Polly Moran

A reconstruction, made from still photographs, of the lost 1927 Tod Browning film London After Midnight (1927) starring Lon Chaney.

Some of MGM'S musical stars review the studios history of musicals. From The Hollywood Revue of 1929 to Brigadoon, from the first musical talkies to Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain.

Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.

Pirdy is accident prone. He has been denied insurance from every company in town because he is always getting hit or hurt in some way. On the day that he meets the lovely Ellen of the Yellow Cab Co., he also meets the crooked lawyer named Creavy. Pirdy is an inventor and when Creavy learns about elastic-glass, his new invention, he makes plans to steal the process. With the help of another con man named Doksteader, and the boys, he will steal this million dollar invention no matter who gets hurt.

When a woman attempts to kill her uncaring husband, prosecutor Adam Bonner gets the case. Unfortunately for him his wife Amanda (who happens to be a lawyer too) decides to defend the woman in court. Amanda uses everything she can to win the case and Adam gets mad about it. As a result, their perfect marriage is disturbed by everyday quarrels.

This short film takes a nostalgic look at the Mack Sennett comedies of the silent cinema era.

Pa Higgins has decided to retire but winds up being forced to run for mayor. Ladd is both boyfriend to the Higgins girl and the son of Pa's opponent.

Gran Higgins falls under the spell of a love-starved widow.

When private tutor Thomas Arnold (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) becomes headmaster at Rugby, a boy's preparatory school in England, he puts into place a policy of strict punishment for unruliness and bulying. Arnold finds an ally in Tom Brown (Jimmy Lydon), a new student who is subjected to hazing and abuse by a group of older boys and is pressured by his friends to keep quiet about it. Fed up, he leads his fellow classmates in an underground rebellion against their tormentors. But certain unspoken rules still apply at the school and Brown loses his hero status when he is accussed of breaking the Rugby code of silence.

Four bandits swoop down on a California bank and flee with $98,000, leaving a truck as the only clue to their identity. Jane Hartman, bank secretary, recognizes the truck as one on which her brother Charles worked. Fleeing to her brother, she is trapped by the gang, composed of its master-mind, Gibbs, Sidney, a gunman, and Randall, a blackballed airplane pilot. Under threat of bodily harm to her brother, she lures truck-driver Tony Andrews to the hideout, and he is forced to help them in their escape attempt.

The Cattlemen's Association has called in the Mesquiteers to find cattle rustlers. They get Tex Riley to pose as Stony so Stony can arrive posing as a wanted outlaw. This gets Stony into the gang of rustlers and he alerts Tucson and Lullaby as to the next raid. But Hartley is on hand and unknown to anyone is the rustler's boss and he joins the posse with a plan that will do away with the Mesquiteers.

Alison Skipworth plays female mayor Josephine Bonney, at present having trouble dealing with her town's criminal element. Josephine enlists the aid of home town boy Braddock (Robert Livingston), a pretty tough customer himself, to take on the crooks.

The two leading ladies are cast as Prudence and Agatha, a pair of old-fashioned schoolteachers in an old-fashioned small town. Disdaining the wimpy theories of "progressive" education, Prudence and Agatha stick to the reliable "Three R's," often teaching to the tune of a hickory stick. Though ridiculed for their so-called outmoded methods, the heroines manage to turn out quite a few prize students, earning the undying gratitude of the local citizenry.

An immigrant girl hears that if she marries an American citizen she won't be deported, so she goes looking for a husband.

A fish peddler is known to her customers as "The Duchess"; her fiance's father hears this and thinks she is a real duchess.

Left only with their yacht after going broke in the Great Depression, a high-society family sets sail for the South Seas. Screwball comedy, with songs.

Jimmy Durante is jungle movie star Schnarzan the Conqueror, but the public is tiring of his fake lions. When Baron Munchausen comes to town with real man-eating lions, Durante throws him a big Hollywood star-studded party so that he might use the lions in his next movie. But, his film rival sneaks into the party to buy the lions before Durante.

Jimmy Durante asks popular song writing team Mack Gordon and Harry Revel to demonstrate some of their songs. There is interplay with impersonator Florence Desmond, Ben Turpin, Rudy Vallee and many others.

In Victorian England, a bored young girl dreams that she has entered a fantasy world called Wonderland populated by even more fantastic characters.

Longtime friends become feuding mothers-in-law when their children marry.

Paris plumber Elmer Tuttle is enlisted by socialite Patricia Alden to help make her lover Tony Lagorce jealous. With the help of his friend Julius J. McCracken and through the high society contacts he has made through Patricia, Elmer hopes to find financing for his latest invention, a pistol with a range-finding light. Comic complications ensue when Elmer's effort to interest a military leader is misconstrued as an assassination attempt.

In this holiday short, Jackie Cooper wants to throw a Christmas party for his friends on his football team but doesn't know how to go about it. His fellow stars at MGM help him out.

A district attorney commits the perfect murder when he kills his daughter's womanizing fiancé and then tries framing the fiancé's lover.

