Sylvia Breamer Movies

This adventurous drama of Russia's revolutionary days was based on the stage play by Earl Carroll. Wallace Beery -- at the time one of filmdom's most dependable villains -- has the title of role of Felix Bavu, an illiterate brute who has used the revolution to promote his own power-hungry aims. He encourages the people to pillage the castle of Prince Markoff (Josef Swickard), only because he wants the prince's jewels. Opposing him is Mischka Vleck (Forrest Stanley), an honest revolutionary of less violent disposition. Before the revolution, Vleck worked in the prince's household, and he loves his daughter, Princess Annia (Estelle Taylor). He hides Annia from Bavu, who has decided he wants her for himself. Bavu's efforts to get rid of Vleck are unsuccessful, and Vleck and Annia escape the castle. Bavu follows in pursuit, but the couple manages to escape the strife-ridden country. Now that the revolution has deemed them equals, Annia and Vleck can declare their love for each other. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Stage star George Arliss had been a huge success in the 1906 stage play on which this film was based. Other versions had already been filmed, but nothing could compare to Arliss when he decided to reprise his role on screen. His character, Dr. Mueller, is the devil incarnate, determined to ruin the lives of four young lovers -- Georges, a banker (Roland Bottomly), Marie, his fiancée (Lucy Cotton), Georges' artist friend, Paul (Edmund Lowe), and Mimi, his model (Sylvia Breamer). When Marie insists that truth will always win out over evil, Mueller puts her assertion to the test. He sees that Marie and Paul are thrown together so that they fall in love with each other. Then he encourages Mimi to seduce Paul, who is guilty about betraying Georges. Just as Marie and Paul have decided to be together, Mueller convinces her that Paul is still seeing Mimi. Mueller plays with the young lovers as if they were puppets on a string, and nearly wins out. But Mimi figures out his evil lies and machinations. Before he will admit defeat, Mueller makes an unsuccessful stab at abducting Marie, but he is held at bay by a ghostly cross. The last we see of Mueller, he is smilingly engulfed in hellish flames, waiting for a new opportunity. Though new to screen technique, Arliss is delightful in this -- he turns the role into high camp as only an old ham can do. At 53, this strange looking but charismatic actor became as popular on screen as he was on stage. His wife, Florence Arliss, appears as Marie's mother. Also billed is a certain Frederick Bickel, who would later become more well known as Frederic March. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Bert Lytell stars in a double role of father and son in this confusing drama about love and self-sacrifice. Tommy Carteret Jr. is wrongly accused by Hartwell (Hardee Kirkland) of making improper advances towards Hartwell's wife. In reality it was Tommy's own father who was the perpetrator. Not wishing to bring dishonor to the family, Tommy himself agrees to make amens to the wronged husband. Hartwell decrees that the Carteret family move to the Kentucky backwoods until the jealous husband (Hartwell) dies. Marianna Canfield (Sylvia Breamer) is killed when she tries to warn the Carteret's of livid locals bent on revenge on the father and son. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

