Victor Fleming Movies

Douglas Fairbanks Sr. stars as Ned Thacker, who is born during a Kansas cyclone (coincidentally the same manner in which Fairbanks' real-life contemporary Buster Keaton came into the world!) and is thus imbued with the spirit of adventure. Having been virtually weaned on Alexandre Dumas' novel The Three Musketeers, Ned grows up dedicated to old-fashioned chivalry. Alas, his well-meaning efforts to emulate his Musketeer idols nearly always backfire in a hilariously disastrous fashion. Ultimately, however, he is afforded an opportunity to rescue heroine Dorothy Moran (Marjorie Daw) in a true D'Artagnan-like manner. Unfortunately, only the first three reels of A Modern Musketeer are known to exist. Happily, however, this fragment includes a delightful dream sequence in which Fairbanks imagines himself to be a 16th-century swashbuckler -- a fascinating (and arguably more enjoyable) precursor to his own 1921 screen version of The Three Musketeers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A middle-aged Clark Gable returned from active duty in World War II to star in this MGM release that was heavily advertised as his big comeback. Gable is Harry Patterson, the bosun mate on a merchant marine vessel, a tough sailor and fighter with the proverbial girl in every port. But while in a San Francisco library, looking up a book on the human soul for his sidekick Mudgin (Thomas Mitchell), who thinks his soul has departed his body, Harry meets librarian Emily Sears (Greer Garson), whom he woos, marries, and leaves to sail off on another freighter. When he returns, Emily has retreated to an old farm to await the birth of their child. Harry continues to resent staying in one place, but he ultimately changes his tune when his baby's life hangs in the balance. Garson and Joan Blondell, playing her outspoken best friend, are both terrific, and Gable gives a less heroic performance that's a thoughtful change for him, although critics at the time were less than charitable. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

Victor Fleming was still a relatively new director when he helmed this melodrama, an adaptation of the stage play by Harry Chapman Ford. Alice Brady starred on Broadway, and she stars here, too, as Anna Ayyob, a Syrian immigrant living in New York and working at a coffee house owned by Siad Coury (Edouard Durand). The place is really a front for a group of smugglers. This information filters down to Howard Fisk (Robert Ellis), the reporter son of a newspaper publisher. He earns Anna's trust, but just when she is about to tell Fisk what she knows, she is attacked by a member of the gang known as the Baron (David Powell). They struggle and Anna thinks she has killed him. She goes into hiding and three years later reemerges as the anonymous author of a best seller called Anna Ascends. Howard's father (Frederick Burton) assigns him the duty of tracking down the writer and interviewing her. So he and Anna are reunited once again. It turns out that the Baron didn't actually die, and the smugglers are eventually rounded up. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Jean Harlow is the "bombshell" of the title, a popular movie actress named Lola. Though she seemingly has everything a girl could possibly want, Lola is fed up with her sponging relatives, her "work til you drop" studio, and the nonsensical publicity campaigns conducted by press agent Lee Tracy. She tries to escape Hollywood by marrying a titled foreign nobleman, but Tracy has the poor guy arrested as an illegal alien. Finally Lola finds what she thinks is perfect love in the arms of aristocratic Franchot Tone, but she renounces Tone when his snooty father C. Aubrey Smith looks down his nose at Lola and her profession. Upon discovering that Tone and his entire family were actors hired by Tracy, Lola goes ballistic--until she realizes that Tracy, for all his bluff and chicanery, is the man who truly loves her. Allegedly based on the career of Clara Bow (who, like Lola, had a parasitic family and a duplicitous private secretary), Bombshell is a prime example of Jean Harlow at her comic best. So as not to mislead audiences into thinking this was a war picture, MGM retitled the film Blonde Bombshell for its initial run. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A boy learns life-changing lessons about the importance of friendship and the dignity of labor in this adventure saga based on a story by Rudyard Kipling. Young Harvey Cheyne (Freddie Bartholomew) is the working definition of a spoiled brat; the only child of a wealthy widowed businessman, Harvey has everything he needs, but never stops asking for more, convinced he can get anything if he yells, pouts, or throws the right tantrum. Even other boys his age are disgusted with his antics, and when he accompanies his father on an ocean cruise, he finds he has no friends to play with. After wolfing down six ice-cream sodas, Harvey gets sick to his stomach and while vomiting over the side of the ship, he falls into the drink. He is rescued by Manuel (Spencer Tracy), a Portuguese old salt who drags him on board a Gloucester fishing boat where he's a deck hand and doryman. Harvey shows no gratitude to Manuel for saving his life and demands to be taken home immediately; Manuel and the crew, not the least bit sympathetic, inform him that once they've filled the ship's hold with fresh catch, they'll return to shore, and not a moment sooner. Over the next few weeks, Harvey grows from a self-centered pantywaist into a young man who appreciates the value of a hard day's work, and in Manuel he finds the strength, guidance, and good sense that he never got from his father. Spencer Tracy earned an Academy Award for his performance in Captains Courageous and even sings a bit; the story was parodied years later (with a few rather drastic changes) in the Chris Elliott vehicle Cabin Boy. