Arthur Rankin

Longfellow Deeds lives in a small town, leading a small town kind of life. When a relative dies and leaves Deeds a fortune, Longfellow moves to the big city where he becomes an instant target for everyone. Deeds outwits them all until Babe Bennett comes along. When small-town boy meets big-city girl anything can, and does, happen.

Wildly optimistic chatterbox Eva Lovelace is a would-be actress trying to crash the New York stage. She attracts the interest of a paternal actor, a philandering producer, and an earnest playwright. Is she destined for stardom, or will she fade like a morning glory after its brief blooming?

She sought to conquer...but found Cupid her master! This is one of many lost films of the 1920s, no prints or Vitaphone discs survive, but the song with the same title and the trailer survives.

Rose Sargent, a Roaring '20s singer, becomes a Ziegfeld Follies star as her criminal husband gets deeper in trouble.

After an argument with his newspaper's city editor, press-photographer Jimmy Hudson quits his job and takes up free-lancing as a street-photographer for a living. He stumbles across the robbing of a jewelry store and takes a picture of one of the robbers as he is leaving the scene-of-the-crime in which murder has also been committed. At the risk of his own life, over the protests of his sweetheart, he sets a trap to catch the crook.

Elderly schoolteacher Nora Trinell, waiting to meet presidential nominee Dewey Roberts, recalls him as her student back in 1916 and his relation to Dan Hopkins, the man she married and lost.

A girl escapes marriage and hitchhikes with a young man in whose car a jewel thief has planted his loot.

Woman hopes to be a great singer and is encouraged by her scheming teacher. After she flops her husband, encouraged by an amorous professional singer tries opera and also flops.

Shortly before the curtain goes up the first time at the latest performance of Earl Carroll's Vanities, someone is attempting to injure the leading lady Ann Ware, who wants to marry leading man Eric Lander. Stage manager Jack Ellery calls in his friend, policeman Bill Murdock, to help him investigate. Bill thinks Jack is offering to let him see the show from an unusual viewpoint after he forgot to get him tickets for the performance, but then they find the corpse of a murdered woman and Bill immediately suspects Eric of the crime.

Mary Whitman has gone to Reno to obtain a divorce. While there she is arrested on suspicion of murdering a fellow guest at her hotel (which specializes in divorcers). There are many others at the hotel who wanted the victim out of the way. Charlie comes from his home in Honolulu to solve the murder.

The film tells the tale of three ex-cons who finally go straight, through the redemptive power of love. After rescuing Mary from certain death, the “three bad men” meet her saintly mother and stay on to help on their farm. In The Hidden Way, two of the ex-cons conspire to steal the family’s tiny nest egg, but through plot twists involving a medicinal spring, a wronged woman, a villainous Casanova, his avaricious father, and government inspectors (!), the pair eventually see their error and join the third in turning over a new leaf.

Dick Manning, an assistant district attorney, who is on the track of a gang of murderers, is abducted while visiting his sweetheart, Helen Grant. Helen's police dog tracks down the abductors, and Helen goes to their den, passing herself off as Chicago Ann, a notorious female gangster who dresses in men's clothing. The leader of the gang is attracted to Helen, but his jealous sweetheart exposes her as a fraud. Helen is made prisoner, but she manages to escape with the help of a friendly gangster. Helen alerts the police, and the den is raided in time to save Dick's life.

Charlie Chan's investigation of a blackmail-induced suicide as a case of murder leads him into a world of magick and mysticism peopled with a stage magician, a phoney spiritualist, and a for-real mind reader.

When a crafty reporter uses false pretenses to get a story out of heiress Tony Gateson, she turns the tables on him, telling the press that they are engaged. Suddenly he's front page news, every salesman is at his doorstep, and he loses his job. A series of misadventures ensues with him alternately back on his job and fired and her ex-fiancé showing up.

A ruthless stockbroker sells short in the copper business and ruins the life of his friends by ruining their finances. A lost film, only a nine second fragment survives.

Gervas Carew's wife, Elinor, has deserted him while he was fighting for France, for Lord Clyde Geraldine, a cad of the first order, but Elinor, in turn is cast off when Lord Geraldine turns his attention to an Irish lass, Marny. Marny has no idea of Geraldine's past nor his brutal nature.