Pola Negri, Bebe Daniels, Mitzi Green, Polly Moran, Mack Sennett and Marjorie Beebe are seen relaxing at Palm Springs, a California winter resort; Barbara Stanwyck and Ricardo Cortez play golf; other celebrities are shown in Malibu Beach.

In this comedy, a conservative family becomes alarmed when they begin believing their daughter is pregnant.

Famous actress Norma Shearer's jewels are stolen… (Star-packed promotional short film intended to raise funds for the National Variety Artists Tuberculosis Sanatorium.)

A widow's decision to run for mayor kicks off a battle of the sexes in a small town.

Culture shock bombards a woman and her family when they leave their hick town to help her sister out in her big-city beauty parlor.

Mary Turner gets a three years prison sentence for a crime she didn't commit. Once released, she plots to get back at the man responsible for her conviction.

A radio announcer gets caught up with a fake clairvoyant and his gang of thieves.

Benny Rubin takes a tour of the Lame Brain Sanitarium and meets some of its strange patients.

A devoted sailor jeopardizes his love life for love of the sea.

An addled Englishman's efforts to save three young women from eviction land them all in jail and leads to other adventures and mischief.

Wise-guy carnival barker Windy bilks a group of cowboys out of their money, gets caught and is forced into working off the debt on their ranch. He falls in love with Molly, the pretty owner of the ranch, but runs afoul of foreman Steve, who also loves Molly.

Landladies Polly Smith and Marie Jones, who operate boardinghouses on the same side of the street, are afflicted with numerous petty envies and jealousies but nevertheless are the best of friends. Polly invests in the stock market and begins to reap rewards, but she is unable to persuade Marie to use her life's savings to buy shares of American Cheese or Brazilian Bananas. Meanwhile, Marie's daughter, Genevieve, and Polly's son, William, just back from college, fall in love; but an argument between the ladies breaks up the romance; and smarting under Polly's patronizing manner, Marie plunges into the market herself and with the winnings is able to stage a society splurge at a fashionable resort.

A comedy romance in which breezy Haines, as a young lady killer, tries to capture the heart of Hyams who has turned him down for Bushman. Haines plots dozens of extreme measures to win her over, and finally goes so far as to drag her from the altar, bound and gagged.

A drunkard climbs a ladder into a bedroom in the wrong house and gets romantically involved with the woman who lives there.

The road-show troupe of a top Broadway show go cross-country while taking the audience along on the on-stage scenes as well as what happens and is happening back stage of the production. The spectacular dancing ensembles and colorful costumes and pulchritude on-stage offers a contrasting background to the drabness of the backstage, where joy, sorrow, tragedies, deception, and romance are intertwined.

A romantic adventure musical film directed by Raoul Walsh....The film is believed to be lost.

An all-star revue featuring MGM contract players.

Roommates panic and plan when they hear a radio report of a murderer loose in their neighborhood.

Scheming coed Babs comes between college buddies Eddie and Biff.

Bill Whipple is a happy-go-lucky mechanic for MacDonald who thinks that he is the worlds greatest driver and lover. Mac has treated Bill like a son since he took him in. One day at the track, Bill sees Pat Bannon, and tries his best to impress her, but to no avail. On his way to catch a flight, he tricks Pat into taking him to the airport and she gets even by taking him up in a plane. He hates to fly, but will not show her that he is afraid and when the plane breaks up, he is a hero for rescuing her. This gets him publicity and Renny offers him his car to drive in the Indianapolis 500. Bill breaks with Mac to drive the car and puts it on the pole for the race. Then Renny double crosses Bill and plans to drive the car himself since Bill has tuned it so well.

One dark foggy London night, someone tries to strangle Lord Montague, but he escapes. Only to discover the four other men who did get killed were old regimental comrades in Gallipoli. When Scotland Yard gets Monty to gather the other nine surviving officers at his home, one of them is murdered, and no one else has entered the house. Now, they must determine who the murderer is.

Two men are rivals for the same girl. When she finally agrees to marry one, the other--appearing to be magnanimous in defeat--presents his former rival with a beautiful German Shepherd dog as a wedding present. It turns out, however, that he had an ulterior motive--he had trained the pooch to allow absolutely no one to get near the young woman. Complications ensue.

A con woman working the Atlantic City hotels targets a visiting businessman from Alabama.

Peggy Pepper arrives in Hollywood, from Georgia, to become a great dramatic star. Things do not go entirely according to plan.

Gray plays a reporter trying to unravel a murder involving organized crime. Lorraine plays the heroine.

The journalist Don Davis becomes involved in a murder case, where Chrystal Malone is part of it. Davis follows Chrystal to China. When Chrystal arrives in China, Davis has to save her from an execution.

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.

The wealthy Jiggs is tired of being left out of the swanky parties thrown by his social-climbing wife Maggie and their daughter. He decides to teach them a "lesson" by faking his own suicide, but things don't quite turn out the way he planned.

