Russell Simpson
Birthday: 1880-06-16
Place of Birth: Danville, California, USA
Biography: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Russell McCaskill Simpson (June 17, 1880, Danville, California – December 12, 1959, Woodland Hills, California) was an American character actor who appeared in over 500 movies. He is best known for his "grizzled old man" appearances. Gaunt, lanky, and rustic-sounding, Simpson was a familiar character actor for almost forty-five years, particularly as a member of the John Ford Stock Company. At age 18 Simpson prospected for gold in Alaska. He began taking acting classes in Seattle, Washington. In 1910 he married Gertrude Alter from New York City. By 1909, he had gone into the theatre. He appeared in at least two plays on Broadway between 1909 and 1912, and made his motion picture debut in Cecil B. DeMille's 1914 original film version of The Virginian in a bit part. By 1923, when the film was remade, Simpson had progressed to playing the lead villain. Throughout his career, Simpson worked for 12 years in road shows, stock companies, and on Broadway. He didn't usually perform lead roles, but he did star in many movies throughout the silent movie era. He performed a lead role as the grandfather in Out of the Dust (1920). Simpson is best known for his work in the films of John Ford and, in particular, for his portrayal of Pa Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). His final film was The Horse Soldiers, his tenth film for Ford. Simpson worked up to 1959, the year of his death. He was the president of the Overseas Phonograph Accessories Corporation.
Movies
The Grapes of Wrath
Tom Joad returns to his home after a jail sentence to find his family kicked out of their farm due t...
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Santa Fe Trail
As a penalty for fighting fellow classmates days before graduating from West Point, J.E.B. Stuart, G...
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My Darling Clementine
Three brothers stop off for a night in the town of Tombstone. The next morning they find one of thei...
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The Tin Star
An experienced bounty hunter helps a young sheriff learn the meaning of his badge....
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The Earth Woman
The story is set in the hills of Tennessee, where practically everybody gets smashed on rotgut moons...
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Bunty Pulls the Strings
A woman named Bunty Bigger struggles to keep her family in line in a small Scottish village. For one...
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Carolina
During Civil War Reconstruction, the Connelly family is romantically restored to their former glory ...
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Desert Gold
In this adaptation of Zane Grey's novel, adventurer Dick Gale (E.K. Lincoln) is traveling through th...
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Now We're in the Air
Wally and Ray are cousins intent upon getting the fortune of their Scots grandad, an aviation nut. T...
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Wagon Master
Two young horse traders guide a Mormon wagon train to the San Juan Valley and encounter rugged terra...
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Coroner Creek
A man is bent on taking revenge on those responsible for his fiancée's death....
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The Girl of the Golden West
A bandit disguises himself as an officer in an attempt to woo a saloon singer....
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The Border Legion
Cowhand Jim Cleve is wrongly accused of murder and rescued by Jack Kells, leader of a band of Idaho ...
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The Hoosier Schoolmaster
Right after the Civil War, an ex-Union soldier sets out to become a schoolmaster in his small town, ...
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Hello Trouble
After killing a friend in a gunfight, Jeff Douglas quits the Texas Rangers. He arrives at the Kenyon...
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Border Patrol
When three Texas Rangers try to investigate kidnapped Mexicans being used as forced labor in the min...
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Along Came Jones
An easy-going cowboy is mistaken by the townsfolk for a notorious gunman. The cowboy decides it woul...
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Silver Dollar
A farmer strikes it rich out West, then leaves his wife for a young beauty....
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Joan of Arc
In the 15th Century, France is a defeated and ruined nation after the One Hundred Years War against ...
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The Power and the Glory
A man's life is retold just after his funeral. Beginning as a track walker, Tom Garner rose through ...
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Broken Lance
Tensions erupt within an Arizona cattle baron's household when his three sons vie for control of the...
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Law and Order
A legendary lawman and his cohorts set out to restore order to the dangerous streets of Tombstone, A...
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The Sun Shines Bright
With the election approaching, a judge in a Southern town at the turn of the 20th century is involve...
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Feudin' Fools
Sach learns that he has inherited a farm in rural hillbilly country, and when he and the Boys arrive...
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The Big Bonanza
Having been falsely court marshaled for cowardice and sentenced to prison by the Army, Jed Kilton es...
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Friendly Persuasion
The story of a family of Quakers in Indiana in 1862. Their religious sect is strongly opposed to vio...
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Saddle Tramp
Carefree Chuck Connor is on his way west and stops off to see an old friend and his four lads. When ...
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Ramona
Half-Indian girl brought up in a wealthy household is loved by the son of the house against his fami...
