Benjamin Stoloff Movies
U.C.L.A. graduate Ben Stoloff launched his film directorial career in the early '20s, graduating from two-reel comedies to features by the middle of the decade. Stoloff was especially busy at Fox during the early-talkie period, helming such carefree musical comedies as Soup to Nuts (1930) and Movietone Follies of 1930. At Universal, he directed the Tom Mix version of Destry Rides Again (1932), then moved on to such Edward Small productions as Palooka and Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round (1934). From 1935 to 1939, he was a producer/director of programmers at RKO Radio, and in the 1940s was active in the B-units at 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. Ben Stoloff's final film was It's a Joke, Son! (1947), a quickie vehicle for radio comedian Kenny "Senator Claghorn" Delmar. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1929
Much of this drama is comprised of newsreel footage. It chronicles the exploits of a luckless college prize-fighter attempting to go professional. Unfortunately he is exploited by his dishonest manager. The innocent pugilist is eventually befriended and assisted by a pretty reporter who helps free him from his wicked manager. During the big fight, the fighter takes a real lickin' when he discovers that the reporter has not come to the fight. This is a very early talkie. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1928
Tom Mix stars in the "modern" western Horseman of the Plains. Though the story is set in 1928, the plot is as old as the hills, with Mix coming to the aid of a rancher who's on the verge of foreclosure. Falling in love with Sally Blane, the rancher's pretty daughter, our hero vows to win an important cross-country race. And what a race! Starting on foot, the contestants are then expected to commandeer chariots, hay wagons and stagecoaches. By the time Horseman of the Plains has run its 45-minute course, Mix has emerged triumphant, winning the prize money and the girl all at once. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Charles "Heinie" Conklin, Charles Byer, (more)
- 1927
As the comic relief in What Price Glory?, Sammy Cohen and Ted McNamara were hits. Unfortunately, when the Fox studios tried to feature them on their own, they weren't anywhere near as successful. Wealthy Dick Wright (Gene Cameron) wants to fight in WWI, but he's turned down by both the army and navy because he is a sleepwalker. He decides to join an ambulance unit, and his chauffeur and valet (Cohen and McNamara) go along to protect him. The three of them, however, wind up on a regular troop train and land in France as privates. They get involved in a lot of wild adventures, and the chauffeur and valet happen upon an enemy detachment. By disguising themselves in German uniforms, which fit almost as poorly as their army uniforms did, they capture the enemy soldiers. As a result, they return home as heroes. Cohen and McNamara were teamed a couple more times, including in director Henry Lehrman's When Sailors Go Wrong, but McNamara died in 1928, ending a partnership that was never very successful to begin with. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sammy Cohen, Ted McNamara, (more)
- 1927
Silent screen Western star Tom Mix falls in love with a lovely circus performer in this fanciful (and typically overblown) star vehicle. Mix plays a sharpshooter and roping specialist who joins a travelling one-ring circus and falls for a lovely trapeze artiste (Natalie Joyce). There is the obligatory crooked politician whose greatest ambition is to close down the show but most of the screen time is dedicated to Mix's shootin' and ridin' (he even ropes an elephant!) and various big top acts. A 1925 WAMPAS Baby Star, Natalie Joyce ran away with the notices for this film and was reunited with Mix in Daredevil's Reward later that year. The brunette starlet allegedly told Mix aide Sid Jordan that she would never amount to much in the film industry because of her refusal "to put out." She retired from the screen in 1930. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Mix
- 1927
Fired for crashing his aeroplane into his employer's ranch, Tom Mix is elected sheriff in a town with, as a title stated, "a high mortality rate among sheriffs." Mix, of course, prevails against almost impossible odds, at one point cornering a gang of cutthroats holding leading lady Dorothy Dwan captive in the crater of a volcano about to erupt. Mix was at his best in fanciful Westerns like this one, although purists everywhere decried the use of fast cars, airplanes and stunts seemingly too impossible to be real. Most of them, amazingly, were all too real, a fact that was actually lost on contemporary audiences. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Mix, Dorothy Dwan, (more)
- 1926
Tom Mix's lucrative contract with Fox Studios was drawing to a close when the World's Most Popular Cowboy starred in Canyon of Light. The story begins as Tom Mills (Mix) rides off to fight in WWI. Leaving his ranch in the care of his sister Ellen (Carmelita Geraghty) and her husband Ed (Carl Miller) Mills returns from the battlefield two years later to find that his brother-in-law has deserted, and the ranch is in a state of ruin and disrepair. Even worse, Ed is now top man in a vicious outlaw gang. On her deathbed, Ellen begs Tom to find Ed and bring him back for one last reunion. Rescuing Ed from a lynch mob, Tom promises to deliver him to the sheriff before the final meeting with Ellen, but Ed escapes, forcing Tom to take his place in jail. As our hero awaits his fate, his no-good in-law lives high on the hog by impersonating one of Tom's dead army buddies. The plot gets even thicker before Tom is sprung from the calaboose to hastily set things right. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Mix, Dorothy Dwan, (more)