This picture practically defined the Roaring Twenties and shot Colleen Moore to superstardom. Because she is neglected by her husband (Phillips Smalley), Mona Fentriss (Myrtle Steadman) begins living a frivolous, jazzy lifestyle. Two of her daughters, Connie (Betty Francisco) and Dee (Sylvia Breamer), follow in her footsteps and make unhappy marriages, but Mona tries to instill some sort of old-fashioned values in her youngest daughter, Pat (Moore). Heart trouble leads Mona to an early death, but before she dies, she reveals to her friend, Doctor Bobs (Elliott Dexter), that her one true love was Cary Scott (Milton Sills). Pat grows up to be a jazz baby, but Scott returns and becomes her one stabilizing influence. Although they fall in love, Scott must get a divorce from his estranged wife before they can wed. Pat is hesitant to marry at all because of all the unhappy matches around her. She becomes involved with a violinist who traps her on a yacht and she is forced to jump into the sea to save herself. She becomes gravely ill and Doctor Bobs and Scott do what they can to bring her back from the brink. It's the spirit of her mother, however, which really saves Pat so that she can recover and marry Scott. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Corinne Griffith stars in this emotional drama based on the stage play by William Hurlburt. Although Walter Harker (Crauford Kent claims to be working overtime he is actually seeing Doris, a young flapper (Alma Bennett). Harker's neglected wife, Mildred (Griffith), attends a ball with Ted Conroy (Charles Gerrard), a friend of her husband's. He has too much to drink, and begins pawing at her when they return to her home. Harker catches them together, and uses the scene to get a divorce and retain custody of their baby. Mildred goes to work as a model and finds an admirer in Louis Willing (Conway Tearle), who she met at the ball. A cynical friend insists that all women are alike, so Willing tests Mildred by offering her an apartment if she will become his mistress. She turns him down flat, but when she hears (falsely) that the baby has died, she decides to accept his offer. Willing, who realizes that Mildred is not really the kind of girl she is trying to become, forces Harker to give up custody of the baby. He then convinces Mildred to marry him. Griffith also starred in the talkie version of this picture in 1930. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Although plastic surgery was still in its early stages when this drama was made, Frank Mayo's ultra-phony nose and beard makes it seem like film make-up was still in its infancy instead. He plays John Morton, a shipmaster who is horribly disfigured when his boat collides with another. The two ships are wrecked, and he saves beautiful Elsie Haynes (Sylvia Breamer). They marry, and eventually he works his way up to become a wealthy ship merchant. But Morton finds that Elsie is losing interest in him, and he's convinced that it's because of his misshapen face. He exchanges identities with a man who has committed suicide and goes off to have plastic surgery. After the operation, he returns, still with the assumed name and convinced that he will be able to win back his supposed widow. But he discovers that she is being wooed by a scheming womanizer, Freddie Needham (a miscast Francis MacDonald). Nevertheless, Morton manages to win Elsie away from the masher, and when his true identity is found out, he and Needham come to blows on a yachting cruise. Needham is vanquished, both in the battle and in love. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Based on a novel by Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Missing was co-adapted for the screen by James Young (who is sometimes erroneously credited as the film's director). Thomas Meighan stars as Sir William Farrell, who when WWI breaks out is barred from military services because of a crippled leg. Sir William is in love with Nell (Sylvia Breamer), whose husband Lieutenant George Surratt (Robert Gordon) has been reported missing in action. Nell's older sister Hester (Ola Humphrey), hoping to land the wealthy Farrell as a brother-in-law, keeps secret the fact that Surratt has turned up in a military hospital, very much alive but suffering from amnesia. When Sir William learns the truth, he nobly puts his own feelings aside and arranges for Nell to be reunited with her husband -- then expands his largess by transforming his vast country estate into a home for convalescent soldiers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A man who believes he is a murderer travels the world to escape his past in this often confusing crime drama. Richard Dix stars in a double role of twin brothers Paul and Arthur Ellison. Arthur flees New York for South America for help from his brother Paul, an engineer by trade. Paul feels partially responsible for Arthur's behavior after he accidentally shot him in a childhood mishap. Arthur assumed his brother's identity and travels to the Orient. Sylvia (Elsa Chetwood) meets him five years later and assumes he is Paul. Romance between the two lead to marriage plans, but an oily gambler named Craig (Herbert Prior) is on board the ship bound for America. Prior tries to kill Arthur and collect the reward money to cover his debts. Arthur holds a diamond given to him by a grateful native prince after saving people from a plague. A final showdown between Arthur and the gambler reveals Prior was the one who committed the murder that has tormented Arthur the last five years. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Judge Somers (Tully Marshall) refuses to let his daughter, Edith (Sylvia Bremer), marry Jerry Warner (T. Roy Barnes) because he does not believe that the young man has any business sense. To help him out, Jerry's Uncle Bellamy (Lincoln Plumer) gives him ten thousand dollars to get started. Judge Somers tells him that if he still has that amount in six months, he can marry Edith. Warner gets off to a rocky start, since he uses half the money to buy oil stock which Somers claims is worthless. An opportunity for quick money appears in the form of an offer from newlyweds Chris and Beatrice Skinner (Harry Meyers and Wanda Hawley). Skinner's grandfather (Jack Duffy) does not approve of Beatrice and threatens to cut off his allowance. The couple decides to divorce and remarry after Skinner gets his grandfather's money. Skinner offers Warner ten thousand dollars to play the corespondent, but then he becomes unreasonably jealous and threatens to divorce Beatrice for real. It gets worse when Edith finds Warner and Beatrice together and doesn't realize it's a set-up for Skinner's grandfather. Finally everything gets untangled, grandpa decides he likes Beatrice after all, and the supposedly worthless oil stock turns out to be quite valuable. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This mystery-melodrama stars William Russell. The husband of Sally McTurk (Florence Deshon, in her final film role) is murdered and her brother, Ken Thornton (Russell), goes hiding in the hills under the name of Cal Maggard. He is taken in by Dorothy Harper (Sylvia Breamer) and her father Caleb (Robert Daly), and they make him one of the family. Bass Rowlett (Arthur Morrison) becomes jealous of the attention Dorothy is paying to Thornton and sets out to have him killed. The attempt is unsuccessful, although Thornton is seriously wounded. He confesses his past to Harper and marries Dorothy. But Rowlett isn't done with Thornton yet -- he finds out about the murder of Sally's husband and fetches the sheriff. Thornton is arrested for the crime, but Sally reveals that she killed her husband in self-defense. Thornton is released, and he gives Rowlett a well-deserved trashing before settling down with Dorothy. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

A now forgotten star of the later silent era, Sylvia Breamer took on the old David Belasco stage chestnut in this remake of Cecil B. DeMille's 1915 Western classic. Miss Breamer plays a saloon owner who becomes a pawn between two men, a swashbuckling bandit (played in his usual florid style by J. Warren Kerrigan of The Covered Wagon fame) and a tough lawman (Russell Simpson). The center-piece of the story is, of course, the climactic poker game, in which the stakes are the bandit's life and the girl's virtue. According to contemporary reviews, Sylvia Breamer was sorely miscast as the tough, yet feminine saloon boss and that the film was no improvement over the DeMille original. There would be three further remakes of the old stage play: 1930, starring Ann Harding, and 1938, starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, plus the 1943 Italian Una Signora del l'Ovest, featuring Michel Simon, Isa Pola and Rossano Brazzi. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide