fruit" "Monty" Montgomery (William Austin in one of those roles later personified by Edward Everett Horton). Betty is not paying attention to her dinner companion, however, but is ogling department store heir Cyrus Waltham (Moreno). He notices her too, and takes the salesgirl on a whirlwind tour of Coney Island. But when Betty is mistakenly assumed to be the unmarried mother of an infant (actually her roommate Molly's), stern Cyrus no longer sees her as proper marriage material. Betty, of course, gets her man in the end and Waltham's snooty girlfriend ("other woman" specialist Jacqueline Gadsden) ends up in the drink. Delivering all the vivacious punch expected of a Bow comedy, It takes time out for a couple of rather poignant scenes. With the hindsight that Brooklyn's own Bow was never fully accepted by Hollywood society despite her stardom, it is touching to watch Betty being ostracized at the snobbish Ritz; and Bow is never more affecting than when she realizes that Moreno is offering diamonds and pearls instead of marriage. Priscilla Bonner, as Bow's drab, single-mother roommate, adds a touch of realism to her brief role, enviously observing Betty's frivolity. If It only added to Bow's brilliant success, the film did little for the intelligent Bonner. To the end of her life, Bonner maintained that accepting featured billing in It lost her any chance of true stardom. A very young Gary Cooper, has a bit as a reporter and director Josef Von Sternberg reputedly took over for Clarence Badger during a brief illness. Despite its rather trite Cinderella plot, It magnificently demonstrates why Bow's guileless flapper came to define an entire decade. It is heartbreaking to realize that her decline had already set in, and Bow's very public troubles and eventual career destruction were lurking right around the corner! ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This simple comedy drama was adapted from a serial in the Saturday Evening Post, but the film itself doesn't seem to have enough story to have run over several issues of a magazine. Jublio (Will Rogers) is happy with his lazy life as a hobo, but one day when he goes begging for food at a ranch, ranch-owner Jim Hardy (Charles French) insists that he work for his meal. This suggestion would normally have no appeal for Jublio, but when he sees the luscious pie being made by Hardy's pretty daughter Rose (Josie Sedgwick), he not only agrees to do manual labor for the first time in his life, he sticks around for more. After helping Hardy out of a fix or two, the former hobo marries Rose. It seems odd now that attempts were made to turn witty Will Rogers (at the time a Follies phenomenon) into a silent star -- his forte was the spoken word. But then, opera divas such as Geraldine Farrar became silent successes, so perhaps it wasn't so far-fetched. True worldwide fame for Rogers, however, would have to wait for radio and talking pictures. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Bebe Daniels was at the peak of her silent stardom when she appeared in this comedy, which was really more slapstick than farce. Ginette (Daniels) is a waitress at Pierre's café. She is in love with Lucien (Douglas Gilmore) and hates getting attention from anyone else. Whenever another man tries to kiss her, she angrily starts throwing glassware. The restaurant's patrons find this amusing, and Leon Lambert (Henry Kolker) makes a bet that he will be able to kiss her. He finally does the deed in a taxi, but Ginette's response is so fierce that the cab crashes into Pierre's. Lambert buys Ginette the restaurant, expecting that she will be grateful, but of course she isn't. Circumstances dictate that Ginette must pose as Lambert's daughter. He really wants her out of his home now, so he plots with a pal, Henri (Richard Tucker), to make it appear that she has been compromised by the primly proper Maraval (Chester Conklin). After a lot of complications, and lot more broken glassware, Ginette and Lucien finally wind up together. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This two-fisted Richard Dix vehicle casts the muscular star as virile caterpillar-tractor operator Tom Roberts. It is Roberts' mission to deliver a fragile cargo of dynamite, to be denoted for the purposes of redirecting an anticipated flood. The hero's odyssey is fraught with peril as he burrows his way through a torrential downpour, and at times it seems as if both Roberts and his shipment will "go to pieces" at any moment. Upon reaching his destination, Roberts is nearly engulfed when the dam bursts, but when the sturm und drang has subsided, the audience realizes that it takes more than Mother Nature to wipe out Richard Dix. Mary Brian provides romantic interest, while questionable comic relief is in the hands of black performer Oscar Smith. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Jack Mulhall stars as Leonard Staunton, a businessman whose future is threatened by a trio of mysterious blackmailers. The villains will stop at nothing to get what they want -- not even murder. From all appearances, the blackmailers are members of a Chinese Tong, but Staunton, teamed with dedicated detective Lt. Caundon (Noah Beery), proves that the dastardly trio are all Caucasians. The film comes to an exciting climax as Staunton, Caundon and heroine Jeanne Baldwin (Lila Lee) rescue the hero's Aunt Pat (Hedda Hopper) from the bad guys' clutches. Like many early Warner Bros. talkies, Murder Will Out was remade more than once by Bryan Foy's "B" unit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide