Harry Allen
Birth : 1883-07-10, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Death : 1951-12-04
History
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harry Allen (July 10, 1883 – December 4, 1951) was an Australian-born American character actor of the silent and sound film eras.
He began his acting career on stage with the J. C. Williamson organisation, performing around Australia. In 1910 he married fellow actor Marjorie Josephine née Condon in Brisbane. The union was not a success and in 1912 he left Australia for North America. In the United States, Allen was a member of a touring theater company, known for their popular rendition of The Better 'Ole. He appeared on Broadway in the early 1920s.
His first film role was in the 1923 silent film, The Last Moment, in a supporting role. In his career Allen appeared in over 100 films, mostly in supporting and smaller roles. Some of the more notable films he appeared in include: Of Human Bondage (1934), starring Bette Davis and Leslie Howard; the Marx Brothers' classic, A Night at the Opera; the original Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable; William Wyler's 1942 Academy Award-winning film, Mrs. Miniver, starring Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, and Teresa Wright; Jane Eyre (1944), starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine; the Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor version of National Velvet (1945); and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), starring George Sanders. His final appearance on film was in the 1949 film, Challenge to Lassie, starring Edmund Gwenn.
Allen died on December 4, 1951, and was buried in Glen Abbey Memorial Park.
Old Deaf Townsman (uncredited)
Pete Marshall is sent as a replacement to the mountain district town of Plainville when a public opinion surveyor who went there goes missing. Visiting the hillbilly family of Mamie Fleagle, Pete begins to suspect that she and her two sons have murdered the surveyor. Pete then believes that Mamie is slowly poisoning wealthy Grandma Fleagle, who has put a vital clue to her fortune in a nonsensical embroidered sampler.
Tailor's Delivery Man (uncredited)
Stephen Neale is released into WWII England after two years in an asylum, but it doesn't seem so sane outside either. On his way back to London to rejoin civilization, he stumbles across a murderous spy ring and doesn't quite know to whom to turn.
English Cabbie (uncredited)
American Susan travels with her father to England for a vacation. Invited to a society ball, Susan meets Sir John Ashwood and marries him after a whirlwind romance. However, she never quite adjusts to life as a new member of the British gentry. At the outbreak of World War I, John is sent to the trenches and never returns. When her son goes off to fight in World War II, Susan fears the same tragic fate may befall him too.
Guard
After a harsh childhood, orphan Jane Eyre is hired by Edward Rochester, the brooding lord of a mysterious manor house to care for his young daughter.
McWhinny
A railroad man and the owner of a freight line battle for control of a crucial mountain pass.
First Cockney Air Raid Watcher
In World War II, American Gates Trimble Pomfret is in London during the Blitz to sell the ancestral family house. The current tenant, Leslie Trimble, tries to dissuade him from selling by telling him the 140-year history of the place and the connections between the Trimble and Pomfret families.
English middle-class family, The Minivers, experience life in the first months of World War II.
Cockney
An American joins the British Royal Air Force just before Pearl Harbor is attacked, and falls in love with a beautiful English girl.
Hubert
In 1940 England, aristocratic Prudence Cathaway alarms her snobbish parents by joining the WAF service branch. She soon meets and falls in love with the brooding Clive Briggs, despite his prejudice against the upper classes, and agrees to spend a week with him at a Dover hotel. When Clive's soldier friend, Monty, arrives to retrieve him, Prudence learns that Clive went AWOL after Dunkirk, and urges him to recall why England must fight the war.
Beggar Outside Club Inferno (uncredited)
Bucolic lawyer John Wayne takes on big-city corruption in A Man Betrayed. He sets out to prove that an above-suspicion politician (Edward Ellis) is actually a crook. The price of integrity is sweet in this instance, since Wayne happens to be in love with the politician's daughter (Frances Dee).
Sunshine
The managers of a teak lumber camp in Burma compete for the affections of a beautiful American entertainer who gets stranded in Rangoon.
Taxi Driver (uncredited)
On the eve of World War II, a British officer revisits Waterloo Bridge and recalls the young man he was at the beginning of World War I and the young ballerina he met just before he left for the front. Myra stayed with him past curfew and is thrown out of the corps de ballet. She survives on the streets of London, falling even lower after she hears her true love has been killed in action. But he wasn't killed. Those terrible years were nothing more than a bad dream is Myra's hope after Roy finds her and takes her to his family's country estate.
Mayor (uncredited)
A behind the times Chicago bootlegger goes to England with his lawyer to claim his estate as the Earl of Gorley.