As Powers is dying he tells Lee to look for a man with a girl named Mitzi. Heading north by dog sled as Curly the Kid, he finds her and her friend Lucky. But Flash is another friend and Lee is in trouble when his true identity becomes known.

The wealthy Van Dyke family are constantly in the media for outrageous behavior, much to the frustration of the patriarch, Dan Van Dyke. His self-centered wife has a fondness for foreign imports, including "pet projects" like dancers and such and his spoiled children Tony and Carol have constant run-ins with the law. When Dan himself ends up in the clink for five years for tax evasion, he becomes bunk-mates with ex-bootlegger Joe "Spots" Ricardi. Ricardi lectures him on being such a push-over for an out-of-control family, so a dying Dan makes Ricardi his estate trustee once he is released from prison. Ricardi is then thrust into high society and must do everything he once nagged Dan to do.

Sally Williams (Betty Bronson) marries Donald Moore (Richard Walling) and have trials and tribulations and input from others but they demonstrate that the most successful marriages are usually based on trust and respect, rather than on sex alone. Released in the UK under the title of "The Jazz Bride".

An actress is murdered in the midst of shooting a dance sequence for her latest picture, with Inspector Steve Trent on the case.

Finding herself in dire circumstances, the widowed Sylvia Darling determines that her son, Stephen, will complete his college education and develop his supposed literary talents; thus, she accepts a contract as singer in a Broadway nightclub, billed as "Dearie," and becomes an immediate sensation.

When a department store songstress becomes a radio star she keeps her identity secret, as the "Masked Countess", because he estranged husband is a crook.

Young orphaned brothers Tom and Bob are separated when Bob is taken to an orphan asylum by the authorities and Tom escapes. As time goes by Tom takes to a life of crime, but uses the proceeds to contribute to Bob's education. Years later the brothers meet again when Tom tries to involve Bob in a con game--and neither one knows that the other is his brother. Complications ensue.

Pilot disobeys unsafe orders and loses his job. He then starts a flying school which receives a boost when the government launches a program which it hopes will produce 20,000 pilots a year.

Starting in 1913 movie director Connors discovers singer Molly Adair. As she becomes a star she marries an actor, so Connors fires them. She asks for him as director of her next film. Many silent stars shown making the transition to sound.

A sheriff (Tim McCoy) flirts with a local girl (Marceline Day) and chases an outlaw called the Shadow.

When a waiter gives a society girl a public spanking for attending a Communist rally, her soup-tycoon uncle makes the waiter a vice-president of his company.

Five closely knit showgirls sign a pact to reunite one year after the closing of their Broadway production, but the lives of all five take many different turns, often for the worse.

When she hears her boy has been killed in WWI a vengeful Kentucky hills mother shelters a deserter as a protest.When the boy returns she asks him to kill the deserter who she learns is the son of a murderous revenue agent.

Newspaper editor (Foster) will do almost anything to increase circulation. He campaigns to free a condemned man while accusing a wealthy ex-criminal of a string of murders.

Though he was protecting her when he accidentally killed a man, Mabel Kane (Thelma Todd) refuses to testify on behalf of her dance partner Jerry Davis (George Murphy), and he's sent to jail. In a riot, a hostile convict (Jack La Rue) forces Jerry to help him escape, so Jerry takes to the streets himself. Nightclub entertainer Anne Taylor (Nancy Carroll) meets him, and convinces her boss Louis (Arthur Hohl) to hire him as her partner.

Runaway Girls is a lost 1928 silent film drama directed by Mark Sandrich and starring Shirley Mason and Hedda Hopper. It was produced by Harry Cohn and distributed by his Columbia Pictures, then a fledgling studio.

"Stake-Out" Kelly, ace detective, meets Mary Higgins at a small Hollywood sandwich shop where he expects to get some information concerning Packey Davis, head of a ring of jewel thieves. His suspicions are confirmed when Mary warns him that Davis is outside - waiting for him. Kelly sets a trap and, in the ensuing battle, one of the gangsters is killed. Davis is interested in rubbing out Kelly as Kelly and Baker are the only two witnesses against Smitty, a Davis henchman. Baker is in the hospital and the plan is bring Smitty there for identification. Kelly accidentally slips the secret to Mary, who in turn innocently informs Packey. A trap is laid.

