Clarence G. Badger Movies

Olympe (Betty Compson) is a cabaret dancer who offers her services to France when her country goes to war. She becomes a spy and provides valuable intelligence information during World War I by winning the confidence of a German officer. Hugh Warren (Wallace MacDonald) is the American soldier who falls for Olympe. She allows him to believe she is a simple peasant and reveals nothing of her career as a spy. The two fall in love and are married, but the villainous German agent De Montinrich (Theodore Kosloff) reveals to her husband's family that she is a tawdry club dancer. Unable to reveal her role in espionage, Olympe is ostracized by her friends and family. When the French government honors Olympe for her wartime bravery, her family no longer considers her a blemish on their sterling reputation. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Though Betty Compson is top-billed in Paths to Paradise, the film's real star is the ever-dapper, ever-unflappable Raymond Griffith. We lose our hearts to Griffith in the very first scene, where he passes himself off as a police inspector by flashing a gas meter reader's badge. The plot concerns a jewel heist engineered by Compson and Griffith right under the nose of dimwitted detective Edgar Kennedy. Though they escape scot-free, Compson has pangs of jealousy, whereupon the ever-obliging Griffith cheerfully agrees to sneak the jewels back into the safe, all the while keeping the dunderheaded Kennedy in the dark. Existing prints of the silent Paths to Paradise end with Compson and Griffith making their escape in a zany car chase; our knowledge of the film's actual outcome is predicated on an existing script and cutting continuity. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ellie Byrne ($Colleen Moore) and Don Lane (Ben Lyon) are childhood pals -- their fathers (Charles Murray and Russell Simpson) work together as glass blowers. They hope for better things in life, especially after they land an invitation to a fancy society party, where their shabby outfits look even shabbier next to the latest fashions. They both head for the city where Ellie aspires to stardom on the stage, and Lane works at writing. She's successful and he's not, but when he rewrites a play in which Ellie is starring, he finally makes it. Ellie is ready to marry Preston Dutton (Joseph Striker) when she comes to the realization that he's only after her money; meanwhile Lane has become engaged to Stephanie Parris (Charlotte Merriam), but the relationship breaks up. So Ellie and Lane go back home, disillusioned -- and realize, finally, that they really love each other. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Producer Samuel Goldwyn had first become familiar with Montague Glass' "Potash and Perlmutter" series of stories when he was a glove salesman. In 1923, he decided to make a film of the play (also written by Glass with Charles Klein), which went against the preference of most moguls of the day -- they shunned anything Jewish, although most of them were Jewish themselves. This ethnic comedy was Goldwyn's first as an independent producer. Alexander Carr as Morris Perlmutter and Barney Bernard as Abe Potash reprise the roles they played on Broadway; Vera Gordon, who played a Jewish mother in Humoresque, does so again here as Abe's wife Rosie. Potash's tailoring business is a failure, so he latches onto the more prosperous Perlmutter as a partner. Their enterprise promises to be a success, but they have an enemy in Feldman (Edward Durand), the rich attorney Potash has picked out as a husband for his daughter Irma (Hope Sutherland). Irma, however, has fallen in love with Boris Andrieff (Ben Lyon), a starving musician that Potash has hired as a fitter. When a murder is committed at the partners' establishment and Andrieff is charged with the crime, Feldman shows his true colors by refusing to clear the young man's name. Andrieff is eventually found to be innocent and proves to be a suitable husband for Irma. The film was so successful that Goldwyn made several more Potash and Perlmutter comedies. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This mystery-melodrama had a lot of action and featured a good cast. Railroad magnate Luke Carson (William Worthington) has finally tracked his long-lost daughter Ruth (Marie Prevost) to Los Angeles. But there are some strange happenings around the girl; in her hotel room she is haunted by threats of death that are accompanied by red lights. The weird goings-on continue as she boards a train for the East. Although her fiancé John Blake (Johnnie Walker) can't accompany her, he leaves her in the care of "crime deflector" Sheridan Scott (Raymond Griffith, who plays this humorous character to the hilt). Trap doors and sliding panels abound on the train, and various people appear and disappear. The Pullman containing Ruth, her father, and the rest of their party is cut loose and speeds to certain destruction. But Blake saves the day, and Scott solves the mystery -- the perpetrator of all these odd and potentially deadly tricks is Carson's crazed brother Ezra (Jean Hersholt), who is in league with some crooked lawyers. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

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

Based on the popular novel of rural life by Charles Felton Pidgin, this motion picture featured most of the star names that Paramount had in 1922. After meeting a pretty girl in the park, Quincy Adams Sawyer, a young, up-and-coming lawyer, is called to the village of Mason's Corners by his father's friend, Deacon Pettengill (Edward Connelly). An older woman, Mrs. Putnam (Claire McDowell), is being swindled by her lawyer, Obadiah Strout (Lon Chaney, who was a master villain with or without makeup). The woman's daughter, Lindy (Barbara LaMarr), tries to vamp Sawyer, but he discovers that the girl he met, Alice (Blanche Sweet), is Pettengill's niece, and she has gone blind since the time they met. A romance develops between Alice and Sawyer nevertheless. Strout, afraid of being exposed, convinces the village blacksmith, Abner Stiles (Elmo Lincoln), that Sawyer means him no good, so Stiles offers his aid. Lindy leads Alice onto a ferry, and Stiles cuts the rope and sends the little boat adrift. Lindy, however, repents her actions and tells all to Sawyer, who goes to Alice's rescue. He saves her just before the ferry goes over the falls. In the excitement, Alice's eyesight returns. Stiles, discovering that he has been duped, kills Strout. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

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

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

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

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

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