Doorkeeper
A British doctor and his son's Austrian governess have an affair and are accused of killing his wife.
Murdock
The struggle of a man to build a steam ship to take him across the Atlantic in spite of all setbacks, and his win against a crack sailing boat in the early 19th century.
Groom
A little girl goes in search of her father who is reported missing by the military during the Second Boer War.
Baltimore & Ohio Engineer
A southern aristocrat clashes with a driver transporting stolen slaves to freedom.
Carriage Driver (uncredited)
Socially prominent Michael Ashburn, chief assistant for a London loan broker makes a large loan during a closing time to a man for a pair of earrings. He is unaware that the collateral can not be removed from the ears in which they reside, so then Julie becomes part of the collateral.
Bos'n of Rescue Ship
This MGM An Historical Mystery short traces the final voyage of the Mary Celeste, a ship discovered at sea, in December 1872, devoid - for no discernible reason - of crew, passengers and captain. At "the famed nautical court of Gibraltar", investigators propose three hypotheses.
Old Man
Daniel Francis O'Toole, singing maestro in a New York restaurant, finds himself the unexpected heir to an estate in Ireland. He doesn't have money enough for the passage to Ireland, but the band members decide to incorporate him, advancing him the fare for equal shares in the estate. In Ireland, Danny finds that his is only a half-share, and the other half belongs to Mavourneen Kerrigan and she has the exclusive right to sell or keep the property...which, despite his pleas, she refuses to do. She also declares him an undesired guest, objects to his presence and insists that he prepare his own meals. He does so in a large main hall, but can only make hamburgers.
'Fish' McCorkle
A truck driver races a train to the West Coast in an attempt to determine which method of transportation is faster.
McKenzie
In the early 1900s, as the Panama Canal is being built, a group of doctors try to discover a cure for yellow fever, a disease that is decimating the workers constructing the canal.
Jacques (uncredited)
When a major newspaper accuses wealthy socialite Connie Allenbury of being a home-wrecker, and she files a multi-million-dollar libel lawsuit, the publication's frazzled head editor, Warren Haggerty, must find a way to turn the tables on her. Soon Haggerty's harried fiancée, Gladys Benton, and his dashing friend Bill Chandler are in on a scheme that aims to discredit Connie, with amusing and unexpected results.
Soldier Bothered By Rats (uncredited)
In mid-nineteenth century England the medical establishment does not recognize the value of skilled nurses, cleanliness, nutrition and kindness. Florence Nightingale's heroic measures slowly changes all of this.
Ship Captain
John Foster and Kenneth Grainger are a couple of Englishmen stationed at a teak wood post. When Foster's fiancée, Mary Trevor, writes him that their engagement is off, he goes off to Mandalay.
Perkins
The second of the three film versions of the E. Phillips Oppenheim espionage thriller set largely in an old dark house where a tremulous wife wonders if her husband is really his double, a dastardly German spy.
Wherryman (uncredited)
Fletcher Christian successfully leads a revolt against the ruthless Captain Bligh on the HMS Bounty. However, Bligh returns one year later, hell bent on avenging his captors.
Alf (uncredited)
After the woman who raised him claims he's not her son, Richard searches for clues about his identity. Urged on by his mentor, Capt. Randolph Courtney, Richard focuses on Julia Trent Anders, a middle-aged actress who just might be his real mother. But soon, Richard begins to fall for Julia's stepdaughter. Amidst the upheaval, Richard schemes to return Julia to the stage -- but he's in for another big surprise.
In 19th century Russia a woman in a respectable marriage to a senior statesman must grapple with her love for a dashing soldier.
Herbert Smythe - Ambulance Driver
An Austrian officer must face up to the good and evil aspects of his own personality as he becomes involved in a war.
Cabbie at End (uncredited)
A young man finds himself attracted to a cold and unfeeling waitress who may ultimately destroy them both.
Collins
In India, a police inspector investigates a murder that took place on a train between Calcutta and Bombay.
Sandy (uncredited)
Philo Vance, accompanied by his prize-losing Scottish terrier, investigates the locked-room murder of a prominent and much-hated collector whose broken Chinese vase provides an important clue.
British Soldier Giving German a Cigarette (Uncredited)
While waiting out World War I in a German POW camp, Captain Fred Allison discovers that his oldest and dearest friend Digby has also been captured and put into the same camp with him. Fred longs for news of his wife, Monica, but Digby speaks little of her. Digby knows a secret about Monica, a secret he must keep from his friend, and it wears at his conscience so much that he attempts a reckless escape.
