Jack Pierce

Jack Pierce

Birth : 1889-05-05, Valdetsyou, Greece

Death : 1968-07-19

History

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jack Pierce (born Janus Piccoula; May 5, 1889 – July 19, 1968) was a Hollywood make-up artist best remembered for creating the iconic makeup worn by Boris Karloff in Frankenstein (1931), along with various other classic monster make-ups for Universal Studios. In the 1920s, Pierce embarked on a series of jobs in cinema—cinema manager, stuntman, actor, even assistant director, but within a few years he settled on mastering makeup. The head of Universal, Carl Laemmle, was won over with his creative abilities and hired full-time by the studio. Universal's first "talkie" horror film, Dracula (1931), eschewed elaborate horror make-up. Pierce designed a special color greasepaint for Bela Lugosi for his vampire character, but Lugosi insisted on applying his own make-up. For all film appearances of the character thereafter, Pierce instituted a different look entirely, recasting Dracula as a man with graying hair and a mustache. The most significant creation during Pierce's time at the studio was Frankenstein (1931), with Lugosi originally cast as the Monster. Pierce came up with a design which was horrific as well as logical in the context of the story. So, where Henry Frankenstein has accessed the brain cavity, there is a scar and a seal, and the now famous "bolts" on the neck are actually electrodes: carriers for the electricity used to revive the stitched-up corpse. As the head of Universal's make-up department, Pierce is credited with designing and creating the iconic make-ups for films like Frankenstein, The Mummy (1932), The Wolf Man (1941), and their various sequels associated with the characters. Utilizing his "out-of-the-kit" techniques, Pierce's make-ups were often very grueling and took a considerable amount of time to apply. Pierce was always reluctant to use latex appliances, favoring his technique of building facial features out of cotton and collodion, or nose putty. Pierce eventually started using latex appliances, most notably a rubber nose for Lon Chaney Jr. in The Wolf Man (1941) (the edges of the appliance are clearly visible through most of the film), and a rubber head piece for Boris Karloff in Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Son of Frankenstein (1939). He did a great many historical, old age and character make-ups in TV anthology series such as Screen Directors Playhouse, You Are There and Telephone Time. One episode of that show, a drama called The Golden Junkman, featured Lon Chaney Jr. as an unlettered but kindly Armenian junk dealer who ages from his 30s to his 70s in the course of the story, which Pierce handled with aplomb. Pierce died in 1968 from uremia. Jack Pierce's enduring work at Universal has become a huge influence to many in the entertainment field, including make-up artists Rick Baker and Tom Savini. In 2003, Pierce was recognized with a lifetime achievement award from the Hollywood Make-up Artist and Hair Stylist Guild. In May 2013, Cinema Makeup School in Los Angeles dedicated a memorial gallery in his honor.

Profile

Jack Pierce

Movies

Jack Pierce: The Man Who Made the Monsters
Self (archive footage)
Documentry on the career of Jack Pierce, a make up man from the Golden Age of Hollywood, most remembered for creating the looks of various classic monsters such as Frankenstein, The Mummy, and the Wolf Man
The Creation of the Humanoids
Makeup Artist
Many years after a nuclear war, the human survivors have created a new society where much of the work done by androids, referred to derisively by humans as "clickers". A police official who is concerned that his sister has become involved with an android is sent to investigate a larger rumor that the androids are developing reason and emotion.
Beyond the Time Barrier
Makeup Artist
In 1960, a pilot testing an experimental rocket powered aircraft accidentally flies into the future and finds himself in a sealed city whose people suspect he is a spy from outside their walls, but who want to keep him to procreate with the ruler's daughter because the majority of the inhabitants are sterile.
The Amazing Transparent Man
Makeup Artist
An ex-major forces a scientist to develop a invisibility formula, with which he plans to create an invisible army and sell it to the highest bidder. However there are side effects to the formula.