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Paradise Isle
Stranded on an island, a blind artist (Warren Hull) falls in love with a native (Movita)....
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Motive for Revenge
Bank teller Barry Webster is driven to stealing bank funds by his mother-in-law who continually nags...
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Lena Rivers
Young Lena Rivers, who was born out of wedlock, goes to live with a rich uncle. Unfortunately, her u...
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The Splendid Road
Young Sandra De Hault arrives by ship in Sacramento, California, during the 1849 Gold Rush. While on...
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Blue Jeans
June, a young orphan, is befriended by Perry Bascom when he shares his lunch with her on the road to...
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That I May Live
Crooks use a man's safe-cracking skills then involve him in more crime after he spends three years i...
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Billy the Kid
Billy, after shooting down land baron William Donovan's henchmen for killing Billy's boss, is hunted...
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Sundown in Santa Fe
Sundown in Santa Fe is an adventure film directed by R.G. Springsteen in 60. A dagger has been left ...
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Snowblind
Hugh Garth hides from the law in the frozen Canadian northwest along with his young brother Pete and...
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Way Down East
A family living on a farm in Maine takes in a young woman to stay with them, not knowing that the wo...
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The Harvester
In a small town in Indiana in the 1890s, the domineering and ambitious Mrs. Biddle arranges a marria...
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Yodelin' Kid from Pine Ridge
The old west range war story transported to Georgia, with Autry as the hero....
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Tuna Clipper
Hoping to become a lawyer, Alec (Roddy McDowall) becomes a tuna fisherman in order to pay a debt. Th...
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Mountain Justice
Stalwart Appalachian woman finds romance as she struggles to better herself and her people amid prej...
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The Great Meadow
Pioneers and a family man leave Virginia for Kentucky during the Revolutionary War....
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Comin' Round the Mountain
Al Stewart and Wilbert are magicians doing a stage act when they run into Wilbert's cousin, Dorothy ...
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The First Auto
The transition from horses to automobiles at the turn of the century causes problems between a fathe...
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The Brand
A dancehall girl struggles to make a life for herself in the mining camps of Alaska, despite the obs...
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The Horse Soldiers
A Union Cavalry outfit is sent behind confederate lines in strength to destroy a rail supply center....
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Face in the Sky
Joe and Lucky travel around New England painting barns in exchange for an advertisement on one side....
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After the Fog
Millionaire Joshua Barker insists that his daughter, Faith, must marry Phil Langhorne, a man that ne...
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Gold Is Where You Find It
Colonel Ferris, a wealthy farmer in northern California, is strongly opposed to hydraulic mining, a ...
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Thunder Mountain
Sam Martin grows up in the Kentucky hills with a preacher as his closest friend and father figure. T...
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Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise)
A young woman runs away from an abusive home and pre-arranged marriage only to be frustrated in her ...
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Man to Man
A young man attempts to overcome the memory of his father, who was sent to jail for committing a mur...
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The Old Homestead
When Josiah Whitcomb's son gets into trouble with bad companions in New York City, Josiah leaves the...
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Innocents of Paris
A Parisian junk dealer has to choose between love and fame after he rescues a boy....
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Abraham Lincoln
A biopic dramatizing Abraham Lincoln's life through a series of vignettes depicting its defining cha...
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The Cabin in the Cotton
Sharecropper's son Marvin tries to help his community overcome poverty and ignorance....
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Wild West Days
Retired lawman Kentucky Wade and his three buddies, Mike Morales, "Dude" Hanford and "Trigger" Bento...
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Tobacco Road
Shiftless Jeeter Lester and his family of sharecroppers live in rural Georgia where their ancestors ...
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Wild Geese Calling
In the 1890s lumberjack John leaves Seattle for Alaska to look for gold. After he marries dancehall ...
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Defying Destiny
Set in the small town of Riverdale, Defying Destiny opens with Jack Fenton (Monte Blue) being scarre...
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Lone Star
Rip-roaring big star, big budget semi-historical story about cattle baron Devereaux Burke, who is en...
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The Branding Iron
Pierre Landis is insanely jealous of his beautiful young wife Joan, and his jealousy makes him take ...
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Stolen by Gypsies or Beer and Bicycles
When the fiendish Sinclair Sable arranges the kidnapping of the beautiful Benecia Beamish, only the ...
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Roughly Speaking
In the 1920s, enterprising Louise Randall is determined to succeed in a man's world. Despite numerou...
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Last of the Duanes
Based on Zane Grey's tale of a man who gains an unfair reputation as a gunfighter while out to aveng...
