Author Archive: Retro

Enid Bennett was given an excellent opportunity to show off her equestrian expertise in the lively western A Desert Wooing. When wealthy cattleman Bart Masters (Jack Holt) comes East, he falls in love with social butterfly Avice Bereton (Bennett). She marries Bart for his money, all the while promising to continue her romance with society doctor Van Fleet (Donald MacDonald). Bart knows what’s going on behind his back, but he insists that Avice return with him to his ranch and at least make an effort to be a dutiful wife. At first completely useless (she can’t even cook!), Avice comes to enjoy her new life, and by fadeout time she has forsaken Van Fleet — who has turned out to be a louse anyway — in favor of her roughhewn but essentially decent husband.

An old pioneer wants his brother’s children whom he has never met to inherit his wealth, but a villain substitutes ringers for them.

Desmond out to avenge his father’s enemy by destroying his railroad.

A broadway actress uses her sex appeal to ruin a marriage only to dump her lover for a richer prospect.

Italian immigrant in the slums of early 1900s New York is beaten and robbed while getting medicine for his unhealthy baby. He is arrested for defending himself against his attackers, and swears revenge when his baby dies while he is in prison. Written and Produced by Thomas H. Ince. Dir. Reginald Barker.

Good guy trying to invade a gang of bad guys in this early western.

A confusing silent melodrama set at San Francisco’s famous Presidio, this film starred light leading man Johnnie Walker as a mysterious stranger thought by the soldiers to be a notorious masked highwayman. Senorita Anita (Shannon Day), however, is drawn to the young man — who proves to be a government agent in disguise. Produced by poverty row company Robertson-Cole, Captain Fly-By-Night was directed by William K. Howard, a fine craftsman who would later helm such powerful pictures as The Power and the Glory (1933) and the British Fire over England (1937).

The first of many filmed adaptations of Rex Beach’s adventure novel of the Alaskan gold-rush.

French country girl uses love affairs to climb the social ladder, until she becomes a courtesan to King Louis XV. English titles.