Fred C. Newmeyer
Birth : 1888-08-09,
Death : 1967-04-24
History
A native of Central City, Colorado, Newmeyer is best known for directing a handful of films in the Our Gang series and for directing several Harold Lloyd movies. With Sam Taylor, Newmeyer co-directed Lloyd in films including Safety Last! (1923), Girl Shy (1924), and The Freshman (1925). Newmeyer also had an extensive directing and acting resume in other comedy short films. He appeared as an actor in 71 films between 1914 and 1923.
Prior to his film career, Newmeyer played professional baseball. Partial statistics exist for his time as a left-handed pitcher in Minor League Baseball at the Class D level from 1911 to 1913 in the Southwest Texas League, Michigan State League, and Central Association.[6] He made at least 66 appearances and was the winning pitcher of at least 26 games.
Newmeyer was the original director of the first short in the Our Gang series, also titled Our Gang; his version tested poorly, and producer Hal Roach scrapped most of the footage and remade the short with Robert McGowan as the director. Newmeyer, after directing numerous other shorts at Roach, returned to the Our Gang series in 1936 to direct The Pinch Singer, Arbor Day, Mail and Female and the feature film General Spanky.
Newmeyer and his wife, Berna, had a son, Fred W. After his film career, Newmeyer worked with the athletic department of University High School in Los Angeles. Newmeyer died on April 24, 1967, in Woodland Hills, California, at the age of 78.
Director
The Gang's male members, headed by Spanky, decided to create the "He-Man Woman Haters Club" in reaction to not being invited to one of the girl's parties.
Director
Orphaned shoeshine boy Spanky is working on a Mississippi riverboat during the Civil War. There he befriends young runaway slave Buckwheat. After wronging a vicious gambler, Spanky and Buckwheat are forced to jump ship. Finding solace at a nearby house, the two are picked by Marshall Valiant for an important mission. This inspires Spanky to organize the local kids to form a small army of their own.
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Truant officers mistake 2 midgets for members of the gang.
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Alfalfa and our gang try to win fifty dollars on a radio contest.
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A colonial police detective in an Eastern seaport seeks a stolen gem, and infiltrates the underworld by posing as a look-alike wharfside bar owner.
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Private detective Donegal Dawn is summoned by the police commissioner to solve the reasons for a crime wave in Chinatown.
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In this family comedy, the wealthy executive of a steel company must endure life with a strict, teetotaling wife, a wild daughter, and a deadbeat son. To gain some much needed attention, the lonesome fellow hires a hitman to kill him. Instead, the gunman kidnaps him to frighten the family into appreciating their devoted father.
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Two ship's cooks get lost in the desert and unwittingly enroll in the Foreign Legion!
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Bob Hamilton gets into trouble when crooks cause the defeat of his father's horse in the Derby, and it is reported he is in with the crooks. The old man disowns him and his sweetheart, Patricia , breaks their engagement. So Bob and "Skipper", the also-suspected trainer, head for the western tracks, taking with them the horse Hamilton Senior forced them to buy, determined to make good and prove they are on the level.
Director
Wealthy young socialite Diane Wyman squanders her fortune and becomes involved in a scandalous raid at a wild party. Her legal guardian, a lecherous old man who has the hots for her, hires a private detective to spy on her. He tails her to a train headed for New Orleans, but she catches on to him. She befriends a young woman aboard the train and they both give the private eye the slip. What Diane doesn't know, however, is that that her newfound friend is actually a notorious criminal known as The Moth, and she has her own reasons for helping Diane escape--she, too, is being tailed by a detective, who's after a cache of jewels she's stolen.
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A wealthy young socialite gets the gambling bug, and soon it goes from being just a fun pastime to an addiction, and she begins to lose more and more of her fortune.
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Officer John Brown is after the outlaw known as the Night Rider. Posing as Jim Blake he takes a job on the Rogers ranch. He finds the secret passage from the Rogers mine to the Rogers house used by the Night Rider and also a note written by the Night Rider to his henchmen. Practicing his hand writing, he has a plan to trap him.
Director
Prizefighter Jimmy Nolan, facing an opportunity to get a championship fight, is knocked out when he sustains what is apparently a permanent injury to his arm. From there, Nolan's path leads downhill. He is drawn into a romance with a nightclub entertainer, then is framed on a theft charge by a jealous suitor. After his prison term, Nolan makes a spectacular comeback in a fight which proves his courage and integrity, while disproving the fallacy about the old sports adage that "they never come back."
Director
In this murder mystery, sexy blonde film star Irma Gladden is found dead in her car after shooting the last scene in her film, "Falling Star" at Eminent Studios. The suspects are numerous due to her free and easy lifestyle and messy romantic affairs. Among them are Grace Sibley the jealous wife of her director, Warren Sibley, her drunken actor husband, Andre Leighton, her screenwriter boyfriend, Rex Forsythe, and her first husband, Robert Worth. Also on hand to help solve the mystery are visiting reporter Bob Adair, Irma's secretary, Valerie Christine, and policemen Captain Sommers and Sergeant Delaney.
