Victor Fleming Movies

Anne Nichols' Broadway comedy Abie's Irish Rose was almost universally panned when it opened in 1923. But despite the moans and wails of the critics (notably Robert Benchley, who turned his weekly drubbing of the play into an art form), the Nichols piece ended up as one of the longest-running plays in American theatrical history. Inevitably, the play spawned innumerable imitators, many of which had been committed to film long before the movie version of Abie's Irish Rose was released in April of 1928. It will be recalled that the story concerns the "mixed" romance between Jewish Abie Levy (Charles Rogers) and Irish Rosemary Murphy (Nancy Carroll). Taking into consideration the ethnic antagonism between the Levys and the Murphys, the road to the altar for Abie and Rosemary is a rocky one. Even after the couple is married, an argument rages between the parents over whether the first grandchild will be raised as a Jew or a Catholic. Fortunately, Providence takes a hand in matters when Rosemary thoughtfully gives birth to twins. Holdovers from the original Broadway cast include Bernard Gorcey as family attorney Isaac Cohen; Gorcey, the father of Leo Gorcey, is best remembered today as Louie Dumbrowski, the gullible sweet-shop proprietor in the Bowery Boys comedies of the 1940s and 1950s. Completed as a silent film, Abie's Irish Rose was released with a brief talkie sequence, padding the running time out to an ungainly 120 minutes. Though no classic, the original Abie's Irish Rose was far better than the phlegmatic and outdated 1946 remake. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This was Emil Jannings' first American-made picture, and his portrayal is reminiscent of his characters in his previous films, The Last Laugh and Variety, and would later be echoed in The Blue Angel. Jannings' powerful performance, along with his acting in The Last Command, would win him the first Academy Award for Best Actor. August Schiller (Jannings) is a content husband and father of six children who works as a cashier for the Germania Bank. He is sent to Chicago with some of the bank's securities and during the train ride he is thoroughly vamped by Mayme, a cheap little crook (Phyllis Haver). Mayme takes Schiller on a wild debauch and when he wakes up in a sordid transient hotel, he realizes that she has made off with the securities. He goes in search of her and is attacked by a thug (Fred Kohler) who steals his valuables. As the two men struggle, the thug falls in front of a train and is killed. A few days later, Schiller reads in the paper that the thug was identified as him, so instead of disgracing his family he decides to remain living in secret. Years later, when he is completely down and out, he hears that his son (Donald Keith) is now a famous violinist. On Christmas, he makes his way to his old home and watches the holiday feast through a window. He is driven away and crawls back into obscurity. Ironically, Belle Bennett, who played Schiller's wife, was the star of the 1925 version of Stella Dallas, a tale which ends in a similar fashion. The Way of All Flesh was based on a story by Perley Poore Sheehan. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Even though Big Bill Devens (Ernest Torrence) is a powerful politician, he still sticks to his working man's roots. His wife walked out on him 20 years before and his daughter, Moira (Esther Ralston), believes she is dead. Moira falls in love with Hugh Dillon, a handsome young attorney (Jack Holt), and Devens gets him a job in the district attorney's office. One night, Devens' wife, now an old, decrepit woman known as Aileen Clayton (Louise Dresser), returns to ask forgiveness. The next day Devens is found dead. Aileen is charged with the crime and she refuses to speak or reveal her true identity, since she wants to save Moira the pain of knowing who she really is. But Dillon discovers the truth and resigns from his job to represent her. He finds Devens' dictograph, which he used just before he died, to reveal that it was his partner, Henry Kelling (Richard Tucker), who killed him. Aileen is freed and Dillon wins Moira. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The subject matter to this Victor Fleming-directed drama is typically virile -- it takes place in Sacramento during the Gold Rush days of 1849. And the star who stands out the most is also the most manly: big Wallace Beery. John Joyce (William Collier Jr.) arrives in Sacramento with his sister, Martha (Claire Adams), and aunt to become the editor of a newspaper. He is determined to clear the town of the low-down mining camp types who are flaunting their freewheeling ways. When Joyce meets Faro Sampson (Pauline Starke), he falls in love, believing that she is the daughter of a minister. Actually she's the daughter of the man who runs a gambling den, "Square Deal" Sampson (Emmett C. King). Joyce tries to forget her, but he can't. Soon the same vigilante committee he has aligned himself with finds him in a compromising position with her. Joyce, Faro, and the other "undesirables" are forced onto a river boat. Ben, a fireman (Beery), takes over command, but when he tries to attack Martha, Joyce springs into action. Ben is vanquished and demoted to peeling potatoes on the ship that rescues everyone. Joyce and Faro, meanwhile, reaffirm their love for each other. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Adventure was an appropriate title for a book by Jack London, and when his tale of the South Seas was made into a film, the virile Victor Fleming was the right man to direct it. David Shelton, a plantation owner (Tom Moore), is faced with ruin because some of his native workers are sick and the healthy ones are about to revolt. Morgan (Wallace Beery) and Baff (Raymond Hatton), a pair of crooked money lenders, are about to foreclose when Shelton falls ill with fever. Joan Lackland, a female soldier of fortune (Pauline Starke), shows up (with her Hawaiian bodyguards, no less) to save the day. She nurses him back to health while her bodyguards get the natives under control. Joan turns down Sheldon's offer of marriage, but she reconsiders when he rescues her from a trap that Morgan and Baff have set for her. Twenty years later, Fleming made another film by the same name starring Clark Gable. That picture, however, was not based on the Jack London book, but on The Anointed by Clyde Brion Davis. ~ Janiss Garza, 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

