Alvin Wyckoff

Robert Benchley answers questions ranging from across the political spectrum.

This MGM John Nesbitt's Passing Parade series short dramatizes how the work of Dutch physician Christiaan Eijkman, who searched for a cure for beri-beri on the island of Java in the 1890s, led to the discovery of vitamins.

A look at some sights in Olvera St. in Los Angeles, California.

In this melodrama filmed on location in Hawaii, a sugar plantation manager finds himself falling in love with a native girl, but instead of committing to her, he marries a socially prominent young woman from San Francisco. The spoiled girl does not easily adapt to the rigors of plantation life and she gets terribly bored. She is just about to give in to the romantic overtures of a persistent native when her former lover shows up. The husband gets jealous and is about to attack him when the wife sets fire to the cane field. The husband's native lover saves him from death. Afterward, his wife leaves to be with her old flame, and the manager is free to be with the woman he's loved all along.

Clyde Beatty, an animal trainer and circus star, leads a search for his missing girlfriend and her father who were on an expedition looking for a lost tropical island. Using a dirigible as his mode of transportation, Beatty and his band head off in search of the missing explorers only to crash their airship on the same island their friends are located. Battling wild animals and a gang of greedy men searching for gold, Beatty and his party must rescue his girlfriend and father all the while trying to escape their jungle island. Feature version of the same-title serial of the same year, with refilmed sequences substantially altering the plot and characters of the original chapterplay.

12 part movie serial where Clyde Beatty encounters obstacles and adventure on his way to rescue his damsel in distress.

Hank Davis, foreman on a huge dam project, enlists the aid of his two flyer friends when a sinister figure known as The Black Ace leads his Mystery Squadron of masked pilots in an attempt to destroy the dam.

In this Western, comprised of 12 chapters from a serial, Kit leads a group carrying a large gold shipment across the wild West. When the Mystery Riders attack and steal the gold, Kit is the only survivor. He later joins forces with the cavalry to retrieve it.

Burr and Dave, two close friends who have backed each other up in countless difficulties, are torn apart by the arrival of a woman, Manette, who becomes stranded with them in their cabin during a raging blizzard.

A couple undergo hardship homesteading in Alberta, where they are plagued by bad weather and financial woes.

Tom Kelly, a small-town baseball pitcher, is sent to a minor-league team in Florida, and fails to make the team. He starts dabbling in real estate, in the midst of the Florida land boom (in which a lot of the land sold was under water), makes a fortune and buys into the team that cut him from its roster.

Alfred E.Green silent family relationship romantic melodrama

Richard Dix, a displayer in a department store, enters a raffle and wins the so-called 'hoodoo' bad-luck automobile formerly owned by the store owner's son, a soul seemingly always in trouble with cops and women. Well, suddenly Dix begins to have the same problem, only he also gets mixed up in the life of Esther Ralston and her Aunt Edna May Oliver. Hilarious misunderstandings and undertakings become the fodder for the day!

Based on a Frederick Lonsdale Broadway play.

The Swan (1925) is a silent film produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on Melville Baker's 1923 Broadway play adaptation, The Swan, of Ferenc Molnar's play A Hattyu Vigjatek Harom Felvonasbarn. This film was directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki, a recent Russian immigrant working for Famous Players-Lasky. Buchowetzki had directed pictures in Russia, Sweden, and Germany. The story of this film was remade in 1930 as One Romantic Night, an early talkie for Lillian Gish, and in Technicolor as a 1956 vehicle for Grace Kelly.

Lily, a poor and friendless orphan, is married to a sensual and elderly Colonel in the German army who divorces her when he finds her with a former officer sweetheart. Introduced by a girl friend to Bohemian society, Lily loses the love of the young officer and marries her former lover, a wealthy art connoisseur.

Michael Ramsay only has time for gathering his fortune in wheat. His wife seeks comfort elsewhere and, to avoid a scandal, her daughter Matilda assumes her mother's guilt. Ramsay nearly goes broke but gets rich again; his wife returns.

