Clarence G. Badger Movies
American director Clarence Badger was somewhat overqualified compared to his unschooled colleagues at Mack Sennett's Keystone studios; a graduate of Boston Polytech, Badger had been an artist and a newspaper reporter before walking through the Keystone gates in 1915. Nonetheless, he threw himself full-force into the Sennett maelstrom of wild slapstick and frantic farce. Badger preferred situational comedy to slapstick, however, and to that end he developed a series of romantic comedies starring newcomers Gloria Swanson and Bobby Vernon. The best of these, Teddy at the Throttle (1917), proves that the director never completely abandoned the Keystone brand of humor, but the storyline was better constructed and the characters more clearly defined than was usual for the studio. In 1917, Badger moved to Goldwyn Studios (a fact that Sam Goldwyn trumpetted in big letters in the trade papers), where he directed comedy features with such stars as Mabel Normand and Will Rogers. At Paramount in the mid 1920s, the erudite, even-tempered Badger directed Bebe Daniels, Raymond Griffith, and the up and coming Clara Bow; he also pacified pretentious British authoress Elinor Glyn to the point that he was able to talk "Madame" Glyn into making a guest appearance in Clara Bow's It (1927). Talkies posed no obstacle for Badger: He spent 1929 and 1930 helming such Warner Bros./First National films as No No Nanette and The Hot Heiress. Retiring from the Hollywood scene in 1933, Clarence Badger moved to Australia six years later, where, after directing a brace of comedy features, he retired for good. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1916
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
- 1916
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
- 1916
This silent video features Teddy, the Great Dane who rescues Gloria Swanson from a villain. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1918
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
- 1918
Madge Kennedy, arguably the most versatile actress in the Goldwyn Studios stable, went into her "romantic" mode for The Kingdom of Youth. The story begins as Ruth and Jimmy Betts (Kennedy and Tom Moore, respectively) are having an argument over Count Duval (Lee Baker). Jimmy is mad that the Count has been hovering around his wife and he leaves the house. "Just to show him," Ruth decides to have lunch on the Count's yacht and takes a rowboat to reach it. But the little craft overturns and Ruth goes under. As she is drowning, her life flashes before her. She sees her marriage to Jimmy and how it was undermined by Ella Rice (Marie deWolfe). Rice, a middle-aged woman, had designs on Jimmy and her machinations included using Duval as a decoy for Ruth. But Ruth put a halt to the woman's scheme by smudging her hotel room. Ella, thinking the place is on fire, dashed out to the lobby and ran into Jimmy, who then saw her without all her feminine trappings. This effectively squelched that romance. While Ruth is envisioning all this, Jimmy, who has followed her, is coming to her rescue, as is Count Duval. She is unconscious when she is pulled from the water, and the two men decide that whomever she sees first when she wakes up will have her. Predictably, Ruth looks up at her husband first, and things are resolved between them. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1918
After a disastrous fling at "heavy dramatics" in Joan of Plattsburg, Mabel Normand sagaciously returned to comedy with Venus Model. Normand plays Kitty O'Brien, a low-level employee at a bathing suit factory. Despite her capricious on-the-job behavior, Kitty is handsomely rewarded when she submits a design for "The Venus Model," the company's corporate trademark. Placed in charge of the whole factory, Kitty single-handed straightens out the company's monumental financial woes during the owner's absence (a plot development which predated the similar one in Nine to Five by nearly seven decades). She also wins the heart of Paul Braddock (Rod LaRocque), the boss' son. Not surprisingly, Venus Model afforded Mabel Normand the opportunity to display her svelte figure in a wide variety of brief beachwear. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1918
Madge Kennedy plays a burlesque actress who winds up stranded in a very small-minded small town and tries, nevertheless, to make a living there. She needs to earn the money -- she's putting her little sister (Mae McAvoy) through college. The actress runs into opposition from a moral deacon, who, it turns out, is as hypocritical as they come; it's revealed that he has quite a liking for chorus girls. In the end, a lot of people become more accepting, and both sisters marry fine, upstanding members of the community. Although the burlesque star is supposed too exceptionally ladylike in spite of her calling, Kennedy played up too much niceness and not enough badness. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1919
In this comedy, Madge Kennedy plays actress Fanny O'Gorman, who falls in love with artist Vernon (John Bowers). Vernon also happens to be Lord Bantock, and when he takes Fanny home to his estate she discovers that all of the servants are relatives of hers. They turn out to be good help, but not so cozy as relations, since they insist on sticking firmly to protocol -- especially Fanny's Uncle Bennett (Herbert Standing), who's the butler. His attempts to train his wayward niece to be a Lady are not always appreciated. When Fanny finally admits to her husband that she's the same flesh and blood as those who take care of him, life gets a lot more pleasant on the Bantock estate. This picture was adapted from the stage play Fanny and the Servant Problem (also known as The New Lady Bantock and The Servant Girl), written by Jerome K. Jerome. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1919
