Josef Swickard

A couple inherits a college and to generate revenue offers a thousand dollars to players for each touchdown they score.

5.7/10

A mad doctor named Zanoff uses a drug to bring himself back from the dead after his execution in prison. Dick Tracy sets out to capture Zanoff before he can put his criminal gang back together again.

6.2/10

An American golf pro falls in love with a woman while visiting France; before long they are married and in the US. Upon their arrival, they are dismayed to discover that the golfer's parents have arranged for him to marry a wealthy socialite so they can use her money to support their business....

6.8/10

Alice, the only relatively normal member of the eccentric Sycamore family, falls in love with Tony Kirby, but his wealthy banker father and snobbish mother strongly disapprove of the match. When the Kirbys are invited to dinner to become better acquainted with their future in-laws, things don't turn out the way Alice had hoped.

7.9/10
9.3%

In this comedy, a wealthy sheik kidnaps and falls for a snobby socialite.

6/10

Jimmie Allen, a shady bookie, is in love with Pearl Proctor, a greedy dance hall girl. He schemes to get her back after she rejects him; and along the way, he revives a failing Gilbert and Sullivan troupe.

6.6/10

Actual footage of Penitentes - a sect of Catholic religious fanatics who engage in self-flagellation - is combined with new footage about a murder. http://theendofbeing.com/2010/04/03/lash-of-the-penitente-exploitation-cinema-and-los-penitentes/: “According to Grindhouse Cinema Database, the film is generally considered lost and notes that, “heavy editing of the prints even resulted in a 35-minute version that has no scenes featuring [Marie] DeForest. This version, featuring Joseph Swickard, is known to be the version that’s mainly available on VHS today.”

6/10

Funds are embezzled and a fur trapper is murdered. Rin Tin Tin to the rescue!

5.2/10

The feature length version of the serial by the same name. A mystical medicine arrow, the key to a lost gold treasure, is lost in one of many Indian attacks. It is recovered by the only two survivors, a Major and his daughter, who become the targets of those who wish to possess it. General George Armstrong Custer and army scout Kid Cardigan attempt to stop the ensuing war over the arrow, but fail in their efforts, which becomes the historic Custer's Last Stand.

4.3/10

A man impersonates his double to clear himself of a murder conviction.

6.3/10

The Millionaire Kid is young Tommy Neville whose wealthy parents, Thomas and Gloria Neville are preparing to fight it out in divorce court.Tommy runs away from home. The private detective assigned to watch him tells Mrs. Neville he has been kidnapped. She immediately suspects her husband. Meanwhile, Tommy is selling newspapers in another city. He is attacked by a bully, and is rescued by gangster Terry Mallon and his daughter Kitty. Unaware of his identity, they take him to their beach home. Reporter Breezy Benson is sent to interview Mrs. Neville about the divorce, and is fired when she won't talk to him. He meets Kitty at the beach and is intrigued by her. He meets her father, who is curious but not suspicious as news of the alleged kidnapping has not been reported.

5.6/10

Government agents try to thwart smugglers, while some sort of plot unfolds, about a hidden treasure revealed by cursed coins.

6/10

Kit Cardigan seeks the killer of his father...among other plot threads leading up to the famous historical incident.

4.6/10

The second of two feature films edited from the movie serial The Return Of Chandu (1934), comprised of footage from chapters 5-12: On the mystic island of Lemuria, the cult of Ubasti seek the Egyptian Princess Nadji to sacrifice so that their goddess Ossana, whose soul resides in Nadji's body, may be resurrected by Black Magic. Nadji is located in the Far East port of Suva, but shielded by the White Magical powers of Frank Chandler, an American raised by Eastern mystics who is also known as Chandu. When Chandu takes a voyage alone, however, the evil Voice of Ubasti is able to magically spirit her to Lemuria, where Black Magic reigns supreme. Chandu sets out in pursuit with his sister Dorothy, niece Betty and nephew Bob; but, shipwrecked on the magic island, Chandu finds his family also held prisoner for sacrifice while he is plunged into an endless maze of caverns beneath the evil temple, where both his mortal and magical strength seem rendered useless...

4.7/10

An evil scientist invents a earthquake machine and plots to take over the world from his base in Africa.

5.1/10

Chandu consults his crystal ball and sees that Nadji, Princess of Egypt, is in danger. She is about to be sacrificed by the black magic cult of Ubasti. Headed for the magic island of Lemuria, he is shipwrecked , washed ashore and captured. He becomes invisible, escapes and after numerous detours is able to rescue the princess.

6.1/10

A man falls in love with a young woman, only to discover that she's the daughter of an ex-girlfriend who jilted him almost 20 years before.