A rousing fusion of satire, mystery and action. Aristrocrat Ambrose Applejohn is aching for excitement. He gets more than he bargained for when the two Russian thieves Anna Valeska and her partner Borolsky, arrive at the mansion one dark night.

Juan is the son of a poor widow in Seville. Against his mother's wishes he pursues a career as toreador. He rapidly gains national prominence, and takes his childhood sweetheart Carmen as his bride. He meets the Marquis' daughter Doña Sol and finds himself in the awkward position of being in love with two women, which threatens the stability of his family and his position in society. He finds interesting parallels in the life of the infamous bandit Plumitas when they eventually meet by chance.

In a Mexican border town Arthur befriends cantina girl Poll. She falls for him but he still loves the dancer Rosa. When the cigar Poll gives him explodes and blinds him, Arthur is duped into thinking Poll is Rosa and marries her. When his vision is surgically restored, he leaves for Siam to find Rosa.

Mary Maddock works as a seamstress to bring home money while her husband Steve, unemployed, has no real prospects of earning money. Mary's employers, are trying to strike an oil related business deal with a rich man by the name of Nelson Rogers. The deal does not seem to be on the table, as Mr. Rogers is leaving town shortly and does not have the time to work out the details of such a deal. In an order to entice him to stay, Mrs. Mallory - wife of Mr. Mallory who is proposing the business deal - convinces Mary to be her guest at a dinner party with the intent of making Mr. Rogers fall for her and thus stay long enough for Mr. Mallory to make him agree to a business deal.

Wealthy cripple Markley finances the education of blacksmith's daughter Ruth. When she returns to their small town he asks to marry her, but she runs off with city worker Jim Dirk who is then killed in a subway accident. Markley offers to marry her in name only to protect her new son.

Robert and Beth Bordon are married but share little. He runs into Sally at a cabaret and the Gordons are soon divorced. Just as he gets bored with Sally's superficiality, Beth strives to improve her looks. The original couple falls in love again at a summer resort.

When an aristocratic family and their servants are shipwrecked, the butler becomes their ruler.

Framed for embezzlement, an English nobleman flees to America, eventually finding romance in Wyoming with a young Native-American. This is the 1918 remake of the 1913 original, the first feature length Hollywood film. It is considered to be a lost film with only one reel still extant.

Yvonne von Krutz, a Belgian, lives with her German husband Karl, whom she was forced to marry, and her spirited little brother Jacques in a farmhouse on the Belgian countryside. With the German invasion of Belgium, Karl joins the German forces, and Jacques is taken to a reformatory to be trained as a munitions worker. When Karl is taken prisoner, Capt. Jefferson Strong, an American engineer, assumes the German's identity and discovers an underground supply of explosives near the von Krutz farm. By means of a tunnel, the Americans plan to mine the explosives. To save Jacques and a group of children from the munitions factory, however, Jefferson sends them across the American lines through the tunnel, but they lose their way, and he is forced to disable the mine. Jefferson is court-martialed, but King Albert of Belgium, who has befriended little Jacques, intercedes on his behalf. Learning that Karl has been killed, Jefferson pursues his budding romance with Yvonne.

A married couple, each in love with another, attempts to unentangle themselves from their marriage in order to be with the one each truly loves. But the more they untangle one knot, the faster more confusing knots appear.

Charles Murdock neglects his fat and lazy wife for another woman; When his other love interest becomes involved in a murder, he leaves for Paris.

John Trimble has embezzled and obtains another identity by having a mutilated body buried in his place. He is later arrested for murdering himself. During the trial his mother, before dying from shock, asks him to keep his identity secret since his wife is now married to the Governor and expecting a child.

Cortez sends Alvarado to Montezuma who throws him into a dungeon from which he is rescued by Tecza who loves him. He is recaptured when her lover Guatemoco finds Alvarado hiding in her chambers. Tecza next leads Cortez into the city, thus causing the destruction of her nation and securing the love of Alvarado.

