Esther Ralston
A documentary exploring the origins of the pioneers of women directors during the silent era.
This insightful documentary features some of the major and most beautiful actresses to grace the silver screen. It shows how the movie industry changed it's depiction of sex and actresses portrayal of sex from the silent movie era to the present. Classic scenes are shown from the silent movie, True Heart Susie, starring Lillian Gish, to Love Me Tonight (1932), blending sex and sophistication, starring Jeanette MacDonald (pre-Nelson Eddy) and to Elizabeth Taylor in, A Place in the Sun (1951), plus much , much more.
Our Five Daughters is a daytime soap opera that ran on NBC from January 2, 1962, until September 28, 1962. The show was written by Leonard Stadd and directed by Paul Lammers, and aired for a half hour, five days a week, at 3:30 PM EST, right after Young Doctor Malone. The show starred former silent film icon Esther Ralston, whose career had faded with the advent of sound in the late 1920s; she had lost most of her money and had been working as a sales clerk before finding some acting roles here and there. One of them was a brief appearance on the daytime courtroom drama The Verdict Is Yours. Verdict producer Eugene Burr liked what he saw and offered her the lead role in his new soap, Our Five Daughters. Ralston played Helen Lee, mother of five daughters, whose husband Jim was critically injured in an accident. He became an invalid and the abrupt change caused havoc for his wife and children. The show did not gain a significant audience and was ended after several months, on the same day The Brighter Day ended its run. Jacqueline Courtney, who played daughter Ann Lee, went on to much fame on other daytime shows such as The Edge of Night, Another World, and One Life to Live.
A man must decide whether or not he wants to survive a hydrogen bomb blast. If he does he'll be the only person remaining on earth--not a pleasant predicament.
Longshoreman Johnny Barnes is in love with Kitty Tracy, barmaid at her father's waterfront saloon, and he beats up Cassidy, a crooked politician who has been annoying her. Cassidy is murdered that night and Johnny is jailed for the crime. Kitty, her father Andy Tracy, and waterfront-priest Father Cameron believe Johnny is innocent but all evidence points to his guilt.
Songwriters Calhoun and Harrigan get Katie and Lily Blane to introduce a new one. Lily goes to England, and Katy joins her after the boys give a new song to Nora Bayes. All are reunited when the boys, now in the army, show up in England.
Owner of salon catering to fat society dames must deal with a dull fiance, a romantic stranger, the jealous blond who loves him, and the lecherous husband of a client.
Two American-army officers are working on a new type of machine-gun for anti-aircraft warfare, when one of them is murdered. The other vows to get the spies that are after the invention and avenge his friend's death.
Jim Dorn endeavors to protect Jean McNain from a man she knows has committed a murder, Carter Snowden
When a boss proposes marriage to his secretary, she discovers that the arrangement is solely for tax purposes.
Two petty gangsters trying to elude their enemies join the French Foreign Legion.
With a full Hollywood background and settings but more an expose of scandal-and-gossip magazines of the era, has-been actor John Blakeford agrees to write his memoirs for magazine-publisher Jordan Winston. When Blakeford's daughter, Patricia, ask him to desist for the sake of his ex-wife, Carlotta Blakeford, he attempts to break his contract with Winston.
Newspapers around the world proclaim the birth in Moosetown, Canada of the 3,000th baby brought into the world by the doctor, John Luke, known for delivering the famous Wyatt quintuplets. To honor the doctor on his retirement and to publicize their town, the Moosetown chamber of commerce decides to hold a reunion of all the babies delivered by the doctor, some of whom have become famous.
ohn Foster (Conrad Nagel) and Kenneth Grainger (Donald Cook) are a couple of Englishmen stationed at a teak wood post. When Foster's fiancée, Mary Trevor (Esther Ralston), writes him that their engagement is off, he goes to Mandalay and meets and marries a nightclub singer, Jeanie Barton (Kay Linaker), while on his drunken holiday. When he returns to the post in the jungle he becomes ashamed of his bride, and she has to prove she has the right stuff, which includes spurning Grainger when he hits on her.
In this high-flying mystery set aboard a cross-country flight to New York, some of the passengers are kidnappers who are trying to locate a hidden cache of loot. Unfortunately, something goes wrong during the trip and the pilots must land the plane in the Arizona desert during a terrible storm. There all of the passengers and crew find cramped accommodations in a lonely farmhouse where murder, mystery and mayhem occur.
A classic "B" featurette about "smugglin' in Chinamen for $300 a load"
A disparate group of people meet as passengers on a superspeed train crossing the U.S. Aboard are a seductive blackmailer and the stage director he intends to frame, a woman chasing her husband who is running away with the blackmail victim, and the stage director's feisty leading lady.