I Bury the Living
Makeup Artist
A newly appointed cemetery chairman believes that, merely by inserting a black plot-marking pin into a wall-sized map of the cemetery, he can cause the deaths of that plot's owner.
Giant from the Unknown
Makeup Artist
A series of grisly murders plague a small mountain community and the sheriff suspects a local scientist whom he dislikes. Together with a former professor and the professor's pretty daughter, the scientist sets about solving the crimes and discovers the killer is an oversized 16th century conquistador, resurrected by a lightning bolt from his mountain grave.
The Brain from Planet Arous
Makeup Artist
An evil alien brain, bent on world domination, takes over the body of an atomic scientist, while a "good" alien brain inhabits the body of the scientist's dog and waits for an opportunity to defeat the evil brain.
No. 5 Checked Out
Makeup Artist
A young deaf women confronts desperate crooks who are using one of her remote resort cabins for a hideout. Originally aired as episode 16 on the American TV series Screen Directors Playhouse.
No Escape
Makeup Artist
A woman and a songwriter suspected of murder join forces to crack the case.
Blades of the Musketeers
Makeup Artist
In 1625 France, D'Artagnan joins the king's musketeers, meets three new friends - Athos, Porthos and Aramis - among them and, together, the four quickly find themselves embroiled in court intrigue with Prime Minister Richelieu attempting to sabotage the congenial relationship existing between France and England. Originally produced as a 60-minute episode of THE MAGNAVOX THEATER on CBS as THE THREE MUSKETEERS. This has the distinction of being the first movie specifically made for TV. Later retitled and released theatrically.
Tales of Robin Hood
Makeup Artist
The story of Robin Hood, how he met his Merry Men and Maid Marian, and saved England from Sir Guy de Clairmont and his henchman. Compiled from the few filmed episodes of an unsold TV series.
The Pilgrimage Play
Makeup Artist
Nelson Leigh assumes the role of Jesus Christ in this drama that depicts such historical events as the Sermon on the Mount and the Last Supper while portraying the period in which Christ roamed the countryside preaching the gospel.
Master Minds
Makeup Artist
When Sach eats too much sugar, he goes into a trance whereby he's able to predict the future. Slip tries to make some money off of Sach by using him as a fortune teller in a carnival, until a mad scientist kidnaps Sach to use him in an intelligence-switching experiment with a monster.
Joan of Arc
Makeup Artist
In the 15th Century, France is a defeated and ruined nation after the One Hundred Years War against England. The fourteen-year-old farm girl Joan of Arc claims to hear voices from Heaven asking her to lead God's Army against Orleans and crowning the weak Dauphin Charles VII as King of France. Joan gathers the people with her faith, forms an army, and conquers Orleans.
Time Out Of Mind
Makeup Artist
The son of a wealthy Maine family shocks his relatives by announcing he wants to pursue a career in music.
The Egg and I
Makeup Artist
World War II veteran Bob MacDonald surprises his new wife, Betty, by quitting his city job and moving them to a dilapidated farm in the country. While Betty gamely struggles with managing the crumbling house and holding off nosy neighbors and a recalcitrant pig, Bob makes plans for crops and livestock. The couple's bliss is shaken by a visit from a beautiful farm owner, who seems to want more from Bob than just managing her property.
Buck Privates Come Home
Makeup Artist
Two ex-soldiers return from overseas--one of them having smuggled into the country a French orphan girl he has become attached to. They wind up running into their old sergeant--who hates them--and getting involved with a race-car builder who's trying to find backers for a new midget racer he's building.
Doctor Jim
Makeup Artist
Dr. Jim Gateson, a country doctor who has counselled and ministered to his community for 30 years, is being honored with a surprise testimonial dinner. The scenario then flashes back through three decades, commencing with the young GP first hanging up his shingle, serving at the front during WWI, home life being disrupted by telephone calls from those in need, and competition from a new medic in town who doesn't make country calls.