A man involved in a crime (Nolan) kills his key witness by mistake and resigns himself to death. He changes his name so as not to harm his family. The law is not content with his explanation, however.

The story of a young man's discovery of his father.

The Wife's Relations, The Lost Heiress, is a 1928 American silent comedy film directed by Maurice Marshall and starring Shirley Mason, Ben Turpin and Gaston Glass.

A farmer in Illinois played by Lionel Barrymore is recruited by Abraham Lincoln to pose as a copperhead during the Civil War.

1935 comedy in which an immigrant (Jean Arthur), a reporter (George Murphy) and a gangster (Douglass Dumbrille) cross paths.

Wild girls at a college pay more attention to parties than their classes. But when one party girl, Stella Ames, goes too far at a local bar and gets in trouble, her professor has to rescue her. Gossip linking the two escalates until Stella proves she is decent by shielding an innocent girl and winning the professor's respect.

Joan Leesom is stranded in a remote South American jungle village. She is pursued by the rapacious Taggart Taggart, however, has been involved with the beautiful native girl Chita. Chita now feels nothing but hatred for Joan, creating a deadly triangle that leads to an explosive ending.

A film producer is found murdered on a ship, and among the suspects are a young woman whose mother was mistreated by him and his recently fired electrician.

During the Russian Revolution Princess Vera, though betrothed to Prince Dimitri, is attracted to the peasant Feodor.

The frothy experiences of a vain little flapper. Her father induces an actor friend to become a gentlemanly cave man and the film becomes another variation of the 'Taming of the Shrew' theme.

Studio publicist discovers Minnesota skating teacher and takes her to Hollywood. She goes back to Minnesota but he follows her.

The Jewish Aaronson family lives in simple neighborhoods in the ghetto of a big city. Esther spreads the sun with her smile and when her mother goes blind and is taken to hospital, she takes on the role of head of the family.

After having been wrongly accused of murder and robbery, a heretofore kindly and gregarious weaver becomes a nasty, bitter, lonely old miser. Originally a seven-reel picture, a three-reel re-release survives.

Michael Frazer, newly rich from his invention of a can-opener, has drifted away from Jane, his wife, who persists in her old-fashioned ways. He advises his daughter Marcia to marry "someone congenial so that when love goes you will have common interests." Neighboring architect Jack Ballard obtains the contract to design Frazer's house through the friendship of his attractive wife, Emily, with Frazer. Emily and Frazer become intimate friends, arousing the concern of Mrs. Frazer and Jack Ballard. Determined to teach his wife a lesson and win her back, Jack asks Marcia Frazer to run away with him. She consents but later reconsiders and they return home. Frazer realizes that Mrs. Ballard meant nothing to him, and Jack is reunited with his wife.

Swanee River is a 1940 American biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, then is accused of sympathizing when the Civil War breaks out. Typical of 20th Century Fox biopics of the time, the film is more fictional than factual biography.

The story of an egotistical crime writer who gets involved with the case of a notorious art thief (who is believed to be dead) while at the same time romancing a lovely young actress who's in a play that also happens to be the cover for massive jewel job. Art connoisseur and criminologist George Melville is hired to track down art thieves, assisted by perky Claire Peyton and goaded by Phil Bane, the roaring newspaper editor who has employed him. The mastermind poses as a theatrical impresario and stages a war drama, replete with loud explosions, to divert attention from his band of thieves, who are cracking safes in a bank adjacent to the theater.

Father goes to an American Legion convention in Hollywood and the family goes along, visiting a studio a causing havoc on the set.

Two sailors who are always competing against each other set their sights on the same girl. When she chooses one over the other, their friendship ends acrimoniously. However, things change when one the men is in a submarine trapped beneath the ocean and the other, a diver, is sent down on a rescue mission.

Beau Nash is a "gentleman crook" who headquarters his gang of jewel thieves in a run-down boardinghouse. When one of his gang, Mike, gets arrested, his sister Claire--aka "Lady Byron"--swears to get revenge. The gang frames Donald, the best friend of the detective who arrested Mike, for a jewelry store robbery. The detective gives Donald--and his new love, Claire--a short time to find the thieves and clear his name before he takes him in.

