E.H. Calvert

Rufus T. Firefly is named president/dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of wealthy Mrs. Teasdale.

One of the last bills signed by President Lincoln authorizes pushing the Union Pacific Railroad across the wilderness to California. But financial opportunist Asa Barrows hopes to profit from obstructing it. Chief troubleshooter Jeff Butler has his hands full fighting Barrows' agent, gambler Sid Campeau; Campeau's partner Dick Allen is Jeff's war buddy and rival suitor for engineer's daughter Molly Monahan. Who will survive the effort to push the railroad through at any cost?

Quincy Adams Wagstaff, the new president of Huxley U, hires bumblers Baravelli and Pinky to help his school win the big football game against rival Darwin U.

A ruthless, crooked stockbroker is murdered at his luxurious country estate, and detective Philo Vance just happens to be there; he decides to find out who killed him.

The company of a musical comedy gets shipwrecked on a tropical island inhabited by a "king" from Brooklyn and his coterie of wild native girls.

A woman infiltrates a criminal mob to avenge her brother's death.

The Man Without a Face is a 1928 American adventure film serial directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet.

The queen of mythical Sylvania marries a courtier, who finds his new life unsatisfying

A famous detective is invited to a swanky party at an elegant mansion, but before the night is over he finds himself involved with gangsters, blackmail and murde

Better known for her work in talkie "weepers," Helen Twelvetrees made a few preliminary appearances in such late silent films as Fox's Blue Skies. The audience was expected to believe that the twentysomething Twelvetrees and Frank Albertson are teenagers living together platonically in an orphan asylum. A wealthy old man comes calling to adopt Albertson -- who, feeling sorry for Twelvetrees, trades places with the girl. Thus it is that the heroine is carted off to a luxurious mansion, while Albertson remains behind. One year later, the old man discovers Albertson's deception, whereupon he invites the boy to live with him as well. By this time, Twelvetrees and Albertson are of marriageable age, thus the film ends with a wedding in the offing.

The hero is a young soldier who is in love with two girls simultaneously. While on the battlefield, the soldier learns that one of his sweethearts has committed suicide. Only temporarily taken aback, he begins to dream of the blissful domesticity which he will enjoy with the other girl upon his return.

Desperately needing money for her sick brother, Betty Hallowell passes herself off as missing fashion designer Nina Loring. She becomes successful, but suddenly she is arrested--the real Nina Loring turns out to have been an embezzler.

A beautiful showgirl, name "the Canary" is a scheming nightclub singer. Blackmailing is her game and with that she ends up dead. But who killed "the Canary". All the suspects knew and were used by her and everyone had a motive to see her dead. The only witness to the crime has also been 'rubbed out'. Only one man, the keen, fascinating, debonair detective Philo Vance, would be able to figure out who is the killer.

Claire Tree spends the night in the hotel room of her friend and confidante, saying goodbye to him before her impending marriage the following day. When she returns to the hotel with her husband the following night, the house detective accuses her of prostitution and throws them out. Now Claire must explain everything to her unsympathetic husband.

A Parisian cabaret dancer Emilia finds herself under the scrutiny of aristocratic British military officer Jerome Hautrix, who catches her act while on furlough during WWI. Convinced that Emilia is of noble birth, Hautrix tracks her down after the war, determined to trace her family tree. In the process, the two mismatched souls fall in love.

Gardoni, a down-on-his-luck vaudeville performer, is taken in by a fellow performer, a clown who has a bicycle riding act. Gardoni shows his appreciation by stealing the clown's act and his girlfriend, whom he marries.

A criminal known as Thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution. Into the next cell is placed Bob Moran, an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with Thunderbolt's girl, without knowing of their relationship. Thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young Moran for romancing his girl.

A lawyer defends a woman accused of murdering her husband without knowing that the murdered man was his own brother.

Finding his sweetheart, Christine, in the arms of a German officer, Price joins the French Air Legion. Christine is later revealed to be the spy whom Price has been ordered to drop behind enemy lines. They are reconciled, are captured by the Germans, and are rescued by his unit.

Margaret Fowler is a daughter of the city. Her mother, mean and avaricious, ground down to poverty, is willing to sacrifice her daughter's happiness and love for wealth and position. The girl longs for the beautiful things of life. Prompted by her own mother's pleadings, she turns her back on love.

After getting into a fight with a drunkard, Mike Moran spends 10 days on the rock pile and is disinherited by his wealthy uncle; out of luck and work, Mike joins the Marines and is soon court-martialed for kissing Vivian Marshall, a general's daughter. Mike's unit is ordered to China, and Mike goes along under guard. Vivian accompanies her father and is captured by a Chinese bandit; Mike rescues her and is himself taken prisoner. Vivian leads a Marine detachment to his rescue, and Mike is quickly pardoned, reinstated by his uncle, and firmly established in Vivian's affections. A lost film.

