Author Archive: Retro

Devious bookie has a plan to ruin his rival for the affections of a judge’s daughter. “The Whip” is an uncontrollable but fleet-footed racehorse around which the story revolves. Dir. Maurice Tourneur.

Directed by Ernst Lubistch

Rich old Cyrus West’s relatives are waiting for him to die sothey can inherit. But he stipulates that his will be read 20 yearsafter his death. On the appointed day his expectant heirs arriveat his brooding mansion. The will is read and it turns out thatAnnabelle West, the only heir with his name left, inherits, if sheis deemed sane. If she isn’t, the money and some diamonds goto someone else, whose name is in a sealed envelope. Beforehe can reveal the identity of her successor to Annabelle, Mr.Crosby, the lawyer, disappears. The first in a series of mysterious events, some of which point to Annabelle in factbeing unstable.

Returning home from the Great War, “Breezy” Hart (Fred Humes) and his shell-shocked buddy Frank Wilcox (Ralph McCullough) discover the Wilcox property in the hands of evil Sam Hardy (William Norton Bailey). Frank, who is the rightful heir to the ranch, goes into hiding, while “Breezy” takes a job in the ranch kitchen. Learning of Frank’s whereabouts, Hardy plots to have the young heir killed. Luckily, Breezy overhears the villain plotting with his henchmen and is able to rescue his friend. Hardy and his men are arrested, and Frank, now cured of his illness, is reunited with his girl, June Marston (Nita Cavalier). Breezy, meanwhile, is busy romancing his kitchen staff colleague, Mary Jane (Louise Lorraine). Director William Wyler, a distant relative of Universal’s founder, Carl Laemmle), began his distinguished career helming Fred Humes and Ted Wells program Westerns.

The true life story of Harry Tracy.

When the king is drugged and abducted by his ambitious brother, a lookalike relative must take his place to keep the evil sibling off the throne.

About a vicious highway man in the 1700’s

Three men in London compete for the love of a dance-hall girl.

The story follows a Polish professor and his family who have become refugees in the aftermath of World War I. They try to survive in Germany during the period of the Great Inflation. Carol Dempster is Inga, a Polish war orphan who struggles to provide for the family that has taken her in, while accumulating a meager dowry from the rubble of depression-stricken Berlin so that she can marry Paul. Returning to his family, weakened by the battlefront’s poisonous gases, Paul invests in his and Inga’s future by tending a secret garden which he hopes will provide the resources for them to live, and which serves as a symbol of optimism for the two young lovers.