Director
Inspector Killany of the New York City police department is called in to investigate the murder of a subway passenger and the usual-and-unusual suspects climb on and off at each stop.
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A wealthy family is thrown into turmoil when the daughter falls for the family chauffeur and the son begins to keep company with a chorus girl.
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The two partners of a ladies' garter business are constantly feuding with each other. When they ask their lawyer to dissolve their partnership, he proposes that instead the two of them play a single poker hand: the loser to become the winner's personal manservant for a year.
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No one suffered more magnificently in the early-talkie era than the inimitable Helen Twelvetrees. In Grand Parade, the actress is cast as Molly, the sweetheart of minstrel-show performer Jack Kelly. Rising to the top of his profession, Kelly plummets to the bottom thanks to his fondness for intoxicating beverages. Molly nurses and coddles Kelly back to health, giving nary a thought for her own comfort or happiness.
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Sailors Pike and Shorty are on leave when a street woman swindles them out of some money by telling them she is looking for her long-lost brother, a sailor.
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The Rainbow Man is a 1929 black and white American musical film.
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A boxer falls in love with a girl he meets in the park.
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Bert, a pitcher for a baseball team in a small town, is given the opportunity to try out for a team in the big leagues. Unfortunately, he incurs the enmity of McRae, the league's leading home-run hitter. In addition, he falls for the team owner's daughter, who McRae has designs on.
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A wealthy bachelor lies his way out of a speeding ticket by telling the cops he's on his way to visit his baby girl in hospital - ever helpful, they accompany him whereupon a little girl attaches herself to him, with hilarious results.
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Silent boxing sports comedy about a boxer whose grandmother wants him to be a ballet dancer, so he has the boxers at his training camp pose as ballet dancers to fool granny, with predictable results
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Too Many Crooks is a lost 1927 American comedy silent film directed by Fred C. Newmeyer, written by E.J. Rath and Rex Taylor, and starring Mildred Davis, Lloyd Hughes, George Bancroft, El Brendel, William V. Mong, John St. Polis, and Otto Matieson. It was released on April 2, 1927, by Paramount Pictures.
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Pa Potter invests four thousand dollars in worthless oil stock. Or is it worthless?
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Offering a ride to a millionaire, Sam Smith (Leon Errol) agrees to trade places with his passenger for financial reasons. Only when the men in the white coats put the collar on him does Sam realize that the "millionaire" was actually an escaped mental patient.
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Elmer Stone, quarterback of the 1899 Colton College football team vows to remain a student until Colton beats its biggest rival, State University. Twenty-seven years later, Elmer is still in school and is a classmate of his son, Jack. Other than driving a milk wagon in his spare time, Jack is also the quarterback of the football team. A matter of his eligibility comes up but he is cleared and goes out to do-or-die for Colton against State University. Maybe they will win The Big Game, and Jack's father can get a life...and a job.
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Rivalry between two behavioral scientists gets out of hand...
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A clerk is given $10,000 to deposit at the bank, but the bank is closed for the night so he tries to get to the bank president's house with the money.
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A writer, looking for some peace and quiet in order to finish a novel, takes a room at the Baldpate Inn. However, peace and quiet are the last things he gets, as there are some very strange goings-on at the establishment.
Director
Harold Lamb is so excited about going to college that he has been working to earn spending money, practicing college yells, and learning a special way of introducing himself that he saw in a movie. When he arrives at Tate University, he soon becomes the target of practical jokes and ridicule. With the help of his one real friend Peggy, he resolves to make every possible effort to become popular.
Director
Lloyd's look at married life and the issues of the in-law. Adventures include a ride on a crowded trolley with a live turkey; A wild spin in a new auto with the in-laws in tow. Finally, a sequence in which Hubby accidentally chloroforms his mother-in-law and becomes convinced that he's killed her!
Director
Harold Meadows is a shy, stuttering bachelor working in a tailor shop, who is writing a guidebook, The Secret of Making Love, for other bashful young men. Fate has him meet rich girl Mary, and they fall in love. But she is about to wed an already married man, so our hero embarks upon a hair-raising daredevil ride to prevent the wedding.
Director
A hypochondriac vacations in the tropics for the fresh air - and finds himself in the middle of a revolution instead.
Car Driver Who Gets Parking Ticket
When a store clerk organizes a contest to climb the outside of a tall building, circumstances force him to make the perilous climb himself.
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When a store clerk organizes a contest to climb the outside of a tall building, circumstances force him to make the perilous climb himself.
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Country doctor Jack Jackson is called in to treat the Sick-Little-Well-Girl, who has been making Dr. Saulsbourg and his sanitarium very rich after years of unsuccessful treatment.
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A meek young man must find the courage within when a rogue tramp menaces his hometown.