Samuel Goldwyn took full advantage of Mabel Normand's past history with Mack Sennett when he signed her to his company -- Normand cranked out truckloads of subpar features for Goldwyn, who advertised nearly every one as Normand's return to Keystone-style comedy. Sis Hopkins, based on a stage play by Rose Melville, is one of the better ones, although its reliance on exterior scenes hints at cost-cutting. Sis (Normand) is an eccentric young girl in a small rural village. While most around Sis view her as a joke, she is loved by Ridy Scarboro (John Bowers), the clerk at the general store. One day Sis's dog knocks an oil can into the Hopkins well and when wealthy old Vibert (Sam deGrasse) tastes the water, he believes the Hopkins have an oil strike. He immediately takes an interest in Sis, and is determined to first educate and then marry her, thus obtaining the strike. He sends Sis to boarding school, but she turns the place upside down. Vibert realizes that perhaps Sis isn't capable of becoming a lady, so he decides instead to buy the land. Sis and Ridy then discover why Vibert has taken such an interest in the Hopkins' affairs, so they convince Pa Hopkins (Thomas Jefferson) to up the price of the property. He does, and in the end, Vibert pays a small fortune for a worthless piece of land. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1919
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
- 1919
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
- 1919
In this silent romance, an Orthodox Jewish girl falls in love with a Christian fellow, an aspiring author. The girl's traditional father is outraged and forbids the relationship; the broken-hearted suitor leaves her. Not long afterward, she gets a job at a publishing house and using her considerable feminine wiles, manages to talk the smitten owner into launching a daring new publicity stunt using her beau's manuscript. The stunt would involve placing an ad in a major newspaper asking the "lost" author to come to the publishing house. The boss is impressed, but insists she read the story to him. That night she goes to his apartment and as she begins reading, the exciting medieval story unfolds on the screen. In the end, the campaign is a great success and romantic bliss ensues. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1919
When he is swindled out of a mine, Burt Radcliffe (John Bowers) winds up broke and his fiancee leaves him. He is brooding in his empty home in Philadelphia on a rainy night when a girl (Madge Kennedy) barges in on him. It turns out she is Isabel, the daughter of Haskell Carter (Herbert Standing), the man who swindled him. Isabel was supposed to have dinner at a house on Radcliffe's street and the taxi dropped her off at the wrong door. Burt takes this opportunity to call Carter and tell him that he may have the mine, but Burt has his daughter. As might be guessed, before the night is over, Isabel and Burt fall in love and dash off through the rain to get married. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1919
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
- 1919
Susan Burbridge (Madge Kennedy) is heading West by train with her father (Alfred Hollingsworth), a mine owner, and so-called boyfriend Horace Peddingham (Walter Hiers). It's a rough trip -- first the train is held up by robbers, then because of a hot box it is stalled. While waiting to get moving again, Susan takes her dog out for a walk and the train takes off without her. She wanders around for hours until she stumbles on a shack where Jimmy Dawson (Wallace MacDonald) is stationed. Jimmy is a mining engineer who works for Susan's father, but she doesn't know this. In fact, she mistakes him for a bandit. Then the real bandits enter the shack and Jimmy suggests they hold her for ransom. He pens a ransom note -- actually coded so that the bandit carrying it will be captured -- and sends it on its way. Meanwhile Susan charms the rest of the gang into showing her rope tricks -- that way she gets them all tied up. The sheriff rescues Susan, but Jimmy disappears. Later she finds him in the city, dressed up and behaving much more like a gentleman. This was not a great film for Madge Kennedy -- it was loaded with bad continuity and unconvincing humor. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1920
During the silent era, Will Rogers was generally on the losing end of a romantic triangle; this time his good-natured common sense wins out. Although trapper Jim Fenton (Rogers) loves Miss Butterworth (Irene Rich), he thinks that she really cares for inventor Paul Benedict (Raymond Hatton), who has been wrongly locked up in an insane asylum. He is determined to get Benedict out, especially when he discovers that Belcher, the town's most influential inhabitant, has stolen one of his inventions and made a killing off it. With the help of fellow trapper Mike Conlin (Nick Cogley), he makes Belcher confess to the crime. But instead of marrying Benedict, Miss Butterworth prefers to become Mrs. Fenton. This picture was based on the novel Seven Oaks by J.G. Holland. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1921
