Tag Archives: 1920s

While Lillian Gish achieved stardom with her dramatic emoting, her sister Dorothy made a name for herself as a saucy comedienne. Nell Gwyn was one of several felicitous collaborations between Dorothy Gish and British producer-director Herbert Wilcox. The star is of course cast as the title character, the infamous 17th-century orange vendor who became a star on the London stage – and the mistress of “merry monarch” King Charles III (Randle Ayrton). Though her fortunes take a downswing towards the end of her life, Nell remains ever faithful to her beloved Charles. Nell Gwyn was based on a novel by Marjorie Bowen, which was also the source for the 1934 remake, which starred Herbert Wilcox’s talented protégé (and later wife) Anna Neagle.

Diana is outwardly the hit of the party but inwardly virtuous and idealistic. Her friend Ann is thoroughly selfish and amoral. Both are attracted to Ben Black, soon-to-be millionaire. He takes Diana’s flirtations with other boys as a sign of disinterest in him and marries Ann. Big mistake.

A con-woman has a nice business going in fleecing gullible tourists who want a genuine ‘underworld’ experience – but the tables are turned when one of her victims turns out to be less innocent than he looks! Dodging the city detective who knows her by sight and wants her to “go straight”, she next sets her sights on a valuable diamond pendant; but when her elegant nemesis turns up at the scene of the would-be crime, it becomes a race to see who can carry out the con first…

Harold Meadows (Lloyd) is a shy, stuttering bachelor working in a tailor shop, who is writing a guide book for other bashful young men, “The Secret of Making Love,” chapters from which are portrayed as fantasy sequences. Fate has him meet rich girl, Mary (Ralston), and they fall in love. But she is about to wed an already married man, so our hero embarks upon a hair-raising daredevil ride to prevent the wedding.

During World War I, a French girl is romanced by an American doughboy even though she is promised to a French soldier who is fighting at the front. She falls in love with the Yank however out of her commitment to her French soldier she stays with him especially since he returns from the war blind. Do circumstances change so she can follow him to “Second Forty Street” in New York? Musical numbers include “Just You, Just Me.”

A lone prospector ventures into Alaska looking for gold. He gets mixed up with some burly characters and falls in love with the beautiful Georgia. He tries to win her heart with his singular charm.

The husband and wife acting team of Mae Feather and Julian Gordon is torn apart when he discovers she is having an affair with the screen comedian Andy Wilks. Mae hatches a plot to kill her husband by putting a real bullet in the prop gun which will be fired at him during the making of their new film, ‘Prairie Love’.

An elderly man works as a waiter at a luxurious restaurant. He’s content and full of hope, and treasures his family more than anything. But it’s time of the First World War and news from the front change his life.

Norma Besant, daughter of a Southern doctor, is an incorrigible flirt and has many boys on her string. She begins to favor Michael Jeffrey, who, shiftless and hot-tempered but fundamentally honorable, is warned off by her father. When Michael returns after a long absence, the pair are innocently compromised, and Dr. Besant’s old-South paternal rage brings tragedy.

After accidentally killing the key witness to a crime, a mysterious drifter turns himself to the law, under a false name intending to protect his own family. But when the news of his conviction break, an inspector investigates about the man’s past at the same the drifter’s sister looks on the possibility that the man is her long lost brother, and she wants to prove his innocence.