Magnificent Doll
Makeup Department Head
While packing her belongings in preparation of evacuating the White House because of the impending British invasion of Washington D.C., Dolly Payne Madison thinks back on her childhood, her first marriage, and later romances with two very different politicians, Aaron Burr and his good friend James Madison. She plays each against the other, not only for romantic reasons, but also to influence the shaping of the young country. By manipulating Burr's affections, she helps Thomas Jefferson win the presidency, and eventually she becomes First Lady of the land herself.
Temptation
Makeup Artist
After marrying an archaeologist, a Victorian-era woman with a sordid past realizes that she is not ready to settle down with one man.
The Brute Man
Makeup Artist
A facially disfigured and mentally unhinged man wreaks his revenge on those he blames for his condition.
The Killers
Makeup Department Head
Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called "the Swede". When the killers find the Swede, he's expecting them and doesn't put up a fight. Since the Swede had a life insurance policy, an investigator, on a hunch, decides to look into the murder. As the Swede's past is laid bare, it comes to light that he was in love with a beautiful woman who may have lured him into pulling off a bank robbery overseen by another man.
Black Angel
Makeup Supervisor
A falsely convicted man's wife, Catherine, and an alcoholic composer and pianist, Martin team up in an attempt to clear her husband of the murder of a blonde singer, who is Martin's wife.
Canyon Passage
Makeup Artist
Businessman Logan Stuart is torn between his love of two very different women in 1850s Oregon and his loyalty to a compulsive gambler friend who goes over the line.
Tangier
Makeup Artist
Maria Montez plays a Spanish dancer named Rita, who is determined to bring Nazi collaborator Colonel Jose Artiego (Preston Foster) to justice. Artiego is at presently working incognito, as military governor of the North African city of Tangier. Maria finds an unexpected ally in the form of Artiego's discarded mistress Dolores (Louise Allbritton).
Her Adventurous Night
Makeup & Hair
A boy's tall tale about a gun puts his parents and school principal in jail.
Dressed to Kill
Makeup Department Head
A convicted thief in Dartmoor prison hides the location of the stolen Bank of England printing plates inside three music boxes. When the innocent purchasers of the boxes start to be murdered, Holmes and Watson investigate.
She-Wolf of London
Makeup Artist
A young heiress finds evidence suggesting that at night she acts under the influence of a family curse and has begun committing ghastly murders in a nearby park.
House of Horrors
Makeup Artist
An unsuccessful sculptor saves a madman named "The Creeper" from drowning. Seeing an opportunity for revenge, he tricks the psycho into murdering his critics.
The Spider Woman Strikes Back
Makeup Artist
A young girl goes to work as a live-in caretaker for a spooky old woman. She doesn't know that every night, the woman drains some blood from her to feed her strange plant.
Little Giant
Makeup Artist
Lou Costello plays a country bumpkin vacuum-cleaner salesman, working for the company run by the crooked Bud Abbott. To try to keep him under his thumb, Abbott convinces Costello that he's a crackerjack salesman. This comedy is somewhat like "The Time of Their Lives," in that Abbott and Costello don't have much screen time together and there are very few vaudeville bits woven into the plot.
Terror by Night
Makeup Department Head
Holmes and Watson board a passenger train bound from London to Edinburgh, to guard the Star of Rhodesia, an enormous diamond worth a fortune belonging to an elderly woman of wealth; but within the first hour of the trip, the woman's son is murdered and the diamond stolen and any of the passengers in their car could be the killer thief.
Little Miss Big
Makeup Department Head
A wealthy eccentric women escapes from a mental institution and finds refuge with a financially strapped barber and his two daughters
Scarlet Street
Makeup Artist
Cashier and part-time starving artist Christopher Cross is absolutely smitten with the beautiful Kitty March. Kitty plays along, but she's really only interested in Johnny, a two-bit crook. When Kitty and Johnny find out that art dealers are interested in Chris's work, they con him into letting Kitty take credit for the paintings. Cross allows it because he is in love with Kitty, but his love will only let her get away with so much.