Will Rogers plays the lead in this adaptation of a Saturday Evening Post story. While Rogers really needed talkies to bring him cinema superstardom, he could only have portrayed the character of Yal in silents -- after all, who ever heard of Will Rogers with a Swedish accent? Seduced by the promises of America, two sailors --Yal and his pal Skole (Bert Sprotte) -- travel from Sweden to San Francisco. Yal sends a thousand dollars to Hulda, his sweetheart (Mary Warren), so that she can join him, but he never hears from her again. He winds up falling in love with Annie (Doris Pawn) and investing in a delicatessen. But he loses the store and then finds Annie and Skole together. After a passage of several years Hulda finally arrives and she and Yal are married. Only after the wedding does she admit that she was adopted by wealthy Captain Larsen (Charles A. Smith), and that he left her a fortune -- she thought Yal wouldn't marry her if he knew she was a woman of wealth. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Will Rogers, Mary Warren, (more)
- 1921
This video double feature consists of early silent short subjects starring those two old Ziegfeld Follies colleagues, W. C. Fields and Will Rogers. Made in 1915, Fields' Pool Sharks is a crude knockabout farce, making very little sense until the climactic pool game. Most of W.C.'s more remarkable shots are accomplished via very obvious stop-motion photography, though his skill with a cue is very apparent. Fields still sports the clip-on mustache that he wore on stage, so he looks more like a besotted, bulbous-nosed Chaplin than his normal screen persona. The Ropin' Fool, lensed in 1922, was produced independently by Will Rogers as a sort of pilot for a proposed short subjects series. There's very little plot to speak of, just scenes of Rogers showing off his astonishing rope tricks and riding prowess. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1921
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
- Starring:
- Will Rogers, Sylvia Breamer, (more)
- 1921
Although he wouldn't find his true place in motion pictures until the talkie era, humorist Will Rogers certainly made a lot of films during the early '20s. Here he brings his down-to-earth persona to an O. Henry story, Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking. Whistling Dick is a hobo who loves life and classical music; in fact, he loves everything except work. He travels south to New Orleans for the winter and finds out that some of his fellow tramps are planning to rob a plantation on Christmas night. He is befriended by Nadine (Molly Malone), the daughter of Lovejoy, the plantation owner (Edward M. Kimball). Nadine has two suitors, Hunter, an overseer (John Bowers), and Richmond (Darrel Foss), who is broke and in league with the tramps, which Dick finds out. The tramps, afraid that Dick will give the plan away, capture him, but he manages to write a note and put it in a stocking with a rock. This he tosses through the Lovejoy's dining room window. The bad guys are captured and Dick becomes a guest at the Lovejoys'. They are more than happy to offer him steady employment on the plantation, which inspires him to leave at his earliest convenience. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Will Rogers, Molly Malone, (more)
- 1921
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
- Starring:
- Will Rogers, Irene Rich, (more)
- 1922
Before her nasally voice was exposed, making her a more appropriate choice as a working class girl, Marie Prevost achieved stardom by playing young society lovelies. This one, Teddy Marmon, is a party-loving flapper who is loathe to settle down. Two of her suitors are Graham, her father's secretary (Jack Perrin), and Gary McVeigh, the proverbial boy next door -- only wealthy (Robert Ellis). Teddy mischievously plays one against the other, but it is Graham who proposes. He turns out to be a fortune hunter, however, and luckily his true nature is revealed before he can get her to the altar. McVeigh, of course, is the one who turns out to be Mr. Right. He saves her father from bankruptcy and is able to keep a reign on Teddy's perpetual motion and willfulness. It's no surprise when she turns around and proposes to him. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marie Prevost, Robert Ellis, (more)
- 1922
Mack Sennett graduates Marie Prevost (star) and Clarence Badger (director) were reunited in the 5-reel feature Don't Get Personal. Marie plays a chorus gal whose father hopes to remove her from the sinful temptations of Broadway. The girl is shipped off to the country estate of elderly George Nichols, where she will hopefully learn the social graces. Instead, Marie tidies up the personal and financial problems of Nichols and his family, and also manages to land her host's taciturn son T. Roy Barnes as her husband. Costarring in Don't Get Personal is vaudeville monologist Roy Atwell, who later provided the voice of Doc in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marie Prevost, Daisy Robinson, (more)
- 1922
This mawkish tale of mother love was loaded with -- as film critics of the 1920s liked to say -- "hokum." It was supposedly inspired by the old song of the same title. Cullen Landis plays Garry Beecher, your classic small town boy who is seduced by the promises of New York. So he heads for the big city, leaving his mother (Virginia True Boardman) and sweetheart, Lorna Owens (Patsy Ruth Miller), at home to pine for him. Of course, he forgets all about them and becomes involved with Veronica Tyler, a cynical chorus girl (Kathleen Key). But he can't keep up with her extravagant tastes and when he begins stealing, she turns him in. He goes to prison as a result, but redeems himself during an uprising among the prisoners by snatching the warden from a train which is about to have a head-on collision. The grateful warden gives Garry a pardon, and he returns to his small town home, his mother and his girl. A footnote on small time starlet Kathleen Key -- she was the great-granddaughter of Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star Spangled Banner." ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cullen Landis, Carl Stockdale, (more)