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Ellen Neal (Constance Bennett) is a "nice" girl -- just turned 18 -- who's been picked up in a raid on a speakeasy where she just started working. She pleads guilty to vagrancy, but gets a lecture and warning from the judge to steer clear of places like that, and to try and find honest work. She tries to do precisely that and is hired a year later as a maid in the household of the Fullertons, a wealthy family with roots going back to the English aristocracy. She's very aware of the opportunity she's been given, and tries to lead an honorable life, despite the lecherous inclinations of the household's major domo (Charles McNaughton) and the less obnoxious but equally fervent impulses of their college-age son, Hugh (Lew Ayres), and his friends. Ellen soon finds, however, that for all of their pretensions to greatness, the Fullertons and their friends enjoy exactly the same leisure activities -- including drinking illegal liquor (this is in the middle of the Prohibition era), bought from the same gangsters, dancing the same dances, and singing the same songs that the customers did in the speakeasy where she worked; and that at least one of the close family friends, Bud Coakley (Matty Kemp), was a customer at that same place and remembers her. He tells Hugh what he thinks he knows about Ellen's "past" and soon Hugh is putting moves on her, which she resists anew. When he realizes the kind of woman she really is, Hugh ultimately comes to genuinely love her, and those attentions she is willing to accept and return in kind. He returns to college in September -- before Ellen discovers that she is pregnant -- and when she writes to tell him, he doesn't answer.

Ellen leaves her job and returns to live with her mother (Beryl Mercer), and she has the baby, a boy. Hugh never does reply to her letters, and she is forced to hire an attorney, Yates (Tully Marshall). The Fullerton family, led by the blustery patriarch Richard (Purnell Pratt), wants this case settled quietly, out of court, and so instructs his lawyer, Judge Filson (Hale Hamilton). Filson expects to encounter a cheap gold digger, but when he meets Ellen, he's pleasantly surprised and comes to believe her story about the baby's paternity. Meanwhile, it turns out that Hugh would like to do the right thing by Ellen, but his best impulses have been diverted by his father's advice (always focused on preserving the family's reputation) and Bud, who still thinks of Ellen as the girl from the speakeasy. Complicating matters even further is that Ellen doesn't even want money and never did -- all she wanted is the acknowledgement from Hugh about who she was to him and who the baby's father is. When she's confronted by her "past," it looks as though she may never get a chance to press her case, until her attorney uncovers a fact that gets Bud and Hugh hauled into court. It still looks like the Fullertons will get their way, with a trumped-up session prejudiced in favor of them, when suddenly some truths come out that turn the reputations of all concerned completely on their heads. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Douglas Fairbanks recalls James M. Barrie's The Admirable Crichton in the 1917 silent Down to Earth. Billy Gaynor (Fairbanks) takes over an asylum where his girl, Ethel (Eileen Percy), is resting after a supposed nervous breakdown. "Doctor" Gaynor realizes that Ethel is perfectly healthy; all that's wrong with her is that she has become soft and spoiled thanks to modern living and too-rigid adherence to passing fads and foibles. He arranges for Ethel and the rest of the hypochondriac patients to take an ocean voyage, then stages a shipwreck, forcing these pampered creatures to fend for themselves on a "desert island" (actually a wooded glade just off a main California highway). Sunshine and hard work does more good for the patients than all the psychiatrists and so-called experts in the world. Having proven his point, Billy claims his girl and bids the other patients a jaunty farewell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Claire Endicott (Norma Shearer) throws a wild party and her father (Charles Clary) walks in to find her flirting with the very married Milt Bisnet (Ward Crane). In an attempt to straighten her out, Endicott sends Claire to the Canadian northwoods, where his field engineer, Grimshaw (Jack Holt), is working. While fishing, Claire is swept over the rapids and Grimshaw tries to rescue her. Both of them wind up in a remote gorge, and Grimshaw goes about building a hut as a shelter. Although Grimshaw is strongly attracted to Claire, he turns her down when she offers to make love to him. An airplane finally rescues them, and when they return to New York, Claire finds herself named corespondent in the Bisnet divorce case. A scandal sheet prints a rumor that she is marrying Grimshaw to avoid the divorce scandal. As a result, Claire turns down Grimshaw's proposal, but he won't take no for an answer. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

When Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith formed United Artists, they had a dilemma -- only one of them was contractually free to make a film for the fledgling studio -- and that was Fairbanks. But he came through with this winning picture, playing his usual character (at least for his pre-swashbuckling days) -- a young man with too much energy and vigor for his own good -- in a Prisoner of Zenda-like backdrop. William Brooks (Fairbanks) lives in Manhattan on a mysterious but sizable income. He apparently has no family either. When following the New York Fire Department around begins to pall, he goes to Mexico and tangles with bandits. All this is only preparation for his next adventure -- he is called to a tiny European country where a revolution is going on. It turns out that he is heir to the throne and he manages to squelch the plotters and win the girl (Marjorie Daw) in short order. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This was only one of many films that proved that the team of silent star Douglas Fairbanks, director John Emerson, and scenarist/wit Anita Loos was unbeatable when it came to comic adventure. Teddy Rutherford (Fairbanks) goes on a bender when he discovers that his sweetie (Helen Greene) loves another man (Homer Hunt) -- and the guy is a pacifist to boot (not a virtue admired in the days of World War I)! After this binge, Teddy wakes up in jail to the ministrations of Janie (Arline Pretty), the sheriff's daughter. In due course, he is released, but he wants nothing more than to go back to the lock-up and to Janie. His attempts to break into the jail are hilarious but unsuccessful. Finally, he gets arrested again for impersonating a man who has plotted to dynamite a munitions factory. The sheriff's assistant -- Teddy's rival for Janie's affections -- tries to get rid of Teddy once and for all by instigating a lynching. But Teddy uses his impressive athletic abilities to escape the mob, leave the jail, and capture the real bomber. Erich vonStroheim was art director on this picture, but his Prussian persona caused trouble when he tried to order some explosives for one of its scenes. The Secret Service rushed to Fairbanks' studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and as a result of this incident, the star fired vonStroheim. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Paramount starred Agnes Ayers for the first time in this tragedy, adapted from the novel by Sir Gilbert Parker. Unfortunately, it wasn't a terribly auspicious debut -- the picture was morbid and depressing. A French Canadian pair, Madelinette (Ayers) and Louis Racine (Theodore Kosloff) wed. One of Racine's relative dies, and he supposedly inherits an estate. But one of his enemies questions his right to the inheritance and a fight breaks out. Racine is thrown against a tree, spurring a growth on his back, something which runs in his family. The new husband sends his wife to Europe to pursue a career as an opera singer. Back home he works hard to become a power in the community in the hopes that she will stick by him in spite of his growing deformity. But his doubts seem to be unfounded, since Madelinette returns from Europe and drops everything to take care of him. He winds up losing everything anyway -- a rival usurps his power, and George Fournel (Mahlon Hamilton) shows up to contest the inheritance. Madelinette herself finds the will that gives Fournel the estate. Finally, Racine shoots himself, and Fournel wins the widow's heart. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Almost 30 years before the Peter O'Toole picture, Joseph Conrad's novel was first filmed as a silent. It was directed in typically virile manner by Victor Fleming, starred Percy Marmont as Jim, and was actually truer to the novel than the 1964 version. Jim is a seaman under the despicable Captain Brown (Noah Beery). When his ship, carrying a load of Muslims on their way to Mecca, collides with a derelict vessel, the captain and his crew -- Jim included -- desert. As a result, Jim loses his mate's certificate. Eventually a sympathetic merchant finds him work in a Malay settlement. He works his way up in the hierarchy, eventually taking over the management of the trading post after Cornelius (Raymond Hatton), and sharing leadership with the Rajah's son. Jim also comes to love Cornelius' daughter, Jewel (Shirley Mason). Brown and his crew, also blacklisted, have become pirates, and they attack the village. Although they are captured, Jim orders them to be released. They kill the Rajah's son, and Jim pays for their act with his own life. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide