Creighton Hale Movies

In this early musical western, Stephen Ghent (Ian Keith) is a businessman who, after the death of his partner, has been helping to support Ruth Jordan (Dorothy Mackaill), the late man's college-age daughter. While visiting a town near the Mexican border on business, Ghent is shocked to discover Ruth has become a jaded and hard-drinking sophisticate. Convinced she needs a healthy dose of the great outdoors and the simple life, Ghent kidnaps her disguised as a Mexican bandit and carries her away to an isolated cabin in the hills. As the masked cowboy attempts to teach Ruth about the virtues of the simple life, she finds herself falling in love with her captor, though she has a rival for his affections in hot-blooded servant girl Manuella (Myrna Loy). Fancy Baggage was released both as a talking picture and in a silent version, designed to play in small-town theaters (where westerns were perennially popular) which had yet to be wired for sound. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This first version of the Rudolf Friml operetta Rose-Marie had no music, but it did have Joan Crawford in the title role. More faithful to its source than the 1936 Nelson Eddy-Jeanette McDonald remake, the 1928 film finds the heroine torn between her love for Mountie House Peters and her loyalty to her outlaw brother James Murray. When Peters is forced to shoot and kill Murray, it looks like curtains for his romance with the heroine. But after a reel or so of histrionics, the girl forgives Peters for doing his duty. The final version of Rose-Marie (at least to date) was lensed in 1954, with Ann Blyth and Howard Keel. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bespectacled Creighton Hale and 1923 Wampas Baby Star Virginia Brown Faire headlined this domestic drama from low-budget Chesterfield. Maintaining that Harvey Baremore (Hale) is stealing from his company, his employer John Kimball (Lloyd Whitlock) suggests that Mrs. Baremore (Faire) pays her husband's debt with her "friendship." As it turns out, the whole affair is concocted by Kimball to expose Baremore for the adulterer that he is: Discovered with a gold-digging blonde (Florence Dudley), Harvey makes a quick escape but is killed in a car accident. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

In this lavishly produced MGM production, the ethereal Lillian Gish is a bit more earthy than normal, due in part to the selection of her co-star, he-man Norman Kerry. "Suggested by" the well-known song, the story involves two feuding Scottish clans, the MacDonalds and the Camerons. Annie Laurie (Gish) tries to bring the two clans together peacefully at her home, Maxwelton, but winds up being the cause for even more enmity because both Ian MacDonald (Kerry) and Donald Cameron (Creighton Hale) love her. She throws her lot in with Ian when the vengeful Donald uses underhanded means to get rid of his foes. Annie battles the Camerons and climbs a mountain to light a warning beacon. After her ordeal, Ian carries her to a barge and they sail over the loch. The last part of the film was shot in two-strip Technicolor. Annie Laurie wound up losing 264,000 dollars, which certainly did not help the ever-worsening relationship between Gish and the studio. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Already in his forties, Creighton Hale had no small difficulty conveying the extreme youth of his character in Speeding Thru. Hale is cast as a college student who aspires to become a champion racecar driver. Pledging eternal loyalty to his sweetheart Judy King's auto-manufacturer father Lionel Belmore, Hale is dragooned into taking a job with Robert McKim, Belmore's biggest rival. The plot is resolved during the traditional last-reel Big Race, highlighted by a spectacular slow-motion crash. Speeding Thru was predictable from start to finish, but auto aficionados went home happy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This typically overproduced Marion Davies vehicle casts her in a distaff variation of The Prisoner of Zenda. An American lass, Davies is obliged to impersonate her male cousin (Creighton Hale), heir to the throne of Graustark. Our heroine is quite fetching in male drag, and it's amazing that the Graustarkian courtiers don't tumble to her masquerade earlier than they do. Once she's been revealed to be a girl, Davies is able to move about freely in her efforts to squelch the plans of villainous Roy D'Arcy. The final reel of Beverly of Graustark was filmed in eye-pleasing early Technicolor. The film was based on a popular novel by George Barr McCutcheon. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Mary Carr, Hollywood's favorite "martyr mother," does her usual in The Midnight Message. Carr plays the widowed, impoverished mom of Western Union messenger boy John Fox Jr. Dispatched to deliver a night telegram to millionaire Otis Harlan, Fox is overpowered by a gang of burglars. Soon, however, he turns the tables on the crooks, earning a huge reward for his efforts. Fox spends the money on a new sewing machine for her mother, a gift she accepts with unbounded gratitude -- though frankly, the money could have been better spent on a new wardrobe. Midnight Message was directed by Paul Hurst, better known for such acting roles as the Yankee Deserter in Gone with the Wind (1939). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Nell Bailey (Jacqueline Logan) is nothing if not practical. When Danny Kester (Creighton Hale) proposes marriage, she agrees only on the condition that he turn over half his salary, as her "wifely wages." But after the wedding, Danny refuses to honor the agreement, whereupon Nell goes on strike. Her mother and sister join the picket line, and soon every woman in town has rebelled against the male establishment. The fun really begins when Danny and his fellow husbands try to cook and clean on their own, failing spectacularly. This remarkably contemporary comedy was based on a popular stage play, Chicken Feed, by Guy Bolton and Winchell Smith. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This mildly amusing comedy, based on a play by Cosmo Hamliton, was light on plot and just a touch racy (at least for the silent era). The lively John Rathburn (Lew Cody) is married to the more sedate Margaret (Eleanor Boardman). Their next-door neighbors have the opposite situation -- Elise Moran (Renee Adoree) is a "jazzy" young lady, while her husband, Victor (Creighton Hale), is more of a homebody. The two couples reach impasses in their respective marriages, and Elise flirts with John, while Margaret finds comfort with Victor. Margaret, however, is not interested in a separation and when she discovers that the one thing the two men have in common is a love of good cooking, she comes up with a plan. The couples visit a lodge in the mountains and each wife cooks for the other husband. John quickly tires of eating out of a can, which is Elise's culinary style, and he decides to make amends to Margaret. Victor, meanwhile, realizes that a little machismo works wonders on Elise. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