Papa, Mama, Daughter and Son Gimplewort move into their new house. Two movers are talking to each other about the murder of a saxophone player that took place in the house. They say his ghost still roams the house. Night comes and every noise and creak in the house scares the papa, mama and son (the daughter is out on a date). The Mover gives the daughter a parrot saying "It's a religious parrot – I bought it from a sailor". At any rate, the parrot gets into the act by yelling scaring Papa and Son who have come down looking for the source of the noise. Later Daughter and Remover return from a costume party and sneak into the house. The young man is dressed in a skeleton outfit and the fun continues. There has been film reconstruction in a number of places, particularly the last third of the film. In many cases there is a photograph depicting the scene being described.

A tough New York cop is determined to bring down a crook who has always managed to provide an alibi for the crimes he's been accused of, even though the detective knows he's guilty of committing them.

Sergeant Malone of the Mounties and effeminate Etienne Doray are both in love with Rose-Marie, but she doesn't light up until soldier of fortune Jim Kenyon drifts into the post. Soon Jim is accused of murder but he escapes.

[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.

Working as a pageboy on an ocean liner, a street orphan and his friend Slugger end up on the wrong side of the ship's captain when they try to tell him that his wife is cheating on him with other members of the crew. The boys end up in deeper trouble, after they are thrown in the brig and the ship starts sinking...

Carl Behrend, son of a wealthy businessman, marries Pauli Arndt, daughter of a pacifist professor. When World War I breaks out, Carl is drafted. Pauli and her family and friends are left behind to experience the suffering which befell civilians during the war. Her luck worsens when her father is dismissed from his professorship for teaching that war is evil. Her father argues violently with Carl's father, and degradation and despair descend on Pauli and her family as they await Carl's return from the front.

The abandoned Balfour House, which former owner was found dead five years earlier, comes back to life with the arrival of two suspicious sinister-looking tenants. (This movie was lost in 1965 during a fire.)

A detective goes in search for the villain responsible for several burglaries and a murder.

The Smiths' cook, exasperated by giving up her day off in order to cook for an unappreciative guest, decides to leave her employment in order to get married. But when Mr Smith and his family set out to drive her across town to her bridegroom, everything goes wrong.

Film was released in 1927

Are Brunettes Safe?

Cock Robin is the swaggering ballyhoo man of a Hungarian sideshow known as the Palace of Illusions. The highlight of the show is a reenactment of Salome's dance of the seven veils, replete with the beheading of Jokanaan. The performer portraying Salome is in love with Cock Robin. Jealous, sinister The Greek is determined to eliminate that competition.

In Puritan Boston, seamstress Hester Prynne and kindly Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale fall in love. After Dimmesdale must go away for a time to England, he returns to discover that Hester has given birth to their child and is the focus of local censure.

When lifelong best friends Leo and Ulrich return home after completing their military training, Leo meets the stunning Felicitas at a railway station and is mesmerized by her beauty. A scandal follows, for which Leo is sent away. Returning home three years later, he discovers that much has changed.

A young man is bet $100,000 that his famous luck can hold out and he can make that sum in one year's time, literally starting with nothing. He proceeds to Pennsylvania, where prize fight winnings are used to build a new town.

Pansy O'Donnell, a salesgirl, is given a two-week vacation at a summer resort, where she advertises clothing made by her company. The hotel clerk mistakes her for movie actress Marie La Tour, and gossip spreads that she is staying incognito.

Jimmie Adams and Sid Smith comedy produced by Jack White and distributed by Educational.

A surrealistic stew of airplanes, tornadoes, trick mirrors, and underwater car repair. Footage was recycled for the studios’ 1920 release Hold Me Tight. (MoMA)

“ Polly Moran, known as Becky O'Brien in this picture, conducts a pawn shop with Ben Turpin and Charles Lynn as her appraisers and clerks. Ben is her sweetheart and Polly sure does love him, but Ben is not quite so enthusiastic, excepting when the cash register is made to tingle, then all his love is for Becky. ” - Synopsis from Motion Picture News

A slick city crook arrives in the town and succeeds in making honest Nell fall in love with him. He then suggests an entertainment with local talent, the while his confederates crack the safe and make off with the town's wealth. Nell, with her faithful but brainless lover, journeys to the city in pursuit of the loot and the looter

Cactus Nell

Café ownder Mack Swain goes gaga over a gal.

The Pullman Bride is a 1917 American silent comedy film directed by Clarence G. Badger and starring Gloria Swanson.

Ambrose likes his mother's assistant, but when she inherits a fortune, the obstacles to their relationship keep mounting.

A stage-struck young woman becomes an heiress, and hopes to use her new-found wealth to fulfill a fantasy.

Arling, ringmaster of a small wagon circus, abuses Polly and her seven children. Foy, a farmhand, sympathizes with her and she decides to quit her place as trapeze woman in the show and get other work. She sends her brood to the poorhouse, and Foy, ignorant of her flock, makes love to her and is accepted.

Pretty Dixie Chene is abut to be married to Slim Summerville besides a swimming pool stocked with baby alligators -- wait for it -- but before the minister shows up, Charles Murray and a drunken Polly Moran manage to cause quite a fuss.