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An idle, wealthy playboy foolishly joins the Navy when the father of the girl he wants to marry tells him to get a job to prove himself worthy.
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Our hero is infatuated with a girl in the next office. In order to drum up business for her boss, an osteopath, he gets an actor friend to pretend injuries that the doctor "cures", thereby building a reputation. When he hears that his girl is marrying another, he decides to commit suicide and spends the bulk of the film in thrilling, failed attempts.
Director
An ambitious coat-room checker impersonates an English nobleman.
Director
A young man, unaccustomed to children, must accompany a young girl on a train trip.
Co-Director
While at an amusement park, trying vainly to forget the girl he has lost, a young man sees the girl with her new boyfriend. When her dog gets loose in the park, both suitors have to help her catch it. Then, the girl's uncle, a balloonist, gives her a pass for two in his balloon, provided that her mother approves. She then offers to take along the first of her admirers who is able to get her mother's consent.
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A 'Snub' Pollard & Marie Mosquini slapstick comedy.
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Snub and his wife give up their bungalow and allow another couple to move in. Then it develops that they can't find another home, and must live in an improvised tent. (From IMDb)
Director
Snub goes butterfly hunting in Grffith Park and catches Marie Mosquini by accident. They go to a café where all the men have a lot of hair on their faces and the usual mischief ensues.
Ah Nix (Chinese Cook)
After a wild bachelor party, our hero finds himself aboard a sailing vessel where he encounters numerous adventures. In a dream sequence, he fantasizes that the ship is seized by a band of female pirates.
A young playwright spends his last cent to pay the past-due rent for the pretty dancer who's his boarding house next-door neighbor. Soon after, he winds up at a gambling club, where he wins big - just before a police raid.
Harold and his rival fight over Bebe on her birthday, first at her home and then at a nearby skating rink.
Harold becomes the victim of a clever bulldog pup who chases him in and out of various places.
Boy trying to impress girl, gets chased by her father and the police right into an ongoing marathon.
(uncredited)
While running away from his girl's father, Harold's car breaks down in front of a dance hall run by crooks. Harold has to not only stay one step ahead of the girl's father, but also those trying to rob them of everything they have.
(uncredited)
A bumbling American soldier saves a girl from a bunch of Cossacks.
Luke is an inept detective who follows the wrong man to a seaside hotel.
In pre-historic times (dream sequence), our hero, in a loin cloth, battles other cavemen over the opposite sex.
An Englishman and his valet have adventures in the American West.
After finding a note in a floating bottle, our hero is off to resue the heroine. He runs into a tribe of cannibals.
An Englishman and his valet tour the American West.
Our vagabond hero dons a lifeguard's uniform and madcap antics ensue on the beach, and in the changing stalls!
Harold's checked cap, blown from his head by a freakish wind, gets him into trouble. First he comes into conflict with the police as a highwayman, then the cap serves to identify him as a housebreaker and lands him in jail, while the innocent cause of his trouble becomes his cellmate for another reason. Eventually a distracted wife rescues both her husband and Harold from the clutches of the law, the cap this time aiding him to regain his freedom.
Luke operates a sanatarium, which he has naturally staffed with a bevy of attractive nurses.
While on the job, delivering a message, Luke finds himself in a girl's seminary.
As a detective, Luke is after a gang of crooks who are robbing party guests of their jewels.
Luke, working in a fireworks factory.
Luke crashes a society affair, thereby livening things up.
Lonesome Luke has a movie theater and also works the box office and as an usher. He has to put up with, among other things, an incompetent projectionist who falls asleep all the time. Complications ensue.
When a doctor is forced, because of a lack of patients, to dismiss his pretty nurse, Luke comes to the rescue and uses his flivver to supply a ready supply of accident cases.
Lonesome Luke at the Tijuana Races.
Luke is a bellboy at a fancy club.
Lonesome Luke asleep in the briny deep.
The beginning of the film you find Harold Lloyd playing his "Lonesome Luke" character. Out of the blue, Lloyd decides he's going to join the navy and you really wonder if part of the film leading to it is missing. After all, the decision seemed to come from no where and why Snub Pollard would also join is unclear. And, oddly, they seem to skip all training and are stationed on a navy ship. Soon Pollard's wife comes to the boat looking for him and she's put off the boat as the movie ends very, very anticlimactically.
Lonesome Luke at the San Diego Exposition.
A day at the seaside chasing a lost child.
Luke happens into a spiritualist's shop where he is smitten by her daughter. He decides to stick around and take a job there.
Out west, Luke changes clothes with an outlaw and proceeds into town. Of course, he is mistaken for the wanted man and a chase ensues.
Luke, a mechanic, stands in for a famous violinist. At first, his bad manners and rough behavior are accepted as the eccentricities of genius. Then matters get out of hand.
Luke runs a beanery, in which the bad service, terrible food and filthy conditions lead to hi-jinx.