In this action film, a courageous test pilot works with experimental aircraft for the US Armed Forces. When an important airplane manufacturer dies, his daughter is left to run the company. The company seems to be producing dangerous prototypes, so the woman decides to close the company.

Leon's ex-wife moves into the apartment next to him.

The daughter of a boarding house keeper, Iris Carroll (Tashman) is subjected to the unwanted advances of her mother's boarders. When mom dies, Iris kicks over the traces, moves out of town, buys a gorgeous wardrobe and sets about to "get even" with the entire male population.

Her education in a French convent school completed, plain Justine Spencer returns to New York. There she is shocked to discover that her mother Dodo is a flamboyant musical comedy actress with many male admirers.

Addie Fippany, her father Jean Paul Batiste Fippany, her mother Josephine and her sister Cecile roam the country-side in a mule-drawn wagon, trading trinkets to farmers for chickens which they sell in the cities. Addie and her father love the care-free life, but Mrs. Fippany and Cecile want to settle down in New York City. As soon as the "chicken wagon family" reaches New York, Addie gets into mischief and a policeman, Matt Hibbard, helps her and falls in love with Cecile. He helps the family settle into a deserted firehouse which is up for public sale.

Captain Terrance Connaughton loses his stable of horses in a card game with Algernon Cravens.

An artist pretends to be a valet to escape a woman's advances. He marries another woman but must keep painting in secret to make enough money.

King James I gives his consent to the marriage between Lord Carnal and Lady Jocelyn Leigh. Lady Jocelyn, however, does not want to wed the evil Lord Carnal, and makes her escape on a bridal ship headed for Jamestown, VA. When it lands, a ruffian tries to take Jocelyn as his bride, but Captain Ralph Percy rescues her by marrying her himself. The marriage, however, is in name only, as Jocelyn wants little to do with Percy.

Cynthia Martin’s father insists she marry before her two younger sisters Helen and Grace. So, she invents a husband for herself called Major Smith. Trouble begins when the fictitious husband Major John Smith materializes, bringing with him chaos and confusion.

Ignoring the advice of her husband, a mother indulges her son's every wish and demand all throughout his childhood. By the time she realizes her treatment of her son has spoiled him almost beyond belief, he is on trial for manslaughter.

A sports announcer and a friend investigate after a pitcher misses a series. When they discover that gangsters are trying to find a hidden fortune, they use the radio show to foil the plan.

A federal agent goes to work for a taxi company believing it to be a front for a gang of counterfeiters.

The owner of a border town gambling saloon falls in love with a promiscuous young girl. When she has an affair with another, he tosses her out of town. She gets revenge by marrying his younger brother.

No description available.

A bank clerk forges a check to help his girlfriend's father. He's found out, but instead of being arrested he becomes a member of a gang of forgers.

In search of her fugitive brother, who wounded a man who was later murdered, Johanna Hearne encounters pirates, a Chinaman with a harem and criminals as slaves, and love on a desert island for ship captain Dan Meloy.

Tom Ford, Jr., keeps secret his romance with his father's secretary, Eve Grant. Ford, Sr., enlists Eve to entertain out-of-town buyer Mr. Mack. When Mack's wife insists on joining the nightclub party, Eve is introduced as Mrs. Ford. While listening to a radio broadcast from the nightclub, Mrs. Ford is alarmed by the announcement that a certain dance tune has been requested by "Mr. and Mrs. Tom Ford." Ford enlists his son to help extricate him from his difficulties with the boorish couple. Tom agrees to help if Ford, Sr., will consent to his marriage. After the party moves to the Ford home, the intoxicated Mr. Mack and his corpulent wife decide to stay the night. As they are about to retire, Mrs. Ford returns and calls the police, having seen an unfamiliar figure raiding her icebox. Tom explains the situation to everyone's satisfaction and introduces Eve as his bride.

Directed by Wallace Worsley.

With an eye towards social climbing wealthy Dustan Renshaw breaks his engagement with Janet Preece to wed socialite Leslie Brown. Moving abroad after marriage Leslie welcomes her friends the Stonehays while Dustan is away, accompanied by their private secretary, Janet Preece. Janet's sudden illness compels her to remain, and the two women become fast friends. Leslie learns the story of Janet's betrayal by a man known to her only as "D. R. Devastated to learn the truth Leslie leaves Dustan but as time passes, they are reunited at Janet's deathbed.

