Author Archive: Retro

This silent western drama from Sunset Productions stars Kenneth MacDonald (The Coast Patrol, Dynamite Dan), Billy “Red” Jones (Sparrows, The Phantom Flyer), and Gordon Sackville (The Best Man, One Way Trail), with direction by Grover Jones (The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Trouble in Paradise).
Our hero Jimmie March works for stockbroker E.J. Philips and daydreams of romance with Eleanor, the boss’s lovely daughter. Unfortunately, Eleanor is dating Mortimer Fenton, a wealthy cad who used to push Jimmie around in college. To add insult to injury, Jimmie gets fired. All seems lost until a gypsy fortune teller foretells that he’ll make a bundle playing hunches in the stock market. So, he convinces his buddies to lend him some money and invests in stocks that then start to skyrocket. However, Fenton isn’t about to take that lying down and subsequently hatches a plan to wipe his rival out for good… Will Jimmie’s fortune come true? [...]

Ginger grows up in a slow town. Because of her wild attitude, her father decides to send her to a strict boarding school. Despite the strictness, the girls have fun getting into flapper lifestyle trouble including flirting.

Groundbreaking film tells the story of a Russian family shattered by the 1905 uprising, as a mother betrays her strike-breaking son to the police. Written by Vsevolod Pudovkin. English titles. Dir. Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel.

Feature version of serial “The Lost City” (1920). Group of adventurers with varied backgrounds join together for a safari into the heart of Africa, where they find a lost white race. Produced by William N. Selig.

A hypnotic Svengali controls the singing voice of a young starlet, but he cannot control her heart.

Silent adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper’s novel, set during the French and Indian War. Produced by Maurice Tourneur. Dir. Maurice Tourneur.

An inventor travels to the South Seas, where there is buried treasure belonging to a girl. The girl’s father is being held captive by cannibals until she returns a pearl that belongs to one of their idols.

In his fourth and final adventure, Gotham Productions’ canine star Peter the Great played a police dog chasing down a gang of bank robbers along with his master, Robert Conway (Edward Hearn). Peter discloses that one of the robbers, Jimmie Bryson (Joe Bennett), is actually forced into a life of crime by Al Stokes (Lee Shumway, the dog’s former owner. With the assistance of Robert and Jimmie’s sister Mildred (Ethel Shannon), the clever pooch catches the real criminal after an exciting automobile chase. Peter the Great was poverty row company Gotham’s answer to Warner Bros.’ world famous Rin Tin Tin. His films, although popular with the small fry, never enjoyed Rinty’s above-average budgets and wide distribution.

Wealthy cripple Markley finances the education of blacksmith’s daughter Ruth. When she returns to their small town he asks to marry her, but she runs off with city worker Jim Dirk who is then killed in a subway accident. Markley offers to marry her in name only to protect her new son.