Neil Hamilton

A flapper with a dubious reputation enjoys a vivacious night of dancing and finds herself romantically linked to her boss.Read More »

Producer/director D.W. Griffith’s feature is a fairly realistic study of the deprivations visited on the German people after their defeat in World War I. In her best-ever performance, Griffith protégée Carol Dempster plays Inga, who does her best to hold her family together and keep food on the table despite grinding poverty, debilitating illness and out-of-control inflation. The most memorable scene finds Inga desperately trying to maneuver a basketful of near-worthless Deutschmarks to a market before the prices rise again and she is unable to buy meat. Aware that anti-German sentiment still prevailed in the US, Griffith cannily inserted an opening title which noted that the main characters were Polish.Read More »

Lady lawyer Portia Merryman (Frieda Inescourt) defends woebegone Elizabeth Manners (Heather Angel), who is on trial for shooting her lover Earle Condon (Neil Hamilton). Ironically, Portia herself had once had an affair with Earle’s father, powerful publisher John Condon (Clarence Kolb). She has a pretty good idea of what is going on in Elizabeth’s head, since she herself was on the verge of killing Condon when he ruthlessly took custody of her illegitimate son (not Earle, though that certainly would have brought things full circle). As Portia toils and strains to free her client, she carries on a romance with Dan Foster (Walter Abel) — the attorney for the prosecution. LA Law and The Practice have nothing on this one!Read More »

Warner Oland makes the first of four screen appearances as Sax Rohmer’s insidious oriental Dr. Fu Manchu. The film makes an effort to explain Fu’s hatred of all whites by showing the death of the Doctor’s family during the Boxer Rebellion. Twenty years later, Fu Manchu is a full-blooded villain using a hypnotized Jean Arthur to help wipe out the British family Fu holds responsible for the deaths of his loved ones. But when Arthur falls in love with potential victim Neil Hamilton, Dr. Fu is forced to add her to his death-list. Weakened only by the excessive “silly-ass Englishman” comedy relief of William Austin, The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu is a rapid-fire adventure devoid of early-talkie clumsiness.Read More »

IMDb user comments
Both this original and the Wellman remake are marvellous Golden Age films – it’s difficult to compare silents with talkies, or either to the book. In the book you use your imagination, this 1926 original had a cast of thousands, ’39 was a populist version with identical screenplay, full orchestra and name changes, ’66 only had 2 brothers and muzak, whilst if made today would probably have nothing real in it at all.Read More »

PLOT SUMMARY and OTHER INFORMATION
from Waldo’s announce

Reels one, two and five — all that survives, unfortunately, of this late silent film by John Ford, though it’s enough to suggest that it might have been a major work. The story, supposedly based on the sentimental Irish ballad, is a blend of “Sylvia Scarlet” and “Stella Dallas,” about a single mother who joins a traveling circus (lead by Victor McLaglen) to support her child, only to eventually lose him to a rich couple. She meets her son (Neil Hamilton) years later when she’s employed as a domestic, and now he’s a swaggering young society man. Does she reveal her identity to him? We’ll never know, since the end of the film is missing. What you do get is one heck of a storm sequence in the first reel, filmed by Ford in the high expressionist style he was then absorbing from FW Murnau.Read More »

Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) is the first feature-length talking (sound) version of the Tarzan series. [Tarzan films stretch into the silent film era back to 1918.] The Tarzan saga was based upon the original ‘Lord of the Jungle’ characters created by novelist Edgar Rice Burroughs. The Tar-zan character (called various titles through the years, including John Clayton, Lord Bloomstoke (Greystoke)), first appeared in late 1912 in All-Story Magazine. Many actors have portrayed Tarzan, both on screen and on television, including Elmo Lincoln, Gene Pollar, P. Dempsey Tabler, James Pierce, Frank Merrill, Larry “Buster” Crabbe, Herman Brix (Bruce Bennett), Johnny Weissmuller, Lex Barker, Gordon Scott, Denny Miller, Jock Mahoney, Mike Henry, Ron Ely, Miles O’Keefe, Joe Lara, Wolf Larson, Christopher Lambert, and Casper Van Dien.Read More »