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The Honor of the Press
Cub reporter Daniel Greely gets a job on a big city newspaper. A string of robberies occur and the o...
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Breakers Ahead
After young Ruth Bowman's mother dies, the child is raised by Agatha Pixley, and in time, the girl f...
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The Lonely Man
Aging gunslinger Jacob Wade hopes to settle down with his estranged son, but his old enemies have ot...
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The Eagle
Vladimir Dubrouvsky, a lieutenant in the Russian army, catches the eye of Czarina Catherine II. He s...
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Paddy O'Day
A wealthy, eccentric collector of stuffed birds and a beautiful Russian singer provide refuge to an ...
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Virginia City
Union officer Kerry Bradford escapes from a Confederate prison and races to intercept $5 million in ...
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The Famous Ferguson Case
A foreword warns against the peril of yellow journalism, and the story illustrates it by following e...
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Ever Since Eve
Neil Rogers, a young man who owns a substantial share of a Western gold mine, comes East and falls i...
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Dodge City
In this epic Western, Wade Hatton, a wagon master turned sheriff, tames a cow town at the end of a r...
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Young Mr. Lincoln
In this dramatized account of his early law career in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln is born into a modes...
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Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
After the death of a United States Senator, idealistic Jefferson Smith is appointed as his replaceme...
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Nazi Agent
Humble stamp dealer Otto Becker has little to do with international politics, so when he receives a ...
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Drums Along the Mohawk
Albany, New York, 1776. After marrying, Gil and Lana travel north to settle on a small farm in the M...
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The Fabulous Texan
A couple of Confederate soldiers, returning home from the Civil War, find Texas transformed into an ...
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Heart of the North
A two-fisted Canadian Mountie leads lawmen in pursuit of the thieves who stole an Edmonton-bound fre...
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Western Caravans
A caravan of settlers is arriving and the ranchers intend to keep them out. It looks like a range wa...
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Free For All
The discovery of a way of turning petrol into water makes a fortune and romance for the young invent...
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The Last Command
During the Texas War of Independence of 1836 American frontiersman and pioneer Jim Bowie pleads for ...
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The Untamed Breed
A cowboy sets out to capture an escaped Brahma bull that is terrorizing local ranchers. Based on a s...
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Alexander Hamilton
The founding father has an extramarital affair and meets with the likes of Thomas Jefferson....
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The Frontiersman
John Dale and Abner Hawkins are members of Andrew Jackson's Tennessee Militia, assigned to make peac...
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Call Her Savage
A high-spirited and short-tempered Texan woman storms her way through life until her luck runs out, ...
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Valley of the Giants
A lumberman takes on a sleezy corporate giant wanting to move in and do whatever it takes to drive e...
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Death Valley
A dance hall girl is murdered and her body robbed of a quantity of gold obtained illegally. The kill...
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Bowery Buckaroos
The Bowery Boys head west to clear Louie of an old murder charge that he had killed his gold-mine pa...
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Shut My Big Mouth
A shy horticulturist becomes involved with a local criminal in the old west....
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Citadel of Crime
A gang of mobsters try to take over the various moonshine operations in the hills of West Virginia....
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Wyoming
With the army after him and his partner deserting, Reb decides that a change of scenery would be nic...
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Annie Laurie
The story of the famous battle between the Scots clans of Macdonald and Campbell, and the young woma...
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Brigham Young
Based on the story of the famous Mormon leader, it follows Brigham Young and his challenge to transp...
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Frontier Marshal
Thinly veiled reworking of the Wyatt Earp story with the renamed Michael Wyatt rolling into Tombston...
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The Virginian
A good-natured but chivalrous cowboy romances the local schoolmarm and leads the posse that brings a...
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Human Hearts
Innocent country boy Tom Logan is taken in by the scheming Barbara Kay, a city woman who knows Tom i...
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Ridin' for Justice
More a romantic melodrama than a true Western, this Buck Jones vehicle from Columbia starred Jones a...
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Texas Masquerade
A young Eastern lawyer, seriously injured in a stage holdup, secures the help of Hoppy, California a...
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Swamp Water
A hunter happens upon a fugitive and his daughter living in a Georgia swamp. He falls in love with t...
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Three Faces West
Viennese surgeon Dr. Braun and his daughter Leni come to a small town in North Dakota as refugees fr...
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The Virginian
Molly Wood arrives in a small western town to be the new schoolmarm. The Virginian, foreman on a loc...
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Rags to Riches
A rich young boy has to prove his worth to the gang he has just joined by during all sorts of hardsh...