Four battle-weary American soldiers under fire reflect on the women they left behind.

Kate Lennox is bored with suburban life and her husband, Harry. Their next-door neighbors, the hen-pecked Henry Fells and his wife, Maud, have several boarders, among them Barbara Farley, who is Lennox's stenographer, and Lonnie Whinston, who is in love with Lennox's little sister, Ruth. Kate claims that women need more independence and less duty, and flirts with Ned Hollister, a car salesman.

Philo Vance investigates when a murderer preys upon members of a wealthy family on New York's Upper East Side.

A Pathe serial in ten chapters of two-reels each: Dan Winterslip, a wealthy man in Honolulu, has not spoken to his brother, who owns a hotel next to Winterslip's estate, in over twenty years. Minerva, sister to the estranged brothers, comes from Boston to try to reconcile the two men. John Quincy Winterslip, Dan's nephew, receives a letter instructing him to retrieve a box from an attic in San Francisco and dump the contents into the ocean. He is on board a ship bound for Hawaii in which other passengers are also after the box. Dan Winterslip is murdered. Charlie Chan, a Chinese detective, offers to help solve the killing and the mysteries surround the box. Chan is looking for the person whose wristwatch is missing the number 'three.'

Poor Ella Cinders is much abused by her evil step-mother and step-sisters. When she wins a local beauty contest she jumps at the chance to get out of her dead-end life and go to Hollywood, where she is promised a job in the movies. When she arrives in Hollywood, she discovers that the contest was a scam and the job non-existent. But through pluck, luck, and talent, she makes it in the movies anyway, and finds true love.

Eli Turner, an unscrupulous lawyer, is defeated in court by Frank Morrison, a young attorney. Frank also has had the temerity to get in Turner's path over a girl. Now Turner plots to send Morrison to prison, but Nance, a mountain girl, who admires Frank, warns him of his danger.

While a distinguished astronomer is giving a lecture in a planetarium, a shot rings out and one of the audience members is found dead. A tough detective and a brassy female reporter lock horns as they both try to break the case.

A war drama produced only 7 years after the end of World War I. Based on the play by Henry Wallace it chronicles two Englishmen, Dick Chappell (George O'Brien) and Roddy Dunton (Walter McGrail) at the dawn of The Great War. Both men are in love with the same woman, Violet Deering (Margaret Livingston). Chappell, whose proposal has been accepted by Violet, enlists for the war in Europe hoping to distinguish himself and make his fiancé proud of him.

A story about a man from Wyoming who enlists in the Army and is sent to the front during World War I. There he saves the life of an American society girl working in the Ambulance Corps. Afterwards at a rest camp, they meet again, fall in love, and are secretly married.

Young John Gallagher wants to be a newspaper reporter. One day he witnesses a murder committed by a mysterious man with only four fingers on one hand. He gives his account of the murder and a description of the killer to his hero, newsman Henry Callahan, resulting in his getting a job on the paper as an office boy. When circumstances arise that result in Callahan losing his job on the paper, he and Gallagher set out to discover the identity of the killer and help Callahan get his job back.

Four orphans, raised by an aging clown, becomes a high wire act in a circus. Lost film.

A good-natured cowboy who is romancing the new schoolmarm has a crisis of conscience when he discovers his best friend is engaged in cattle rustling.

Bob Halran, while riding in his machine, is struck by a small slipper which is thrown from a passing limousine. He suspects that the owner is in trouble, so speeds up, and by using a wrench as a revolver, forces the driver to stop. He then helps the girl into his car and they speed back to the city.

Army Captain takes a leave of absence to find out what happened to his missing father.....

Piccolo player Mike Scanlon loses his girl due to his unexciting lifestyle, so he decides to commit a robbery to gain notoriety. But the robbery goes awry and Mike finds himself on the run from the police, pretending to be a famous singer whose gimmick is wearing a mask in public.

Wall Street clerk George Coburn leaves the employ of broker Ralph Coombes to become an independent speculator. Although she disapproves, George's wife, Lisa, insists on being his "silent partner" with a fifty percent share of the profits. Lisa avoids spending lavishly and saves her share of the money. Later, Ralph, who is in love with Lisa, conspires with brokers Jim Harker and Charles Nesbit to involve George in a stock deal that will likely ruin his business and his marriage. George loses his fortune and leaves his wife. Ralph conspires with his friend, Gertie Page, to lure Lisa on a voyage to Europe. Soon after boarding the ship, Lisa learns of the plot and disembarks. She reunites with George and assures him that they are not destitute. (Source: AFI)

Philandering actor Richard Hardell is murdered at a movie studio. His jealous wife Blanche, his director Rupert Borka, and a girl he mistreated, Helen MacDonald, all have substantial reasons for having wanted him dead.