House of Dracula
Makeup Artist
A scientist working on cures for rare afflictions, such as a bone softening agent made from molds to allow him to correct the spinal deformity of his nurse, finds the physical causes of lycanthropy in wolf-man Larry Talbot and of vampirism in Count Dracula, but himself becomes afflicted with homicidal madness while exchanging blood with Dracula.
Pursuit to Algiers
Makeup Department Head
After the King of Ruthenia has been assassinated, Holmes and Watson are engaged to escort his son to Europe via Algiers, aboard a transatlantic ocean liner which also carries a number of suspicious persons, any of whom may be involved in a plot to also assassinate him.
The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry
Makeup Artist
George Sanders stars in this engrossing melodrama about a very domineering sister who holds a tight grip on her brother -- especially when he shows signs of falling in love.
The Jungle Captive
Makeup Artist
Once again Paula the ape woman is brought back to life, this time by a mad doctor and his disfigured assistant, who also kidnaps a nurse in order to have a female blood donor.
The Naughty Nineties
Makeup Artist
In the gay '90s, cardsharps take over a Mississippi riverboat from a kindly captain. Their first act is to change the showboat into a floating gambling house. A ham actor and his bumbling sidekick try to devise a way to help the captain regain ownership of the vessel.
Sudan
Makeup Artist
A desert pickpocket, his sidekick, and an escaped slave help an incognito queen in danger.
The Mummy's Curse
Makeup Artist
After being buried in quicksand for the past 25 years, Kharis is set free to roam the rural bayous of Louisiana, as is the soul of his beloved Princess Ananka, still housed in the body of Amina Mansouri, who seeks help and protection at a swamp draining project.
House of Frankenstein
Makeup Artist
Deranged scientist, Gustav Niemann, escapes from prison and overtakes the director of a traveling chamber of horrors, soon reviving the infamous Count Dracula, the frozen Frankenstein Monster, and the Wolf Man.
The Climax
Makeup Artist
Dr. Hohner, theatre physician at the Vienna Royal Theatre, murders his mistress, the star soprano when his jealousy drives him to the point of mad obsession. Ten years later, another young singer reminds Hohner of the late diva and his old mania kicks in. Hohner wants to prevent her from singing for anyone but him, even if it means silencing her forever.
Gypsy Wildcat
Makeup Artist
In an unspecified Renaissance kingdom, no sooner has Anube's gypsy tribe encamped near Baron Tovar's village when Count Orso is found murdered. The wicked baron blames the gypsies and imprisons them all in his castle. Meanwhile, a mysterious stranger on a white horse has hidden the murder arrow and won the heart of gypsy belle Carla, to the discomfiture of her erstwhile fiancée Tonio. Baron Tovar is also fascinated by Carla...especially when he notices her heraldic pendant.
The Mummy's Ghost
Makeup Artist
An Egyptian high priest travels to America to reclaim the bodies of ancient Egyptian princess Ananka and her living guardian mummy Kharis. Learning that Ananka's spirit has been reincarnated into another body, he kidnaps a young woman of Egyptian descent with a mysterious resemblance to the princess. However, the high priest's greedy desires cause him to lose control of the mummy...
Jungle Woman
Makeup Artist
Paula, the ape woman, has survived the ending of CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN and is running around a creepy old sanitarium run by the kindly Dr. Fletcher, reverting to her true gorilla form every once in a while to kill somebody.
Cobra Woman
Makeup Artist
A man (Jon Hall) tracks his kidnapped bride (Maria Montez) to a jungle island, where her twin is the high priestess.