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Rustlin' for Cupid
Bradley Blatchford, returning to his father's ranch from college, meets Sybil Hamilton, who is comin...
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Geronimo
The army's effort to capture Apache chief Geronimo, who is leading a band of warriors on a rampage o...
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Meet John Doe
As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed "John Doe," who ...
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West of the Pecos
Richard Dix stars as Pecos Smith, a strong, silent Westerner suspected of cattle rustling....
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Lovey Mary
Lovely Mary, an orphan girl, reluctantly takes charge of her sister's child when her sister Kate is ...
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Call of the Klondike
A brother and sister are running a phony gold mine scam in the Klondike, which leads to murder. A Ca...
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California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush is set in 1849. Ryder heads to Sutter's Mill, where he must contend with claim-...
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Lahoma
In Oklahoma, kindhearted outlaw Brick Willock rescues little Lahoma Gledware and her father Henry fr...
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The Gal Who Took the West
In order to gain passage to the West, a woman poses as an opera singer, and causes a feud between tw...
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The Ghost of Crossbone Canyon
Two episodes of the TV series "Wild Bill Hickok" edited together and released as a feature....
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Lone Star Ranger
Texas Ranger Buck Dunne is assigned to round up a gang of bank robbers. The leader of the gang turns...
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Wild Bill Hickok Rides
The Western hero takes on a ruthless land baron whose henchmen killed his best friend....
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Albuquerque
Cole Armin comes to Albuquerque to work for his uncle, John Armin, a despotic and hard-hearted czar ...
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Bad Men of Missouri
The Younger brothers return to Missouri after the Civil War with intent to avenge the misdeeds of Wi...
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Tap Roots
Set at the beginning of the Civil War, Tap Roots is all about a county in Mississippi which chooses ...
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The Spoilers
When honest ship captain Roy Glennister gets swindled out of his mine claim, he turns to saloon sing...
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Painted People
Ellie Byrne and Don Lane, chums, living in the poor section of a factory town, go away to make their...
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The Huntress
Bela, reared by Indians, learns that she is a white orphan and runs away from the Indian village to ...
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The Woman of the Town
Bat Masterson, who after failing to secure a job as a newspaper reporter becomes marshal of Dodge Ci...
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Colt Comrades
Hoppy, California and Johnny partner up with brother and sister ranch owners, two of several who are...
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The Brass Legend
During a ride with his new pony Sinoya, the young Clay Gibson by chance finds the secret housing of ...
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Faint Perfume
After a stormy six year marriage, Barnaby Powers divorces his wife Richmiel. She returns home, takin...
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San Francisco
A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days befo...
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My Dog Shep
An orphan boy on his way to live with his uncle picks up a stray dog, and the two become fast friend...
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A Boy and His Dog
11 year old Davy discovers that a chained gentle dog, Buck, is badly wounded around the neck because...
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Three on a Honeymoon
This romantic comedy takes place on an ocean liner. One of the few unattached passengers is heiress ...
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Godless Men
On board his trading schooner in the South Pacific, tough sea captain Black Pawl confronts his own s...
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Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
In 1850 Oregon, when a backwoodsman brings a wife home to his farm, his six brothers decide that the...
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Green Light
A brilliant young surgeon takes the blame for a colleague when a botched surgery causes a patient's ...
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Peg o' My Heart
PEG O MY HEART (Metro Studios, 1922), directed by King Vidor, under the supervision of J. Hartley Ma...
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The Romance of Rosy Ridge
A mysterious Civil War veteran courts a Missouri farmer's daughter amid postwar unrest....
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The World Moves On
Two families, cotton merchants in England and America, with branches in France and Prussia swear to ...
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Why Women Love
An oil tanker burns at sea, and Molla Hansen, the captain's daughter, is the only survivor. Her resc...
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The Lone Star Ranger
After shooting a man in self-defense, Buck Duane finds himself accused of many crimes, none of which...
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They Were Expendable
After a demonstration of new PT boats, navy brass are still unconvinced of their viability in combat...
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The Bill of Rights
This short subject is a lavish costumed color production which dramatizes the birth of the American ...
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Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair
Ma and Pa are trying to raise enough money at the county fair to send their daughter Rosie to colleg...
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Back to Nature
The Jones family goes to a convention traveling in a trailer. The oldest daughter gets involved with...
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Roaring Guns
Farmers take up arms against miners whose high water pressure mining operations are destroying their...
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Maid of Salem
When a young woman named Barbara Clarke has an affair with adventurer Roger Coverman, it causes a sc...
