87% (2) The Iron Mask 95 min, [Adventure, Drama, History, Romance] [Allan Dwan] [21 Feb 1929]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 75%, Rotten Tomatoes: 100%, External Reviews
Actors: Belle Bennett, Dorothy Revier, Marguerite De La Motte, Vera Lewis
Writer: Lotta Woods (scenario editor), Douglas Fairbanks (story), Alexandre Dumas (novels)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: King Louis XIII of France is thrilled to have born to him a son - an heir to the throne. But when the queen delivers a twin, Cardinal Richelieu sees the second son as a potential for revolution, and has him sent off to Spain to be raised in secret to ensure a peaceful future for France. Alas, keeping the secret means sending Constance, lover of D'Artagnan, off to a convent. D'Artagnan hears of this and rallies the Musketeers in a bid to rescue her. Unfortunately, Richelieu out-smarts the Musketeers and banishes them forever. Richelieu enlists D'Artagnan to look after and protect the young prince. Meanwhile, de Rochefort learns of the twins and Richelieu's plans, and kidnaps the twin, raising him in secret. Many years later, with Richelieu dead and the young prince crowned King Louis XIV, Rochefort launches his plan. The king is kidnapped, replaced with his twin, put in an iron mask so as not to be recognized, and led off to a remote castle to be held prisoner. Louis XIV is able to alert D'Artagnan, who realizes that only his friends Athos, Porthos, and Aramis can help him, so he reunites the Musketeers to derail Rochefort's nefarious plot but at a heavy toll.
Rotten Tomatoes: The Iron Mask was Douglas Fairbanks' sequel to his popular 1921 vehicle The Three Musketeers. Fairbanks returns to his original role of D'Artagnan, while Marguerite de La Motte and Nigel De Brulier briefly reprise their Musketeers roles as, respectively, Constance and Cardinal Richelieu. After tying up loose plot ends from the first film, the middle-aged D'Artagnan and his equally venerable fellow musketeers Athos (Leon Bary, also returning from the 1921 film), Porthos (Stanley J. "Tiny" Sandford) and Aramis (Gino Corrado) set about to rescue Louis XIV (William Bakewell), the rightful King of France. Louis XIV has been entombed in a dungeon by his twin brother (also Bakewell) and his head has been locked in an impenetrable iron mask. All of this is at the behest of the scheming De Rochefort (Ulrich Haupt), the real power behind the throne. The Iron Mask was Fairbanks' last silent film; perhaps in acknowledgment of the passing of a Golden era, Fairbanks "died" on screen for the first and only time in his career. Most currently available prints of Iron Mask are taken from the 1940 reissue, narrated by Douglas Fairbanks Jr; in 1974 the younger Fairbanks prepared a restored version of the original, including two brief dialogue passages filmed by Fairbanks back in 1929.
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75% (1) Stella Dallas 110 min, Passed, [Drama] [Henry King] [16 Nov 1925]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 75%, External Reviews
Actors: Alice Joyce, Belle Bennett, Jean Hersholt, Ronald Colman
Writer: Frances Marion (adaptation), Olive Higgins Prouty (novel)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: Stella Dallas is a small town girl who marries the upper class Stephen Dallas, with whom she has nothing in common. After the birth of a daughter, Laurel, the Dallases go their separate ...
Rotten Tomatoes: In this moving silent melodrama, lovely small-town girl Stella Dallas hastily marries a young blueblood with whom she has nothing in common to escape the painful aftermath of her father's suicide. With so little to base it on, the marriage crumbles soon after she bears a daughter.
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73% (1) The Way of All Flesh 94 min, [Drama] [Victor Fleming] [01 Oct 1927]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 73%, External Reviews
Actors: Belle Bennett, Donald Keith, Emil Jannings, Phyllis Haver
Writer: Perley Poore Sheehan (story), Lajos Biró (adaptation), Jules Furthman, Julian Johnson (titles)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: N/A Country: USA
Plot: The story takes place in Milwaukee during the early 1900s with a bank clerk named August Schiller who is happy with both his job and his family. He is tasked with transporting $1,000 in ...
Rotten Tomatoes: Bank clerk August Schiller (Emil Jannings in his American screen debut) is known as a model husband and father. His idyllic life abruptly changes when he is sent from Milwaukee to Chicago to deliver a packet of bonds; it is first time on a solo trip since he married his wife years before. There he meets a seductive young woman who plies him with liquor and steals the bonds. Later, she calls in her beau to beat up August. During the scuffle, the thug is killed. Wanting to protect his family from scandal, August dons the crook's clothing and disappears. Meanwhile the papers announce his courage in death. Over the years, his life goes into a rapid decline until the penniless August is forced to live on the streets. One day, he learns that his son has become an internationally famous violinist. Poor August is barely able to beg people into giving him enough money to buy a ticket. The story ends on a windy Christmas morning with the decrepit and sorrowful August staring wistfully through a window pane at his happy warm family's celebration.
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55% (1) Mother Machree 75 min, PASSED, [Drama] [John Ford] [19 Dec 1928]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 55%, External Reviews
Actors: Belle Bennett, Philippe De Lacy, Ted McNamara, Victor McLaglen
Writer: Rida Johnson Young (from the story by), Gertrude Orr (scenario), Katherine Hilliker (titles), H.H. Caldwell (titles)
External Links: Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes IMDb Language: N/A Country: USA
Plot: Ellen McHugh, a poor Irish immigrant to America, finds work in a carnival and is thus able to send her son Brian to a fine school. But when her position is found out, the school expels ...
Rotten Tomatoes: Technically, Mother Machree was director John Ford's first sound film -- even though the sound was limited to a Fox Movietone musical score and sound-effects track. The story begins in a tiny Irish village at the turn of the century. Having lost her husband to a lightning storm, Ellen McHugh (Belle Bennett) vows to take her son Brian (Phillipe de Lacey) away from Ireland and bring him up in America. Upon her arrival in the States, Ellen is unable to secure a job, forcing her to accept employment as a fabricated "freak" with the carnival side show managed by rowdy Terrence O'Dowd (Victor McLaglen) Her meager earnings are hardly enough to finance her son's education, so Ellen tearfully allows the wealthy principal of the school to legally adopt her boy. As the years pass, Brian grows into manhood believing that his mother is dead. Now a lawyer (and now played by Neil Hamilton), Brian is unaware that his mother is working as a housekeeper in a ritzy 5th Avenue household. He falls in love with Rachel Van Studdiford (Eulalie Jensen), the girl whom Ellen has raised from infancy. Upon being introduced to Ellen's beloved "nanny," Brian is at last reunited with his mother -- just seconds before he is called away to serve in WWI. Unfortunately, Mother Machree, along with most of John Ford's silent films, apparently no longer exists.
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50% (1) Wild Geese 70 min, [Drama] [Phil Goldstone] [15 Nov 1927]Ratings & Reviews: IMDb Reviews: 50%, External Reviews
Actors: Belle Bennett, Donald Keith, Eve Southern, Russell Simpson
Writer: Martha Ostenso (novel), A.P. Younger
External Links: IMDb Language: English Country: USA
Plot: N/A
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