As might be expected, director Victor Fleming, who always did well with outdoorsy material, deftly handles this adaptation of Zane Grey's novel. Glenn Kilbourne (Richard Dix) was gassed during the war. When he comes home to New York he discovers that his fiancée, Carley Burch (Lois Wilson), has not only fallen in with a jazzy, wealthy crowd -- she's one of their leaders. Kilbourne can't cope with this and he has a relapse. A doctor recommends that he go to Arizona to recuperate, but once he has been there for a while he falls in love with the place and becomes a rancher. Carley goes out to see him, but she's disgusted by the rough life and goes back to New York. After visiting a hospitalized friend of Kilbourne's, however, Carley realizes that she's a quitter and she returns to Arizona. It's not a moment too soon -- Kilbourne is about to marry Flo Hutter (Marjorie Daw), a rancher's daughter. Flo knows that Kilbourne still loves Carley, so she willingly gives him up and returns to Lee Stanton (Leonard Clapham), who has been patiently waiting for her. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

The plot to this routine Paramount drama was apparently inspired by current interest in the work of Emile Coue, a hypnotist and pioneer in autosuggestion (he's the one responsible for the quote, "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better"). The talents of lively Dorothy Dalton are pretty much wasted. As society girl Ruth Rutherford, she gets to display her spirited willfulness early on by defying her fiancé, Lord Wallington (Robert Ellis), and riding a powerful Arabian horse he has given her. But when she is thrown from the horse and confined to a wheelchair, she is left without very much to do. Mohamed Ali, a mystical Egyptian physician (Jose Ruben), offers to cure her if she agrees to marry him. Ruth backs out on the agreement once she is ambulatory again, and Ali attacks her. Biskra, Ruth's massive manservant (Pat Hartigan), kills Ali, who, with his last breath, damns her back to the wheelchair. In the meantime, Lord Wallington has been drowning himself in alcohol and Ruth helps to regenerate him. Eventually she figures out that her inability to walk was completely mental in nature and had nothing to do with Ali's curse. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This fast-paced comedy came from the pen of husband and wife screenwriting team Anita Loos and John Emerson. After his father's death, Roland Stone (Basil Sidney) learns that his will stipulates that he must go to the South American country of Bunkonia and sell life insurance. Stone doesn't find this too terrible a task, considering that Colonel Cassius Byrd (Edward Connelly) has been appointed consul to Bukonia, and Stone is in love with Byrd's daughter, Anna Mae (Mae Collins). It turns out, however, that he has a rival. The rival convinces him to insure all of the cabinet of King Caramba the 13th (Frank Lalor) -- knowing full well that a revolution is breaking out and that they've all been marked for death. Not only does Stone have to save himself and his girl from the revolutionaries, he also has to save the lives of all the policy holders, too. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Eve Orrin (Constance Talmadge) is at the mercy of her possessive mother (Effie Shannon), who has a case of "nerves" every time her daughter tries to show a mind of her own. Mrs. Orrin and her friend, Mrs. Marchant (Katherine Kaelred), have determined that Eve will marry Mrs. Marchant's milquetoast son, Henry (George LeGuere), and Eve is willing to go along with it just to placate her mother. But Eve herself finally has an attack of nerves, and she falls in love with Doctor Harmon, the physician called in to care for her (Kenneth Harlan). In spite of the manipulations of Henry and her mother, Eve manages to get the man she wants. The screenplay to this Constance Talmadge vehicle, like many others, was written by John Emerson and Anita Loos. It was based on a Harvard prize-winning stage play by Rachel Barton Butler, and for once Miss Talmage's vibrant personality was buried under the plot -- in fact, Effie Shannon (who played the role of the mother on Broadway, too) practically stole the whole show. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

After finishing his first costumer swashbuckler The Mark of Zorro, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. reverted to his standard formula with the contemporary action comedy The Mollycoddle. Doug plays the title character, a dandified American who returns to his home in the Wild West after being educated in England. Suspected of being little more than a pantywaist, Doug proves his grit by capturing notorious desperado Wallace Beery. Fairbanks and Tom Geraghty co-adapted The Mollycoddle from a short story by Harold McGrath. He followed this picture with another modern comedy, The Nut, then devoted the rest of the 1920s to such period pictures as Robin Hood, The Thief of Baghdad and The Gaucho. ~ Hal Erickson, 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