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Bill Apperson's Boy
Jack Pickford got his own production company when his sister Mary signed a huge contract with First ...
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Tropical Nights
Patsy Ruth Miller stars as the romantic bone of contention between pearl divers Malcolm McGregor and...
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Riders of the Night
Another of a successful string of Metro features directed by the vastly underrated John H. Collins, ...
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Old Shoes
A widowed woman marries her husband's brother, who soon proves to be a tyrant stepfather to his adop...
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My Lady's Past
Mamie Reynolds has been engaged to Sam Young for ten years. But when Sam's novel is published after ...
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The Narrow Street
Simon Haldane works in the office of the Faulkner Iron Works, but he has been raised by his two maid...
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The Girl of the Golden West
Not realizing he is a bandit The Girl, owner of the Polka Saloon, falls in love with Ramerrez. Trapp...
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Wild Geese
Silent romantic melodrama about a wife and mother who is desperate to keep a secret from the past I...
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Riding High
No relation to the 1950 Frank Capra film of the same name, the 1943 Technicolor musical Riding High ...
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Girl of the Ozarks
A sweet little country girl has issues with school. Her mother is ill. The school threatens to send ...
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The Deadlier Sex
The Deadlier Sex features Blanche Sweet playing the daughter of a railroad magnate (Winter Hall) who...
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Paint and Powder
Elaine Hammerstein stars in this independently produced drama. She plays Mary Dolan, a dancer at a B...
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The Riding Tornado
Newcomer Torrent wins $500 from Olcott and $500 and a wild horse, by riding the horse, from Engle. T...
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The Tall Men
Two brothers discharged from the Confederate Army join a businessman for a cattle drive from Texas t...
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Tennessee Johnson
The tumultuous presidency of 19th-president Andrew Johnson is chronicled in this biopic. The story b...
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Meet Me at the Fair
In 1904, Doc Tilbee, medicine show huckster and champion tall-tale teller, gives a ride to a young b...
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A Weaver of Dreams
Unrequited love rules the day as both wealthy Judith Sylvester and her invalid aunt pine for men who...
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Under the Lash
The wife of a tyrannical Boer husband discovers what life could be like when a handsome Englishmen v...
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Flames
Brown is a confident young firefighter. He and his buddy become interested in two girls, after savin...
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The Outriders
Late in the Civil War, three Confederate soldiers escape from a Union prison camp in Missouri. They ...
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Sixteen Fathoms Deep
A sponge diver hopes to make enough money to buy his own boat and marry his girlfriend. A rival dive...
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Across the Dead-Line
Gilead is a lumber town that is dominated by two branches of the Kidder family: the puritanical, ult...
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Moonlight in Vermont
A poor country girl from Vermont travels to New York City to attend a theatrical school....
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The Uphill Path
Ruth Travers, the young niece and ward of Howard Mason, elopes with Chadwick Blake to escape the adv...
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Radio Scout
A radio station's janitor is sent to the Kentucky Hills to round-up some hillbilly talent. He poses ...
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Parnell
Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell struggles to free his country from English rule, but his re...
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The Challenge Accepted
In the Blue Ridge Mountains Postmaster's daughter Sally Haston loves Steve Carey, but wants him to e...
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Oklahoma!
In the Oklahoma territory at the turn of the twentieth century, two young cowboys vie with a violent...
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Ship of Souls
Langley Barnes goes to the North Country to seek peace, after being deserted by his wife, and falls ...
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The Re-Creation of Brian Kent
To support a demanding wife, bank clerk Brian Kent embezzles a large sum of money and, overcome with...
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Hearts Aflame
The son of a retired timber baron meets and falls in love with a Michigan woman who refuses to sell ...
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Tall in the Saddle
When Rocklin arrives in a western town he finds that the rancher who hired him as a foreman has been...
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Lovely Mary
Mary Lane and her cousin Claiborne want to sell some land left to them by their family. Real-estate ...
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Beauty and the Bad Man
Cassie, an orphan who sings angelically in a small-town church, marries the organist, L. I. B. Bell,...
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Desire
Society children Madalyn Harlan and Bob Elkins separate the day they are to be married. Madalyn marr...
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The Blue Bandanna
Jerry Jerome, a rich young Wall Street broker, follows doctor's orders and goes West to relieve stra...
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Fighting Cressy
A feud over boundaries between the McKinstry and Harrison families, both from Kentucky, but squattin...
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The Barrier
When a cruel sea-captain named Bennett murders the mother of his child, the little girl is rescued a...
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