A gambler hires a detective to investigate when a murder is committed in his casino.
A ham-handed cautionary fable against communism, the film concerns a group of Civil War veterans who are appalled by the burgeoning radical movement in America.
Bored rich girl hooks up with news photographer, gets caught up in his adventures.
A maid has romances with a two-timer, a boozing millionaire and the master of the house.
Expelled from his lieutenancy in the Marine Corps, Bill Traylor reenlists as a private. His unit is sent to a Latin American country where a rebel leader called The Torch promotes insurrection. There Traylor encounters again Captain Benton, the man responsible for his disgrace and his rival for the love of a girl.
The publisher of a tabloid-type romance magazine decides to get some publicity by sponsoring a "Cinderella and Prince Charming" contest.
In Kentucky just after the Civil War, the Hayden-Colby feud leads to Jed Colby being sent to prison for 15 years for murder. The Haydens head for Nevada and when Colby gets out of prison he heads there also seeking revenge. The head of the Hayden family tries to avoid more killing but the inevitable showdown has to occur, complicated by Lynn Hayden and Ellen Colby's plans to marry.
Black Beauty is being trained to run in the steeplechase race, upon which the Cameron family has staked its fortune. However, the horse is injured racing for a doctor when its owner is hurt, and it looks like it won't recover in time to compete in the race.
The theft of a famous painting leads to murder and many suspects on a plush train speeding from Paris to Rome.
The wife of a diplomat in Geneva pretends to be a maid in order to continue her flirting with a handsome young courier.
An aspiring singer, who has fallen on hard times and is now living as a hobo, returns to his wealthy southern family.
A highly respectable lawyer becomes a sexual animal after working hours. Live-in mother-in-law tries to keep him in line.
In this melodrama set during WW I, a gangster joins the army and is promoted to major. He then returns from war torn Europe to tell a family that their beloved son had died in his arms during a battle. The major then falls in love with the late soldier's sister and decides to accept a position in town as the new police commissioner.
A peasant girl goes to great lengths to protect her child in 19th century Vienna. The film is considered lost, and only four minutes of footage are known to remain.
André Frey, a bohemian artist, woos and wins a rustic Swiss maid, promising to return to her after a visit to the city. The girl, Vroni, finds herself pregnant and is forced by her father to marry Poldi Moser, the mayor of the small Swiss town. Moser and Vroni are happy together, and two sons are born to them. André returns to the village periodically and finally asks Vroni to go away with him. She refuses, and he writes her an angry note. That evening, Vroni and André are involved in a toboggan accident; Vroni is killed outright, and André is fatally injured. Moser finds André's note and goes to him, demanding of the dying man to know which of the boys is in fact André's child. Thinking to protect his own son, André informs Moser that Moser's own son is his (André's) son. Moser swears vengeance on the child but relents when he realizes that he loves both boys equally.
A young flapper tricks her childhood sweetheart into marrying her. He really loves another woman, but didn't marry her for fear the marriage would end in divorce, like his parents'. Complications ensue.
Lizzie Stokes, an obscure and colorless actress, is elevated to stardom through publicity and better coaching from Daniel Hoffman, a theatrical producer. As Olga Rostova, an exotic Russian, she meets Norman Brooke, whose infatuation turns to love. Hoffman suggests that Norman could never care for Lizzie and proves his point. Heartbroken, Lizzie decides to see no more of him. On closing night, when he proposes to her in her dressing room and she refuses, Norman declares he must believe all the lurid details of her past; in desperation, she bares her true identity, only to find it is not her glamorous image but rather her real self that he loves.
Even though Big Bill Devens (Ernest Torrence) is a powerful politician, he still sticks to his working man's roots. His wife walked out on him 20 years before and his daughter, Moira (Esther Ralston), believes she is dead. Moira falls in love with Hugh Dillon, a handsome young attorney (Jack Holt), and Devens gets him a job in the district attorney's office. One night, Devens' wife, now an old, decrepit woman known as Aileen Clayton (Louise Dresser), returns to ask forgiveness. The next day Devens is found dead.
Elmer Stone, quarterback of the 1899 Colton College football team vows to remain a student until Colton beats its biggest rival, State University. Twenty-seven years later, Elmer is still in school and is a classmate of his son, Jack. Other than driving a milk wagon in his spare time, Jack is also the quarterback of the football team. A matter of his eligibility comes up but he is cleared and goes out to do-or-die for Colton against State University. Maybe they will win The Big Game, and Jack's father can get a life...and a job.