A young American has her ship torpedoed by a German U-boat but makes it back to her ancestral home in France, where she witnesses German brutality firsthand.

A young girl travels west to live with her uncle during the California Gold Rush only to find that he has been killed by Indians and his identity assumed by an outlaw.

A WWI English officer is inspired the night before a dangerous mission by a vision of Joan of Arc, whose story he relives.

Jack Hale, a revenue agent, is sent into the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to track down illegal alcohol producers.

Despite her well-bred upbringing, Mary had disobeyed her family’s wishes and married Steve Denby, a petty thief whose penchant for booze has left them destitute. Mary answers an ad to be a society woman’s seamstress and is hired by Mrs. Hillary. Mr. Hillary is trying to close a deal with Roger Manning and entices him by inviting him, as a dinner guest, to meet the “prettiest girl in the world.” Upon learning that the “prettiest girl” is indisposed, Mrs. Hillary, realizing that Mary had good upbringing, enlists Mary as a substitute. Naturally Mary and Manning fall in love, and, since the deal still isn’t signed, the Hillary’s hire Mary’s services for the weekend.

Opera singer Renee Dupree is in love with struggling composer Julian who falls very seriously ill. She goes to impresario Mueller for the money Julian needs but is saved from sacrificing her virtue when a jealous lover kills Mueller.

A venal, spoiled stockbroker's wife impulsively embezzles $10,000 from the charity she chairs and desperately turns to a Burmese ivory trader to replace the stolen money.

Chimmie is sent to Death Valley CA as part of a railroad scheme. He's to pretend to have discovered gold there, then set a new transcontinental record heading east. It doesn't quite work out that way.

Hot-blooded gypsy Carmen attempts to seduce Don Jose, a lawman sent to thwart a gang of illegal smugglers in Spain. Carmen's plan backfires when Don Jose's passion for the gypsy girl escalates into a jealous rage as she spurns him for her bullfighter beau, Escamillo, with tragic results.

Pregnant tenement dweller Maggie Schultz is being used by burglars....

Bowery hooligan Chimmie is saved from false arrest by socialite dogooder Fanny. She takes in him, his brother and mother as servants. His brother schemes to steal the good lady's silver.

An old sheik punishes his son Jamil for robbing a caravan by giving his horse to the wronged merchant. The horse is sold to a Turkish general then given to a Christian missionary Mary Hilbert. Jamil takes it from her but then, after falling in loves, save her and her father. When his father dies, Jamil must relinquish Mary to become the new sheik.

Set during the Balkan Wars, The Captive tells the story of Sonia, a young woman living in Montenegro and left to care for her younger brother Milos and the family farm when older brother Marko goes off to battle. Unable to handle the day-to-day tasks following her brother’s tragic death, help comes in the form of Mahmud Hassan (House Peters, Prisoners of the Storm) a captured Turk nobleman now a prisoner of war. Tasked with helping Sonia, their initial frosty relationship soon melts into love. As the war rages on Sonia, Mahmud and Milos will face near-insurmountable obstacles in their quest for a better life amidst the hell of war.

A saloon hostess loves Ramerrez, a notorious highwayman. Sheriff Jack Rance, who loves the girl too, instigates a card game that will determine the fate of all three of them. If she wins, the girl's lover will go free; but if she loses…

Esra Kincaid takes land by force and, having taken the Espinoza land, his sights are set on the Castro rancho. Government agent Kearney holds him off till the cavalry shows up and he can declare his love for Juanita, called “the Rose of the Rancho.”

Soda jerk Harvey is the most popular man in Blakeville NY and deliriously happy through three years of poverty-stricken marriage to Nellie. After a musical comedy troupe comes through, Nellie becomes an actress. When she then falls for a millionaire and goes to Reno for a divorce, Harvey takes their child Phoebe home where her later illness brings her parents back together.

A good-natured but chivalrous cowboy romances the local schoolmarm and leads the posse that brings a gang of rustlers, which includes his best friend, to justice.

An early version of the classic, based more on the 1902 stage musical than on the original novel.