John and Irene Emerson's marriage begins well enough, but it is not long before John becomes less attentive. Feeling neglected, Irene spends more time with her girl friends, and John, consequently, falls prey to the vamping wiles of his secretary, Jean Ralston. When John comes home from the theater smelling of Jean's perfume, Irene procures a divorce; John then marries Jean.

Cowhand Jim Cleve is wrongly accused of murder and rescued by Jack Kells, leader of a band of Idaho outlaws known as the Border Legion. But when the Legion takes Joan Randall prisoner and leaves Cleve to guard her, he realizes that he cannot remain part of an outlaw band and decides to rescue Joan.

Inez Laranotta is an actress who is notorious for her vamp roles and for the wild parties she attends. But images are deceiving -- the parties (and police raids) are staged by Inez's press agent, and she is actually very devoted to her innocent younger sister, Fay Bartholdi.

Detective William Burke is assigned to capture George Watson, an escaped criminal. Six years of sleuthing discovers nothing, and Burke reports to the chief that he is unable to capture the fugitive from justice. During the six years Watson has prospered, and with his wife and family settles in a quiet dignified neighborhood.

Wealthy Henry Hanley takes his family to a dude ranch. But his daughter Gloria's boyfriend Eric is waiting and he is after Hanley's money. Ken overhears Eric's plan and abducts Gloria to stop the elopement. The outlaw Lacrosse and his henchman then catch Ken without his guns, take off with Gloria, and leave a tied up Ken in a burning shack.

In this melodrama set during WWI, a gangster joins the army and is promoted to major. He then returns from war torn Europe to tell a family that their beloved son had died in his arms during a battle. The major then falls in love with the late soldier's sister and decides to accept a position in town as the new police commissioner.

It's just after the Civil War and Captain Morgan and his confederate soldiers are establishing a town on the Bozeman trail. Colonel Strong and his union men are at the nearby fort. Things are peaceful until Riley has the Indians attack a union wagon train and leave a confederate sword at the scene.

Frank Clayton, a young city chap, plans a vacation on Uncle Barnes' farm. Going to his friend, George Randall, Clayton shows him Barnes' letter asking that George be brought along, as he has always been like a son to him and that someone will be glad to see him. George agrees to go and that night has a dream of the old days on the Barnes farm, where he worked as a young fellow and loved Barnes' pretty daughter, Mollie. Toiling on the old-fashioned place becomes irksome to him and he determines to seek his fortune in the city. Packing up his few things, he leaves a note for Barnes, then steals away in the moonlight and comes upon Mollie in the garden.

Chane Weymer, an Arizona rancher, goes after a gang that is trapping wild horses by the use of barbed-wire enclosures.

A mad doctor sews human head onto gorilla's body.

In this comedy, a Yiddish fellow cannot keep from kibitzing into other people's lives. Trouble ensues when he is mistakenly given a huge fortune in stocks that he can spend any way he pleases. At the same time, his daughter has fallen in love with an impoverished, but good hearted boy. When the kibitzer suggests he bet all his money on a dog of a racehorse, the lad does it. Against all odds, the horse wins, and suddenly the young man is quite wealthy.

A newlywed couple journeys west to make their fortune, and begins a banking empire.

Phony spiritualists were given a good going-over in the early talkie melodrama Darkened Rooms. Evelyn Brent stars as Ellen, a fraudulent medium working in cahoots with genuine clairvoyant Emory Jago (Neil Hamilton). The plotline is secondary; the film's main purpose was to emulate the methods of such professional "de-bunkers" as Mrs. Harry Houdini by exposing the various tricks of the spiritualist's trade.

Sally works at a cafe resort in Paris. After dancing at the cafe, Otis, an American theatrical agent, convinces her to pose as a Russian dancer. After being unmasked, she is offered a contract on Broadway. A lost film.

Cub reporter Dusty investigates the murder of the District Attorney and stumbles into a plot involving a kidnapping and a crooked election.

Irene Dupont, the pretty little French girl, in which John Braddon, Sr. had placed his affections, tires him and he casts her aside. Thorwald, a member in a political gang of "highbinders," unable to influence John Braddon, arranges with Irene to wreak vengeance upon his head, by making love to John Braddon, Jr.

Arrogant and wise-cracking Brice Wayne enrolls at the United States Military Academy at West Point and adjusts to life as a plebe. He tries out for the plebe football team, where he excels and shows up the varsity team. However, his ego is unrivaled, especially in competition with upperclassman Bob Sperry. At the same time, Brice meets a local girl named Betty Channing who cheers for him at football practices.