A lost film - Mary Gray, whose father manufactures cold cream, is engaged to sappy Horace Niles, the son of Hugo Niles, the elder Gray's most competitive rival in the cosmetics business. Chip Armstrong, a hot-shot public relations man, quits the employ of Hugo Niles and goes to work for Gray, persuading Mary to enter the Miss America contest at Atlantic City, with the intention of using her to endorse her father's cold cream should she win. Mary breaks her engagement with Horace. When it appears that she will win the contest, Hugo lures her home on the pretext that her father is ill, and she misses the contest. Chip and Mary return to Atlantic City, discovering that the new Miss America has told the world that she owes all her success to Gray's cold cream. On this note, Chip and Mary decide to get married.
An embellished account of the 1813 expedition by famed frigate U.S.S. Constitution--a.k.a. "Old Ironsides"--against the Barbary pirates then terrorizing American shipping, focusing on the crew and passengers of a fictional merchant ship, The Esther, who fall afoul of the same pirates and thus become involved with the Constitution's mission.
William Hyatt (Tom Moore) runs an exclusive shoe store, and his happy marriage to Grace (Florence Vidor) is nearly derailed by his well-meaning, but hopelessly gauche pal, Al Hennessy (Sterling). Dagmar, a Parisian shoe designer (Esther Ralston) has come to town to meet with Hyatt and Hennessy, and Hennessy describes the situation to Grace in the worst possible manner, convincing her that her husband is having an affair.
Bertie and Marian Lenox are children of a wealthy family, and their mother intends that they marry "within their class". They, however, have different plans--Bertie is in love with chorus girl Sally O'Neil and Marian loves Henry Morgan, the family chauffeur. The family finds out about the impending marriages and determines to stop them. Complications ensue.
Neil McRae, an impoverished composer, loves Cynthia Mason, but, fearing poverty, proposes to wealthy Gladys Cady. Can he compose himself and find the courage to seek love over comfort?
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!
Bill Dana, a New York City playboy, can't resist the flaming flappers and red-hot mamas along the Great White Way, so he decides to head out west to his uncle's ranch in Wind River, Texas. But the gold-diggers and their relatives follow him.
Professor Stock and his wife Mizzi are uhappily married. The professor, suspicious of his wife, hires a detective to spy on her in hopes of obtaining a divorce. Mizzi sets her sights on seducing Dr. Franz Braun, the new husband of her good friend Charlotte. Dr. Braun's colleague, Dr. Mueller, who has his eye on Charlotte, sees this as his opportunity. Through a misunderstanding, Charlotte thinks that her husband is interested in Miss Hofer, and asks Mizzi to keep him occupied... around and around the circle goes in Lubitsch's refined comedy of mistaken infidelity.
Tex Sherwood has just come into possession of a valuable piece of land that will be irrigated by a new dam. Banker Holman knowing the deed must be registered the next day, offers a $50,000 reward for Tex's capture.
Rose Hillyer, the sweetheart of cowboy Tod Walton, is about to marry Edward Gordon a slick con-man and a bigamist. Tod has proof of Gordon's bad deeds but it is late in arriving and he has to resort to many tricks to keep the marriage from happening... including kidnapping the minister.
The adventures of fur trappers in the Pacific Northwest, as they fight Indians, the elements and each other.
In order to save his family from financial ruin, an English aristocrat agrees to come to America and marry the daughter of a wealthy businessman. Once there he can't bring himself to do it.....
A comedy short starring Slim Summerville and Bobby Dunn featuring an early appearance by Esther Ralston.
Oliver's mother, a penniless outcast, died giving birth to him. As a young boy Oliver is brought up in a workhouse, later apprenticed to an uncaring undertaker, and eventually is taken in by a gang of thieves who befriend him for their own purposes. All the while, there are secrets from Oliver's family history waiting to come to light. Written by Snow Leopard
Although he graduated from that time-worn university, the college of hard knocks, the tireless efforts of John P. Grout have paid off. He owns a number of department stores and his wife and children are well provided for. However, his family is completely ungrateful and takes him -- and his money -- for granted. Grout's attempts to keep them all happy are driving him to bankruptcy and he eventually becomes seriously ill. Eventually his wife and kids come to realize how badly they've treated Pops.....
Helen, wrongly suspected of murder, escapes to the refuge of Jim's Ranch, where love soon blooms.
Huckleberry Finn, a rambuctious boy adventurer chafing under the bonds of civilization, escapes his humdrum world and his selfish, plotting father by sailing a raft down the Mississippi River. Accompanying him is Jim, a slave running away from being sold. Together the two strike a bond of friendship that takes them through harrowing events and thrilling adventures.