Sergeant McCarey
In order to find out who is smuggling guns to the Indians, an army officer pretends to have been demoted and hold a grudge against the army, hoping that the smugglers will try to contact him and take him into their gang.
McWylie
The dream of Paul Dombey, the wealthy owner of the shipping company, is to have a son to continue his business. Tragically, Dombey's wife dies shortly after giving birth to their son.
Pvt. Jones
Two brothers, Jack and Tom, are in love with the same woman, Molly. While the two brothers go off to war and Molly does her part in the effort, Tom believes that Rose is waiting for him, while in fact, she loves Jack and only turned to Tom on the rebound. Jack and Molly meet while he is on leave, and when he returns to battle, he doesn't know how to handle the situation with his brother.
Deputy
Working under cover, Tex goes south of the border and joins Rand's gang where he befriends gang member Kansas. He plans to lead the gang into the Sheriff's trap, but hopes to spare his new friend.
Smith - of Smith & Smith
Having helped his father escape the law, Jim Curtis heads north with the Marshal chasing him. He and his pal Snicker elude the Marshall by changing clothes with two actors. Now forced to do vaudeville skits, Jim finds the man responsible for his and his father's problem working in the same saloon.
Sheriff
A wealthy man's wife becomes bored with him, so his friend decides to trick her into believing her husband is having an affair to "wake her up".
Bert (the Cockney)
In this adventure, trouble ensues when two American French Legionnaires fall for the same girl and begin fighting over her when one of them announces that he plans to marry her. The argument is quite heated and in the ensuing scuffle one of them is shot and wounded.
Allen (uncredited)
World War I ace Dick Courtney derides the leadership of his superior officer, but he soon is promoted to squadron commander and learns harsh lessons about sending subordinates to their deaths.
Peg Leg
Lovely Anita dreams of escaping the monotony of her island home and sailing to bustling Havana. But when her abusive father promises her to the greasy local merchant, Anita does everything in her power to make her dream a reality.
Short
On board a yacht sailing from India to Britain, the owner of the vessel is murdered by one of the passengers. (This film was produced both in full sound and silent versions, the latter for theaters that had not yet been wired for sound.)
'Dad' Mason
The daughter of a wealthy industrialist wants to take over the company when her father retires, but the father--an old-fashioned sort who doesn't believe that "girls" belong in business--is planning on leaving the company to her wastrel playboy brother. In order to prove to her dad that she can handle the job, she disguises herself as an ordinary "working girl" and gets a job in her dad's plant. There she meets and falls in love with a clerk. She brings the young man home to meet her folks, but during the evening the family safe is robbed, and all signs point to her new boyfriend.
Jean
Set during the 16th-century Spanish occupation of Flanders, the story concentrates on the fiercely patriotic Mark Van Ryke (Colman). Donning the guise of "Leatherface," a swashbuckling masked avenger, Van Ryke performs his derring-do on behalf of the Prince of Orange (Nigel de Brulier). Naturally, Van Ruke considers beautiful Spanish aristocrat Donna Leonora de Vargas (Vilma Banky) to be a bitter enemy, and the feeling is mutual. To no one's surprise, however, Van Ryke and Donna Leonara eventually fall in love (hence the title). The pulse-pounding climax finds Van Ryke riding hell-for-leather through a rainstorm to warn the Flemish troops about the Spaniards' plans to burn the city of Ghent to the ground. Two Lovers was based on Madame Orczy's novel Leatherface, and adapted for the screen by Alice Duer Miller.
Blinky
Bud Taylor loves Mary Stoddard but is leaving for Alaska in search of gold, leaving a police-dog pup with her that he has named "Phantom." Wade Burton is anxious to win Mary and her father's money. Later, Wade follows Bud to Alaska and attempts to claim-jump Bud's gold strike, but is foiled by Bud and "Phantom."
Williams
Frequently cited as one of the first war films to feature the female angle, “Corporate Kate” is the story of a pair of Brooklyn manicurists who go to France during WWI to entertain the troops with a song-and-dance act. Both girls struggle not only with the brutalities of war but also with their love for the same man.
Photographer
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.
Riggs
The Enchanted Cottage stars Richard Barthelmess as Oliver, a physically and emotionally wounded World War I veteran who comes home to a fiancée who promptly leaves him. Licking his wounds in solitude, he meets a young woman named Laura (May McAvoy). They fall in love and agree to marry, but unexpected and magical events occur inside The Enchanted Cottage where they have agreed to spend their wedding night.
Pat Rooney
The Last Moment is a silent film now considered lost.