The Mad Ghoul
Makeup Artist
Dr. Alfred Morris, a university chemistry professor, rediscovers an ancient Mayan formula for a gas which turns men into pliant, obedient, zombie-like ghouls. After medical student Ted Allison becomes a guinea pig for Morris, the professor imagines that Allison's fiancée, a beautiful concert singer Isabel Lewis, wants to break off the engagement because she prefers the professor as a more "mature" lover but in reality loves Eric, her accompanist. In order to bring Ted back from his trance-like states, Morris commands him to perform a cardiectomy on recently deceased or living bodies in order to use serum from their hearts as a temporary antidote. When the serial murders seem to coincide with Isabel's touring schedule, ace reporter "Scoop" McClure gets on the mad scientist's trail.
Son of Dracula
Makeup Artist
Carpathian Count Alucard is invited to the U.S. by a young heiress. Her boyfriend and local officials are suspicious of the newcomer, who is interested in the "virile" soil of the new world.
Flesh and Fantasy
Makeup Artist
Anthology film of three tales of the supernatural. The first story is set at the Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The second involves a psychic who predicts murder. The third is about a man who literally meets the girl of his dreams.
Captive Wild Woman
Makeup Artist
An insane scientist doing experimentation in glandular research becomes obsessed with transforming a female gorilla into a human...even though it costs human life.
White Savage
Makeup Artist
A native boy plays Cupid for a shark fisherman and a South Sea Islands princess.
Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
Makeup Artist
Grave robbers open the grave of the wolf man and awaken him. He doesn't like the idea of being immortal and killing people when the moon is full so tries to find Dr. Frankenstein, in the hopes that the doctor can cure him. Dr. Frankenstein has died; however, his monster is found.
The Mummy's Tomb
Makeup Artist
A high priest of Karnak travels to America with the living mummy Kharis (Lon Chaney Jr.) to kill all those who had desecrated the tomb of the Egyptian princess Ananka thirty years earlier.
The Ghost of Frankenstein
Makeup Artist
Frankenstein's unscrupulous colleague, Dr. Bohmer, plans to transplant Ygor's brain so he can rule the world using the monster's body, but the plan goes sour when he turns malevolent and goes on a rampage.
The Wolf Man
Makeup Artist
After his brother's death, Larry Talbot returns home to his father and the family estate. Events soon take a turn for the worse when Larry is bitten by a werewolf.
Man-Made Monster
Makeup Artist
Mad scientist turns a man into an electrically-controlled monster to do his bidding.
The Mummy's Hand
Makeup Artist
A couple of young, out-of-work archaeologists in Egypt discover evidence of the burial place of the ancient Egyptian princess Ananka. After receiving funding from an eccentric magician and his beautiful daughter, they set out into the desert only to be terrorized by a sinister high priest and the living mummy Kharis who are the guardians of Ananka’s tomb.
The House of the Seven Gables
Makeup Artist
In 1828, the bankrupt Pyncheon family fight over Seven Gables, the ancestral mansion. To obtain the house, Jaffrey Pyncheon obtains his brother Clifford's false conviction for murder. Hepzibah, Clifford's sweet fiancée, patiently waits twenty years for his release, whereupon Clifford and his former cellmate, abolitionist Matthew, have a certain scheme in mind.
Black Friday
Makeup Artist
University professor George Kingsley is struck by gangsters while crossing the street, leaving him with brain damage and one of the gangsters, Cannon, paralyzed. Kingsley's friend Dr. Sovac attends to both men, and when Cannon offers him a reward for aiding his recovery, Kovac transplants part of Cannon's brain into the dying Kingsley's skull, creating a dual personality.
Tower of London
Makeup Artist
In the 15th century Richard Duke of Gloucester, aided by his club-footed executioner Mord, eliminates those ahead of him in succession to the throne, then occupied by his brother King Edward IV of England. As each murder is accomplished he takes particular delight in removing small figurines, each resembling one of the successors, from a throne-room dollhouse, until he alone remains. After the death of Edward he becomes Richard III, King of England, and need only defeat the exiled Henry Tudor to retain power.
Son of Frankenstein
Makeup Artist
One of the sons of Frankenstein finds his father's monster in a coma and revives him, only to find out he is controlled by Ygor who is bent on revenge.
Wives Under Suspicion
Makeup Artist
A merciless district attorney prosecutes a case that mirrors his own life.
Let Them Live
Makeup Artist
A young man goes up against a crooked town boss.
Night Key
Makeup Artist
The inventor of a new top-of-the-line burglar alarm system is kidnapped by a gang in order to get him to help them commit robberies.
Two in a Crowd
Makeup Artist
When two halves of a thousand-dollar bill are discovered in the snow, the penniless pair that individually grabs each half must come to terms. Actress Julia Wayne needs the whole $1,000, and so does sportsman Larry Stevens. Since compromise will serve neither of their needs, they are stalemated - until complications arise.
Show Boat
Makeup Artist
Despite her mother's objections, the naive young daughter of a show boat captain is thrust into the limelight as the company's new leading lady.
Dracula's Daughter
Makeup Artist
A countess from Transylvania seeks a psychiatrist’s help to cure her vampiric cravings.
The Invisible Ray
Makeup Artist
Dr. Janos Rukh discovers a certain type of radium that has almost magical healing properties. But the element has a dangerous side, too, and it has already started affecting Rukh. Consumed by paranoia, he begins to suspect that his wife is having an affair. Wild for revenge, Rukh hatches a deadly plot...using his own poisoned body as a weapon to kill.
The Raven
Makeup Designer
A brilliant but deranged neurosurgeon becomes obsessively fixated on a judge's daughter. With the help of an escaped criminal whose face he has surgically deformed, the mad man lures her, her father, and her fiancé to his isolated castle-like home, where he has created a torture chamber with the intent of torturing them for having 'tortured' him.
Werewolf of London
Makeup Artist
A strange animal attack turns a botanist into a bloodthirsty monster.
The Bride of Frankenstein
Makeup Artist
Dr. Pretorius, a deranged scientist, forces Henry Frankenstein to help him create a companion for the monster.
Imitation of Life
Makeup Artist
A struggling widow and her daughter take in a black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter. The two women start a successful business but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.
Great Expectations
Makeup Artist
A young boy, Pip, encounters an escaped prisoner, Magwitch, and steals food for him. After the convict is captured, Pip meets the reclusive Miss Havisham and her niece, Estella, eventually becoming friends with the girl. Wealth comes to Pip via a mysterious benefactor and he goes off to London for an education. As adults, Pip and Estella become romantic, and Pip learns the identity of his patron.
Half a Sinner
Makeup Artist
A con man poses as a hillbilly preacher.
The Black Cat
Makeup Artist
After a road accident in Hungary, the American honeymooners Joan and Peter and the enigmatic Dr. Werdegast find refuge in the house of the famed architect Hjalmar Poelzig, who shares a dark past with the doctor.
The Invisible Man
Makeup Artist
Working in Dr. Cranley's laboratory, scientist Jack Griffin was always given the latitude to conduct some of his own experiments. His sudden departure, however, has Cranley's daughter Flora worried about him. Griffin has taken a room at the nearby Lion's Head Inn, hoping to reverse an experiment he conducted on himself that made him invisible. But the experimental drug has also warped his mind, making him aggressive and dangerous. He's prepared to do whatever it takes to restore his appearance.
The Kiss Before the Mirror
Makeup Artist
When a famous doctor kills his adulterous wife, he is defended by his best friend, an attorney who suspects that his own wife is having an affair.
The Big Cage
Makeup Artist
A circus on the verge of bankruptcy decides to save itself by staging a animal act with lions and tigers for the first time.
White Zombie
Makeup Artist
In Haiti, a wealthy landowner convinces a sorcerer to lure the American woman he has fallen for away from her fiance, only to have the madman decide to keep the woman for himself, as a zombie.