In spite of a fine cast and director, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer somehow managed to turn the stage play by W. Somerset Maugham into merely a classy-looking program picture. The Cheneys are "veddy" proper upper-class Englishmen, so it's a shock in the 1890s when Lady Catherine, wife of Lord Clive Cheney, runs off with Hugh Porteous, who was best man at the wedding. Now, in the mid-'20s, Elizabeth (Eleanor Boardman) is married to Lord Clive's highly dignified and rather dull son Arnold (Creighton Hale), and she is considering running off with Edward Luton (Malcolm McGregor). To help her decide, she invites Porteous (George Fawcett) and Lady Catherine (Eugenie Besserer) to the ancestral castle on the assumption that Lord Clive (Alec Francis) will be in London. Of course, he shows up unexpectedly and is shocked to find his wife has grown fat and silly, while Porteous is an irascible old man. After spending time with the couple, Elizabeth decides she should probably stay home -- until she sees them embracing. That convinces her to take off with Luton. But only a few miles down the road, the car stops and the chauffeur gets out -- it's Arnold, who gives Luton a sound thrashing. That finished, he promptly takes Elizabeth back to the castle. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide

Viennese doctor Monte Blue is madly in love with his wife Florence Vidor--so much so that many suspect that they aren't married at all! Vidor's best friend Marie Prevost is an incurable coquette; Marie's divorce-bound husband Adolphe Menjou hires detective Harry Myers to keep tabs on his wife. Inevitably, Prevost meets and flirts with the true-blue Blue. Meanwhile, Blue's lecherous partner Creighton Hale sets his sights on innocent Vidor. Thanks to the misunderstandings of detective Myers, both Blue and Vidor are suspected of infidelity, but all ends well as doctor and wife are reunited and Prevost ends up with her male counterpart Hale. The first of Ernst Lubitsch's sophisticated sex farces, The Marriage Circle was reportedly Lubitsch's favorite film; he would remake it (and improve upon it tenfold) in 1932 as the sprightly musical One Hour With You, with Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald. Both original and remake were based on Only a Dream, a play by Lothar Schmidt. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on the play Mary the Third by Rachel Crothers, Wine of Youth concerns Mary (Eleanor Boardman), a flapper whose mother (Eulalie Jensen) and grandmother (Gertrude Claire) were also named Mary. The first two Marys worked all their feminine wiles to snare their husbands, but the youngest Mary doesn't know if she really wants to be tied down. Two young men vie for her hand: sweet natured Lynn (Ben Lyon) and the charming but aggressive Hal (William Haines, playing the type of character that would later make him famous). Mary can't choose between the two of them, so, after a wild party, she decides to take them both on a camping trip, along with her pal, Tish (Pauline Garon), and Tish's sweetheart, Max (William Collier Jr.). Tish and Max decide to "do the right thing" and get married. It doesn't take long for Mary, meanwhile, to disqualify the pushy Hal, and insist that the party return home. When Mary enters her house she overhears her mother and father (E.J. Ratcliffe) arguing over her escapade, and she believes that they no longer love each other. This revelation causes her to lose all faith in the institution of marriage. Her mother decides to leave. When she faints, her husband believes she has been poisoned. This makes him realize how much he really does care. When Mary sees this she decides to accept Lynn's proposal. ~ Janiss Garza, All Movie Guide