In this silent film, now considered lost, Doug Caswell falls for Irene, his wealthy father's mistress. It's up to Doug's stepmother Helen to put things right.

Successful actress Vanna Du Maurier ignores her friends' advice and overworks herself toward her goal of having her own theater. She is introduced to Henri De Greve, a millionaire who might help her, but she recognizes him to be her former husband, the father of her son, Teddy, and therefore refuses to have anything to do with him. The shock of seeing him is hard on Vanna, and fearing the loss of her youthful beauty, she visits a physician in Vienna to be rejuvenated. Vanna returns thoroughly changed and even invites the attentions of De Greve when she realizes his interest in Sylvia Grayson, Teddy's sweetheart. Teddy turns against his mother, Sylvia attempts to drown herself, and Vanna lures De Greve to her boudoir, where she discloses his past and gives him a beating with a riding crop. Sylvia and Teddy are reunited and forgive Vanna, who now recognizes the folly of vanity and accepts the proposal of long-time admirer Richard Dowling. This film is lost.

Returning from World War I, Glenn Kilbourne travels to Arizona to regain his health. He meets a local girl, Flo Hutler, who helps him recover. His fiancee, Carley Burch, follows him to Arizona but soon decides she'd rather go back to New York. When Flo is badly hurt in an accident, Glenn decides to repay her for her help in bringing him back to health by proposing marriage.

A blowhard cowboy talks himself into a job as a movie stunt man.

After his father refuses to lend him his car, jazz age youngster Smoke Thatcher 'borrows' a neighbor's car to take Patsy, his sweetheart, to a dance. A car-fight with a rival results in the wreck of the borrowed automobile. The garage to which the car is taken for repair turns out to be a gang's hideaway and a place where stolen cars are brought and fenced.

Joyce Reid, a wealthy young debutante, stows away on a cargo ship to China, carrying as passengers her dashing aviator sweetheart, Dan Bailey and and her munitions-producing father, E. J. Reid and an assortment of the usual south-seas characters along with some Asians with varying agendas. The cargo included a shipment of bombs and machine guns. She soon finds herself being held hostage and they will free her only if Dan agrees to pilot a bombing plane for some Chinese bandits.

A disgraced sea captain signs on as a crewman on a cargo ship. He discovers that the vessel is captained by the very man who stole his ship, a sadistic brute who also took the former captain's wife and daughter. The ship's crew is composed mostly of sailors who were shanghai'ed aboard and are kept in line by the brutal captain and his even more fearsome first mate. The captain and one of his fellow crewmen--who has fallen in love with the man's daughter, who now belongs to the brutal captain--try to unite the crew to end the brutal reign of the captain and his henchman. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2007.

Clever vamp Eve Quinn has generally had her way with men, while her quiet, deep-thinking sister Cornelia cannot bring herself to deliberately pursue them. So Eve wins Lewis Dike, whom Cornelia loves. Immediately after her wedding Eve beings a series of dangerous adventures with Wilfred Meadows. Lewis learns of them and endeavors to reason with his wife, but she will not listen. As Cornelia is sailing for Europe, Lewis meets her at the dock, tells her that he made a mistake in marrying Eve and that they will be divorced--and that he loves Cornelia. They part with mutual assurances of a future meeting. A lost film.

Richard Jones is the assistant to the district attorney. He decides to single-handedly expose a drug ring that is terrorizing Madison, a reformer. Madison's son, Bob, has become a hophead because of the ring, and Greer, Jones' rival for the hand of Madison's daughter, Constance, is the ring's leader. The district attorney himself is in league with Greer as well. Jones disguises himself as an Asian, leaps over tenement roofs, beats up a mob of Chinese gangsters, and performs several dozen other daredevil feats.

A gang of horse thieves are able to operate because the crooked local sheriff is in cahoots with them. When Tom Mix's beloved horse Tony Jr. is stolen, he steps in to break up the gang.

Twin brothers James and Horace Bullard have opposite personalities. James, a fun dandy, marries a club-woman. Horace, introvert and prudish, marries a butterfly. A lost film.