Seena Owen

It's always a pleasure to see ace western director Leslie Selander in action, and Riders of Vengeance is no exception. Originally released as The Raiders, this Universal programmer stars Richard Conte as a miner who leads an expedition of his compatriots to the California Gold Rush. Crooked Morris Ankrum sets about to cheat Conte and his friends out of their claims. The good guys stage a counteroffensive with the help of Mexican miner Richard Martin. Viveca Lindfors once more brings intelligence and charm to a two-dimensional role. Watch for future Gunsmoke star Dennis Weaver as "Logan". ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Rainbow Island is a lavish Technicolor confection designed to show off the physical attributes of star Dorothy Lamour. This time Lamour is a white girl raised as native on a tropical isle. Barry Sullivan, Eddie Bracken and Gil Lamb play merchant-marine sailors hiding from Japanese troops on Lamour's island. The storyline may have had dramatic inclinations, but these are forgotten amidst several seductive musical numbers and numerous shots of Dorothy swaying in her patented sarong. Perhaps aware that no one could have taken this film seriously, Ms. Lamour plays her role for laughs, and gets them. Rainbow Island was based on a story by silent screen star Seena Owen, the "Dorothy Lamour" of her time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The South Seas romance is set on the scenic island of Tahiti where the island chief betroths his son to a woman and then ships him to the US to attend Harvard. During the return voyage the lad is befriended by the ship's captain who also protects the beautiful girl the boy meets, but doesn't know he is supposed to marry. The two end up falling in love, even though the young man has sworn not to marry the girl his father picked out for him 15 years before. Meanwhile another jealous girl interferes with the romance as does another chieftain who wants the betrothed girl for himself and so tries to kill the young man. The whole mess is later resolved by a tremendous volcanic eruption which destroys the island and leaves the girl standing alone on a rocky peak staring at the blood red sun slowly sinking beneath the horizon. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This Way Please marked Betty Grable's first appearance under her new Paramount contract. The fact that Grable plays the new bride of Charles "Buddy" Rogers takes on special significance when one realizes that Betty was two months away from her first marriage, to former child star Jackie Coogan. The plot is set in a first-run movie theatre that offers stage presentations along with the main feature. Brad Morgan (Rogers) is the theater's master of ceremonies, while Jane Morrow (Grable) is chief usherette. She'd rather be on stage dancing with Brad, and by film's end she gets her wish -- but not before a riotous slapstick wedding sequence. Jim and Marian Jordan, radio's Fibber McGee and Molly, make their film debut, as does Jack Benny's radio foil (and real-life wife) Mary Livingstone, here appearing on-screen without her husband for the first and last time in her career. The film is stolen by Rufe Davis, the "human sound effects machine," doing a medley of his specialty. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A follow-up to the highly successful Bolero, this lively romantic drama stars George Raft as Joe Martin, a Cuban-American dancer who lives and works in Havana with his lovely partner Goldie Allen until a bad case of varicose veins forces impacts his career. One night, the beauteous gringa heiress Diane Harrison (Carole Lombard) comes to the club. Joe is immediately smitten. His interest takes a less fleshly turn when he learns that she owns a yacht. When Diane compliments Joe on his moves, her escort gets jealous and a fight ensues. Joe finds himself jobless and flees to the jungle where he learns the rumba from the exotic Carmelita (Margo). He loves the dance and predicts that it will be the next fad. To promote it, he and Margo open a new club in Havana. The place is a smash. Diane returns, is wowed by both Joe and the dance and offers to bring back to his native New York. But Joe came to Havana after ratting on a gangster and if he returns, will surely die. Still, he and Margo decide to take the risk and their choice results in romance. The spectacular dance numbers were choreographed by the famed dance team Veloz and Yolanda. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Though filmmaker Erich Von Stroheim's notorious profligacy had made him virtually unhirable in the US by 1929, screen-star Gloria Swanson still had faith in him. She poured a great deal of her own money in Von Stroheim's last silent film, Queen Kelly, and agreed to play the leading role to insure box-office success. When production began, Stroheim had not quite completed his script: all he had was the premise of a young Irish convent girl named Kitty Kelly (Gloria Swanson) being seduced by a German nobleman (Walter Byron) who was slated to marry the mad Queen (Seena Owen) of a tiny European principality. Brandishing a whip, the loony Queen drives the hapless Kitty from the palace. It was after shooting had started that Von Stroheim filled Swanson in on the rest of the plot: Kitty was to inherit all the worldly possessions of her aunt in German East Africa. Arriving to take charge of the estate, Kitty would learn that she was proud possessor of a string of brothels. Realizing that such a plot device would never get past the American censors, Swanson reacted in horror; she frantically called her money men in America and screamed "There's a madman in charge!" In the final release version of Queen Kelly, hastily completed by Swanson to recoup her losses and ultimately released in Europe, Kitty Kelly was forced into a marriage with brothel manager Tully Marshall, a tobacco-juiced stained degenerate. She ultimately returns to the nobleman who'd seduced her, is driven from the palace by Queen Owen, and commits suicide. This version contained dialogue sequences, and one musical interlude, sung by star Swanson. Despite its tawdry plot, Queen Kelly was beautifully photographed; its most famous shot, of Swanson praying in church, her face framed by flickering candles, was excerpted in the actress' much-later talkie Sunset Boulevard. The currently available restored version of Queen Kelly uses still pictures and explanatory titles to fill in the footage that has decomposed over the years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The piquant Leatrice Joy starred in this frothy marital comedy about a wife who leaves her boring husband (John Boles) to be the companion of a kept woman (Seena Owen). The latter, however, leaves in a huff when she suspects that her gentleman friend (H.B. Warner) may be paying a bit too much attention to the newcomer. Sure enough, the lecherous Warner does indeed propose a similar arrangement for Miss Joy, who promptly turns him down in favor of returning to home and hearth. With her close-cropped and rather mannish hairstyle, Leatrice Joy was one of the era's great trendsetters and excelled at playing naughty but nice. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Cecil B. DeMille functioned as executive producer for the derivative romantic melodrama The Blue Danube. Leatrice Joy stars as Marguerite, a Budapest tavern girl, who falls in love with young baron Erich (Nils Asther). When WWI breaks out, Erich is called back to his regiment on the eve of his wedding to Marguerite. This provides a golden opportunity for Ludwig (Joseph Schildkraut), a deformed, embittered violinist who is secretly in love with the heroine. Intercepting her mail, Ludwig convinces Marguerite that Erich has been unfaithful, whereupon the girl agrees to marry the violinist on the rebound. Only the unexpected return of Erich prevents villainy from triumphing over virtue. The Blue Danube was written by future director John Farrow. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Previously teamed in such boudoir farces as Up in Mabel's Room and The Girl and the Pullman, Marie Prevost and the "original" Harrison Ford are again co-starred in The Rush Hour. Tired of the hustle and bustle of urban life, working girl Margie Dolan (Marie Prevost) stows away on a France-bound luxury liner. After several standard "shipboard" gags, she finds herself on the Riviera, where she gets mixed up with a gang of con artists who hope to fleece oil tycoon William Finch (David Butler). Once she's extricated herself from this little entanglement, Margie is only too happy to return to the arms of her "dull" sweetie Dan Morely (Harrison Ford). The supporting cast of Rush Hour includes Seena Owen, best known for her work as "The Princess Beloved" in D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A cuckolded husband discovers that he is in love with his ex-wife's cousin in this domestic melodrama from independent producer B. P. Schulberg. Although agreeing at first to give up custody of their child, the ex-wife changes her mind when she discovers the truth. But the child is almost killed in a freak accident and the haughty wife, who wants to go off with a new lover, finally agrees to the divorce settlement. Although burdened with a lachrymose script, Faint Perfume was rescued by good performances from the three leads: Seena Owen as the wife, William Powell as the husband, and Alyce Mills as the innocent cousin. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Lionel Barrymore stars as an evil political boss in this heavy drama. James McQuade (Barrymore) is infatuated with Julia Calvert (Seena Owen), who is engaged to district attorney Daniel Harrington (Gaston Glass). To get her away from Harrington, McQuade frames her father for a crime. The only way Julia can save her father from doing time is to leave Harrington and wed McQuade. She agrees, but it's clear that she doesn't love her new husband. McQuade grows ever more suspicious and enlists the help of his brother, Robert (Martin J. Faust), to catch Julia, who he is convinced is still seeing Harrington. Actually, Robert is the one who is chasing after Julia, and when McQuade catches them together, he shoots him. Corinne Stratton, a chorus girl (Flora LeBreton), is accused of Robert's murder, but then McQuade discovers that she is his own daughter. He has the trial postponed for one day, then takes poison after writing a letter confessing that he is the murderer. With his death, Harrington and Julia are reunited, while Corinne is free to marry her sweetheart, Billy Gray (Joseph Striker). ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

This predictable Northwest melodrama was one of the first made by William Randolph Hearst's film company, Cosmopolitan, for the Goldwyn studios. It was adapted from a story that appeared in Hearst's International Magazine and much of it was shot on-location in the Columbia Valley and around Quebec City. Lionel Barrymore, who had appeared in a prior Hearst film, Enemies of Women, stars for the producer again as pilot Conrad Dean, who is given the task of flying Miriam Helston (Seena Owen) up to the gold country to find her brother, Dick (Walter Miller). Dick, who is reopening his father's rich mines, has been kidnapped by a gang of outlaws headed by the vicious Laird (Louis Wolheim). Dean's plane is forced to land in the middle of nowhere and when he goes for help he becomes lost in a blizzard. Miriam goes looking for him and becomes snowblind (the original title of the picture was actually "Snowblind"). In this condition, she is found by Laird, who forces her to agree to marry him. While they are out searching for a priest, Dean goes looking for them in his airplane. He shows up in time to save Miriam from what is surely a fate worse than death. Dean and Miriam return to New York, where they are happily united. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Writer Jack Boyle created a timely adventure for the character of Boston Blackie Dawson in this mystery (at least it was timely in 1922) -- here the reformed crook gets tangled up in the affairs of a Grand Duchess who has escaped from Soviet Russia with some of the Romanoff jewels. A blind beggar gives Blackie (Lionel Barrymore) the jewels, which are wanted by the United States government. He knows that he is also being followed by a gang of terrorists who want to get their hands on the gems. Until he can get them to their rightful owner, he places the jewels in a safe that's wired with electricity. Petrus (Louis Wolheim) and his associate trace the booty to Blackie's home and a vicious fight breaks out. But when Petrus tries to open the safe, he is electrocuted. The crooks are rounded up and Blackie returns the valuables to Grand Duchess Tatiana (Seena Owen). ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide