Cesare Gravina
Birth : 1858-01-23, Naples, Italy
Death : 1954-09-16
History
From Wikipedia
Cesare Gravina (23 January 1858 – 16 September 1954) was an Italian actor of the silent era. He appeared in 60 films between 1912 and 1929. He was born in Naples, Italy.
Gravina was an orchestra conductor in his native Italy. As the conductor at La Scala, among the noted vocalists he worked with were Mary Garden and Enrico Caruso. At some point he left music to become a character actor, sharing his reasons for the career change with no one. As the owner of many theatres in South America, Gravina was financially secure enough to retire from motion pictures by 1924, but he preferred to remain in acting.
Don Ramón Valdez
Two ranchers get together to fight a common enemy and fall in love.
Martin Schrammell
A young impoverished aristocrat falls in love with an inn-keeper's daughter, but has to marry money.
Ursus
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.
Henry Kelland - Berna's Grandfather
Fortune hunters from all over the country rushing to the Klondike in 1897 to seek their fortunes in the gold are tested by hardships of the journey.
Gigi
[For 9 minute surviving fragment] Lucian, a soldier in Paris, is to ship out for Algiers at 9 that evening. He stops by for a last meal with his love, Marianne. He may be worried that when he leaves she will find another soldier to love. They argue then embrace and, when the clock strikes midnight, he is still in her arms. Is desertion in the cards? Can the relationship survive the military demands and a soldier's obligations? A lost film.
Tony Verdi
Nan Carey ( Betty Compson ), a shoplifter, is caught by the police but acquitted through the influence of Lazare ( Lucien Littlefield ), a crooked lawyer, who places her with a gang of crooks. Posing as the Brockton family, they move to a seaside home, where they plan to steal the jewel collection of the Palmers, their neighbours. Nan wins the confidence of the family by flirting with Tom ( Kenneth Harlan ), who becomes infatuated and wants to go away with her, but she refuses him. Tom is caught red-handed in the Brockton mansion attempting to steal their jewels while Nan is making a success of the Palmer robbery.
Castro
The beautiful Serafina is captured by Balthasar's pirates on an island near Cuba, but the redoubtable José Armando arrives from Spain to effect her rescue.
Maestro
Story about a little boy and girl that meet in a beautiful garden and the little girl promises the boy that some day she would meet him there again. He goes off to study the violin in Italy and when he returns he finds the girl in the garden.
Ilario
Playboy novelist Sebastian Maure falls for Ghiirlaine Bellamy, a product of a wealthy--and puritanical--society family, a girl so prim and proper that she's known as "The Blonde Saint". One night at a dinner party, she informs Maure that she is engaged to young VIncent Pamfort and is leaving for England the next day to marry him. Maure tricks her into meeting him onboard a boat going to Palermo, and before they get there she suddenly grabs her and jumps overboard. They wind up in a fishing village on a small island and before long find themselves caught up in a cholera epidemic and a local criminal gang.
Count Davigny
Three girls from a small town win a trip to Monte Carlo. The trip was sponsored by their local newspaper, which sends along its ace reporter Bancroft as their "chaperone".
Opera Director
Servant
Triumph of the daughter of a cheated mine owner over a renegade and her love for the superintendent.
Pepe
Steve Brant, an ex-pugilist who owns a small circus, makes crude advances toward Doraldina, a lovely equestrienne; and when she resists him, he angrily beats her horse.
Manager (uncredited)
A grotesquely disfigured composer known as "The Phantom" haunts Paris' opera house, where he's secretly grooming Christine Daae to be an opera diva. Luring her to his remote underground lair, The Phantom declares his love. But Christine loves Raoul de Chagny and plans to elope with him. When The Phantom learns this, he abducts Christine.
Ludani's Tenement Neighbor
A model in an expensive clothing shop quarrels with another model, and an expensive gown is ruined. In order to pay for it, she asks her father, an artist, for the money. In order to get the money, the father gets mixed up with art thieves
Señor Sprott
A wild dancer in a cheap Seville cafe, Mariposa is taken to New York by Señor Sprott, a prominent theatrical producer. Billed as "The Charmer," Mariposa becomes the toast of two continents. Among her most ardent admirers are Ralph Bayne, a millionaire playboy, and his chauffeur, Dan Murray, both of whom first met her in Spain. Madly in love with Bayne, Mrs. Sedgwick invites Mariposa and her mother to a weekend party in a deliberate attempt to humiliate the beautiful dancer. Bayne quickly realizes that Mariposa is out of place in high society, and, determining to make her his mistress, takes her home with him. Mrs. Sedgwick unexpectedly arrives at Bayne's swank suite ( followed by her suspicious husband), and Mariposa protects the society woman's reputation at the cost of her own.
Zwerkow a Junkman (uncredited)
A lottery win of $5,000 forever changes the lives of a miner turned dentist and his wife.
George
A French orphan who grew up in a convent sets out to see Paris. It turns out that she is the heir to a fortune but doesn't know it, and has been lured to Paris by one of the heirs who does know who she is; he plans to swindle her out of her inheritance so he can have everything.
Von Mandescheid
Silent Feature Film by Clarence Brown
Tomaso Silvano
Early film adaptation of a popular 19th century melodrama. The daughter of a wealthy man secretly marries a man below her station—one whom her father violently disapproves of. The father, in an excess of parental concern, separates the lovers by sending his daughter away so that she might forget her lover, unaware of their married state. During this time, she gives birth to a daughter. After some months, the young mother returns to her family manor and presents her father with his new granddaughter, which causes a most unfortunate scene. Unbeknownst to the young woman, her enraged father falsely accuses his son-in-law of theft and has him incarcerated in order to separate the lovers in an irrational attempt to force his daughter to forget this "unworthy" young man.
Charlot
A pickpocket falls in love with a newspaperman. When he is sent off to war and she disguises herself as a boy, joins a gang and sets out to save him.
Luigi, the Clown
10-year-old Toby runs away from his abusive uncle to join the Big Top.
Sylvester Urban
A nobleman, posing as a necktie salesman, falls in love with the daughter of a circus puppeteer, even though he is already married to the daughter of his country's war minister.
Cesare Gallo
Believing her husband to be unfaithful, Helene Savelli takes her son, Jackie, to the Holdens' farm and dies shortly afterward. The Holdens keep Jackie, but he eventually goes to the city when the elderly couple lose their farm and retire to the poorhouse. Jackie next is befriended by Cesare Gallo, a sidewalk musician who was also the teacher of Paul Savelli--now a famous violinist. A chance meeting with Savelli by Jackie reunites him with Gallo just before the old man dies. Savelli takes Jackie home with him, happily discovers the boy to be his son, and restores the farm to the Holdens.
Cesare Ventucci
“Count” Karamzin, a Don Juan, lives off the money he scams from rich ladies who are attracted by his charms and his title. Having set up shop in Monte Carlo, he and his partners in crime pick their next target: the wife of an American diplomat.
God's Country and the Law is a 1921 American silent drama film produced by Pine Tree Pictures and distributed by Arrow Films. It was directed by Sidney Olcott with Fred C. Jones and Gladys Leslie in the leading roles. It was adapted from the 1915 novel God’s Country and the Woman by James Oliver Curwood,which had been previously filmed under that title in 1916.
Art Teacher (uncredited)
Blizzard, deranged from a childhood operation in which both his legs were needlessly amputated after an accident, becomes a vicious criminal, and eventually mob leader of the San Francisco underworld.