Murders in the Rue Morgue
Makeup Artist
In 19th Century Paris, a maniac abducts young women and injects them with ape blood in an attempt to prove ape-human kinship but constantly meets failure as the abducted women die.
The Mummy
Makeup Designer
An ancient Egyptian priest named Imhotep is revived when an archaeological expedition finds his mummy and one of the archaeologists accidentally reads an ancient life-giving spell. Imhotep escapes from the field site and searches for the reincarnation of the soul of his lover.
Frankenstein
Makeup Designer
Tampering with life and death, Henry Frankenstein pieces together salvaged body parts to bring a human monster to life; the mad scientist's dreams are shattered by his creation's violent rage as the monster awakens to a world in which he is unwelcome.
Frankenstein
Makeup Artist
Tampering with life and death, Henry Frankenstein pieces together salvaged body parts to bring a human monster to life; the mad scientist's dreams are shattered by his creation's violent rage as the monster awakens to a world in which he is unwelcome.
Dracula
Makeup Artist
British estate agent Renfield travels to Transylvania to meet with the mysterious Count Dracula, who is interested in leasing a castle in London and is, unbeknownst to Renfield, a vampire. After Dracula enslaves Renfield and drives him to insanity, the pair sail to London together, and as Dracula begins preying on London socialites, the two become the subject of study for a supernaturalist professor, Abraham Van Helsing.
King of Jazz
Makeup Artist
Made during the early years of the movie musical, this exuberant revue was one of the most extravagant, eclectic, and technically ambitious Hollywood productions of its day. Starring the bandleader Paul Whiteman, then widely celebrated as the King of Jazz, the film drew from Broadway variety shows to present a spectacular array of sketches, performances by such acts as the Rhythm Boys (featuring a young Bing Crosby), and orchestral numbers—all lavishly staged by veteran theater director John Murray Anderson.
Masquerade
Second Reporter
The second version of Louis Joseph Vance's 1907 mystery melodrama The Brass Bowl. The story of a wealthy world traveler and his evil lookalike, the master criminal Anisty.
The Man Who Laughs
Makeup Artist
Gwynplaine, son of Lord Clancharlie, has a permanent smile carved on his face by the King, in revenge for Gwynplaine's father's treachery. Gwynplaine is adopted by a travelling showman and becomes a popular idol. He falls in love with the blind Dea. The king dies, and his evil jester tries to destroy or corrupt Gwynplaine.
The Circus
Man Operating Ropes (uncredited)
Charlie, a wandering tramp, becomes a circus handyman - soon the star of the show - and falls in love with the circus owner's stepdaughter.
Isle of Sunken Gold
Isle of Sunken Gold is a 1927 American adventure film serial directed by Harry S. Webb. The film was long considered to be lost, however, chapters 4, 5, and 6 and reel 1 of chapter 7 were recently discovered in a European archive and retranslated back into English. A sea captain obtains half of a map directing him to an enormous treasure on a south sea island. The princess who rules the island possesses the other half of the map, and together they fight off the pirates and natives who would prevent their retrieval of the treasure.
The Lady of the Harem
Makeup Artist
Rafi arrives in the city in search of Pervaneh who was taken by the Sultan. He is joined by Hassan the confectioner. Rafi is captured by the Sultan, but Hassan leads a surprise attack on the palace and the lovers are united.
The Wanderer
Makeup Artist
Jether, a shepherd, is lured from his home by Tisha, priestess of the goddess Ishtar. He journeys to the city of Babylon, where he lavishes Tisha with gifts and spends his share of his father's wealth on riotous living.
Riders of the Law
Pete Gushard
Jack Meadows and sidekick Toby are looking for whiskey smugglers along the Canadian border. They find a badly wounded Seriff who earlier caught one of them and a nearby hoofprint of a horse with a broken shoe. Setting up a blacksmith shop, they soon find the owner of that horse and replace the shoe with another that will let them trace him.