The ranchers have given money through Benton to the crooked lawyer Harkness to save the titles to their land. When Harkness gets a better offer, he steals Benton's receipt for the money and Benton is jailed. To fight back, Benton escapes jail at night to become the Phantom.

Pat and Danny McGlone are identical twin brothers, rivals and competitors in everything they do, and Pat grows up and becomes a policeman while Danny turns to a life of crime. They now find themselves on the opposite sides of the law, and both are in love with a pretty Irish girl from their neighborhood, Kate Dean. Before long one has to prove that blood is thicker than water.

The transition from horses to automobiles at the turn of the century causes problems between a father and son.

Frank Johnson, a wealthy landlord, without a heart, has no mercy for the poor. His cold attitude towards the public in general has a great influence in his life, and when he proposes marriage to Eleanor Groves, his manner is indeed anything but that of love. Eleanor, although she cares for Johnson, reprimands him and tells him that she could never marry a man as cruel as he is. Her last line of rebuff, "The ghost of your better self will appear to you and make you realize what a beast you are," gets Johnson to thinking.

Melting Millions is a 1927 American adventure film serial directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet.

Marco Perkins is a garage mechanic and a would-be-prizefighter who gets a place on the ritzy country club's polo team because he is the town's most proficient mallet-wielder, having learned to play polo while serving in the U.S. army. His hobnobbing with the town-elite and social upper-crust at the polo-matches gives him an inflated idea of his social position, and he decides he is is moving on up. He breaks off with his girl-friend, true-blue Cynthia Brown, and hits on débutante Gloria Staunton, who appears to have an interest in being hit upon. Gloria's interest lies mostly in showing Marco that hired-hands who can play polo still aren't to the manor born.

Released on July 3, 1927

Pierre, a trapper in the great northwest, catches a season's prize, a silver fox. Rene Bennett is fortunate in catching the mate. The two men are explaining to a trader, when Pierre discovers that his silver fox has disappeared from his sled. The trapper accuses Bennett and the latter is shot. Pierre flees and is seen later in the home of Mrs. Bennett, where she secretes him from the Northwest Mounted Police. Pierre later saves Mrs. Bennett from death, by carrying her to town, where he faces the man he had shot, her husband. The climax comes when a half-breed tries to sell Pierre's prize.

It was mother who through false love had sinned. Years later on her deathbed, as the last sacraments were administered, she confesses the folly of her youth. Her husband, a straightforward, conscientious man, had loved the boy as his own. A few days later the priest gives the son a note his mother had left him. The few lines on the first page sting him to the heart, but he does not weaken and his conscience tells him not to turn the leaf of his absolute disaster.

Cooper is a Union Army officer who after being jilted by girlfriend, Virginia Bruce, volunteers on what could be a suicide mission. He volunteers to go behind enemy lines disguised in Confederate gray as a staff officer to Robert E. Lee. He's to ride to a certain plantation which is a local brigade headquarters and deliberately let himself be caught with maps showing false Union troop positions. Of course, the penalty, then as now, is execution.

A 1924 film directed by Sidney Olcott.

A boy finds it difficult to live up to his father's reputation at his school.

Mrs. Mulligan, although in poor circumstances, taken the child of her neighbor, who has just passed into another world, to live with her. Dolly becomes quite chummy with Tom, one of Mrs. Mulligan's sons, and during the child's saddest hours Tom comforts her. Tom proposes that Dotty write a letter to her mother in heaven asking her to come back.

A young woman lingers too long on the boat seeing her sweetheart off, and the two embark together on an unplanned elopement to Europe.

Basil Breckenridge, a broken old man on the verge of starvation, but concealing it because of his proud southern ancestry, is set upon by young ruffians on the street. The old man becomes infuriated and gives the young leader a shaking. His father, Ald. Connors, the city's political boss, happens along and attacks the old man, who strikes at him with his cane. The sword blade inside falls out and the police arrest him on the charge of assault with intent to kill.

A destitute man ready to drown himself is rescued by a caring passing woman. Soon thereafter forgiven by his dying father, he inherits great wealth and becomes engaged to a society woman. When she only laughs at the poor on a slumming trip, he remembers his own past and the woman who saved him.

After being educated in England, Daisy Forbes returns to China, the country of her birth, and discovers that her father has recently died and that she has become a social outcast, owing to the public revelation that the oriental nurse who raised her was actually her mother...

The Shadow's third movie short, an adaptation from a Donald Van Riper story, "Dying Lips," which appeared in an issue of Detective Story Magazine.