Mr. Schultz - Gaston Glass
Young Austrian girl Marie Helmar, is left penniless by the death of her father and disgraced by Prussian officer Captain Von Pfaffen, she flees to the safety of her French cousins, the De La Mottes. There she falls in love with their eldest son Gerome. On the night before their wedding, Marie sends a letter to Gerome confessing her indiscretion with the Prussian, but the letter is returned unopened. Soon after, she recognizes a new household servant to be Von Pfaffen, who demands that Marie disclose war secrets in return for his silence about her past. Torn, she passes on false information, which disgraces the Prussian. In revenge, he attempts to kill Marie, but she shoots him in self-defense. Shaken by remorse, Marie presents Gerome with her confession, which, he then reveals, he had read the night of their wedding. Their life thus unclouded, Marie announces she is expecting Gerome's child.
Head Waiter
A bit too immature for marriage, Cyprienne allows her pretty head to be turned by an egotistical fop. The girl demands that her husband Prunelles grant her a divorce, but he devises a scheme to bring her back into the matrimonial fold.
A silent movie serial directed by George B. Seitz.
Jawan
Young Hindu woman Radha, becomes best friends with Captain Raymond Townsend during his service in India, but he soon goes back to England to tend to the estate of an uncle who has just died. Then, Ramlan, the sword maker who raised Radha, is arrested for taking part in an anti-British uprising, and before he goes to jail, he decides to tell Radha the story of her birth, her real father, Captain Brooke, died of a drug overdose, and her destitute mother then entrusted her to Ramlan. After learning about her background, Radha goes to England to claim her rightful inheritance from the estate of her late grandfather, who is also Raymond's uncle. Raymond is delighted to discover that his Hindu friend is really a white woman, and after dividing the estate with Radha, he brings the fortune back together by marrying her.
Apartment Neighbor (uncredited)
Hulda, a plucky Dutch girl, brings her three little brothers from Holland to America to live with their rich Uncle Peter. Hulda finds love with a poor artist.
Villato
Holding a grudge against Robert Torrens and his wife, who live in Italy, a member of the Mafia kidnaps their infant daughter Lois. Fifteen years later, after having been raised by Italian peasants, Lois, now called Peppina, dresses as a boy and stows away on a ship to America in order to avoid a marriage to a particularly loathsome count. While aboard ship she befriends Hugh Carroll, an assistant district attorney, who arranges first-class transportation for the "boy." In New York, she once again meets her kidnapper, who fled to America after the crime. He forces Peppina to maintain the masculine disguise and to pass counterfeit bills for him, for which she is arrested. Peppina gladly exposes the kidnapper's operation to the authorities, one of whom, Hugh, recognizes her as the "boy" he met on the ship. Then, once the kidnapper has been apprehended, Peppina is reunited with her parents, after which she and Hugh, who has finally discovered that she is female, get married.
The Soothsayer
The story of a Japanese woman and the tragedy that ensues when she loves an American naval officer.
Setsu
A silent romantic drama film directed by Hugh Ford and Edwin S. Porter
Butalin
A man emerges from the bank with his wallet full. He drops it on the ground. A workman spots it and tries to give it back. Fearing he is about to be mugged, the first man flees, with the second pursuing.
Butalin
A young lover is visiting the married woman he is wooing. the two sweeps cleaning the chimney are cramping his style, so he gives them some money to go away. When the woman's husband returns home unexpectedly, she hides him in the chimney.
Italian comedy about a guy who won't be dragged OUT of bed.
Her Father
After being unfaithful to "The Stranger", who committed a murder on her account, Cherry Millard, known as "The Siren", leaves to work in a dance hall in the Western town of Nugget. When Burt Hall arrives in town to deliver a will to the heirs of Bruce McClade, he is captivated by Cherry, who learns of Burt's mission. Discovering that the will dictates that Dr. Langdon, a friend of the family, is to receive $25,000, Cherry decides to impersonate Langdon's daughter Rose and thus gain possession of the money. In the meantime, The Stranger, who has been freed from jail, returns, recognizes Cherry as The Siren and kills her. This frees Burt from her evil spell, and The Stranger, now insane, follows The Siren's spirit into the desert.