Alice Brady Movies
American actress Alice Brady first came to prominence in the silent films produced by World Studios, which was owned and operated by Brady's father, the influential theatrical producer William H. Brady. A star from her first film, As Ye Sow (1914), onward, she was applauded for her acting skills, though critics at the time noted that her somewhat offbeat facial features would be better suited to character roles than to ingenues. Brady devoted the 1920s to motherly and matronly portrayals on stage - which, as it turned out, were far more rewarding professionally than the heroines she'd played at World. Making her talking-picture debut in 1933's When Ladies Meet, Brady rapidly became one of Hollywood's most prolific portrayers of addlebrained society matrons and world-weary matriarchs. Her comic skills won her roles in such classics as My Man Godfrey (1936) and Three Smart Girls, but it was for her dramatic portrayal of the resilient, much-maligned Mrs. O'Leary in In Old Chicago (1938) that she won an Academy Award. Shortly after completing her work on John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), Brady passed away at the age of 46. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1916
This film, based on the popular novel by Larry Evans, pits brute force against high finance. Railroad engineer Steve O'Mara (Jack Sherrill) has grown up around the lumber camps and finds he has to battle, both in love and business, against Archie Wickersham (Leo Gordon). The girl in the triangle is Barbara Allison (respected stage and screen star Alice Brady, whose father was the head of the film's releasing studio, World). The catch is that Barbara can't stand the sight of fisticuffs, and Wickersham keeps sending henchmen to beat up O'Mara. But in the final battle, involving yet another Wickersham hireling, Barrigan (George Kline), O'Mara -- and his might -- prove victorious over the villain's underhanded tactics. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1915
Holbrook Blinn repeated his stage role in this feature-length adaptation of the Broadway hit The Boss. In the early scenes, Blinn is hardly bosslike: A waterfront derelict, his only "assets" are his fists. Putting his pugilistic skills to practical use, Blinn becomes a prizefighter, accumulating a fortune and purchasing a prosperous saloon in the process. He then buys his way into a freight-contracting business, and before long he's one of the most powerful businessmen in town. His next step is to marry into society, which he does by marching down the aisle with pretty heiress Alice Brady. Unfortunately, for "the boss," Brady's brother, a union activist, calls a strike which brings the "hero's" despotic control of the waterfront to a screeching halt. Only when reduced to his former pauper status does Blinn realize that he's genuinely in love with Brady, who has stood by him through thick and thin. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1915
In this rather ludicrous morality play, Alice Brady plays Hope, who has inherited the fickle ways of her mother, Estelle. Estelle runs out on her second husband, Jack Evans (George W. Howard), when Hope is only four. She grows up to play Circe in an opera and meets Jack at a resort. She doesn't remember her stepfather, and he doesn't recognize her, so they fall in love and marry. But Hope quickly gets bored with married life and reacquaints herself with her old love, her theatrical manager. Jack catches them together and pours poison into one of two glasses of wine. At gun point he forces Hope to serve both himself and her lover without knowing which is getting the poison. The theatrical manager is the recipient and Jack walks out as Hope collapses over his dead body. Much later, Hope is recuperating at the shore and encounters Jack once again. Jack refuses to forgive her until she shows him a picture of herself as a child. He then realizes she is his long-lost stepdaughter. But before he can say anything her wheelchair rolls off a cliff, killing her. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- 1914
In this convoluted drama a chauffeur falls in love with his boss's daughter and marries her, causing his aged father to suffer a fatal coronary. She quickly becomes pregnant and after the child's birth finds out that her husband is an abusive drunk. She tries to force him to stop drinking, but this only causes him to take all their money, and the baby. He heads back for his native New England, leaves the baby with his mother, and then becomes a merchant seaman. The abandoned wife ends up coming to the Cape Cod village where he left the baby and staying in his mother's boarding house without realizing her identity. Things really get tangled up when she falls in love with her husband's brother, an upstanding minister. Unfortunately, the day she is to marry the minister, a terrible shipwreck nearby brings a most unwelcome visitor. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