6.6/10

An Englishman sought for murder, tries to escape fate to South Seas island.

6.2/10

As the opening scroll tells us, Narcotic was "presented in the hope that the public may become aware of the terrific struggle to rid the world of drug addiction." The movie itself is a salacious plunge into a world of sordid pleasures. It tells us the story of Dr. William G. Davies, an infamous snake-oil salesman who started his career as a promising medical student.

4.1/10

A prospector is murdered by The Cactus Kid and his gang, who hope to find the murdered man's goldmine. The miner's dog, Rin-Tin-Tin, recognizes the killers, who thereafter seek to use the dog to locate the lost mine. With the help of a government agent and a young girl, Rinty saves the mine and brings the bad guys to justice.

5/10

August Bolte, the richest man in a settlement in German East Africa in the period before World War I, is called "Mamba" by the locals, which is the name of a deadly snake. Despised by the locals and the European settlers alike for his greed and arrogance, Bolte forces the beautiful daughter of a destitute nobleman to marry him in exchange for saving her father from ruin. Upon her arrival in Africa, she falls in love with an officer in the local German garrison. When World War I breaks out, Bolte, unable to avoid being conscripted, foments a rebellion among the local natives.

6.6/10

After El Lobo robs Don Jose he gives one of the stolen items to Conchita. Later when he saves Anita in a runaway coach, Don Pedro invites him to the wedding of Anita and his son Don Jose. But Conchita is at the wedding and recognizes him putting his life in danger.

Horses are being stolen by a white stallion known as "The Phantom of the Desert." A cowboy sets out to find who's behind it.

In the great white north, a trapper searchers for the thief who has been stealing his furs while a local trader seeks to take advantage of the situation.

Escaping from a revolution, the King (Joseph Swickard) of a mythical Balkan country heads to the United States. Here he finds a friend in the form of dashing secret service agent Yorke Norray (Cornelius Keefe).

7.2/10

A woman tells a girl who's just been rescued from a notorious rake, four stories of men from her own life, one of whom she had to kill to protect herself.

9.2/10

1928 was the last year when silent films dominated the market, and this aviation-based action serial from Pathe was one of the studio's last. Some pieces are no longer extant (half of chapters 3&6, all of 7, 8, and 9, and the beginning of the 10th and final chapter), but the beginning and end are there as well as enough to follow the action adequately. The surviving Grapevine print is beautifully restored and tinted in spots, although you can tell the print is deteriorated in some of the surviving sections. Basically, an inventor (Josef Swickard, in a role not unlike the one he later played in THE LOST CITY) has created a silencer/muffler for planes to silence any engine sounds, and the bad guys are out to steal the invention and put it to evil use.

6.4/10

Cinematographer Ray Rennahan utilized the two-strip Technicolor process for this film, but either surviving prints have faded or the color palette was limited in the first place, for generally we see only muddy reds, dim greens, and occasional splashes of blue. The film was shot silent and then dubbed with synchronized music consisting of seasonal tunes such as "Jingle Bells," "O Holy Night," and "March of the Wooden Soldiers."

5.9/10

Turn Back the Hours is a 1928 American silent drama film directed by Howard Bretherton and starring Myrna Loy, Walter Pidgeon, and Sam Hardy.

5.8/10

An Asian villain menaces a family of aristocratic Spanish settlers.

6.4/10

The search for a lost gold mine hinges on a secret branded onto the neck of a great horse, White Fury.

Film was released in 1927

A young American girl in Paris falls in love with a handsome nobleman, but he is about to wed in an arranged marriage. She hatches a plan to overcome that obstacle and get her man.

6.7/10

A film directed by John P. McCarthy

If there was one thing that Don Juan de Marana learned from his father Don Jose, it was that women gave you three things - life, disillusionment and death. In his father's case it was his wife, Donna Isobel, and Donna Elvira who supplied the latter. Don Juan settled in Rome after attending the University of Pisa. Rome was run by the tyrannical Borgia family consisting of Caesar, Lucrezia and the Count Donati. Juan has his way with and was pursued by many women, but it is the one that he could not have that haunts him. It will be for her that he suffers the wrath of Borgia for ignoring Lucrezia and then killing Count Donati in a duel. For Adriana, they will both be condemned to death in the prison on the river Tigre.

7/10
10%

Tom Drury, a cowboy whose quick thinking stops a notorious outlaw, "The Hawk," from further misdeeds. The villain, as it turns out, is none other than Henry Suggs (James Mason), heretofore considered a pillar of the community.....

Don Luis O'Flagherty (Ken Maynard), a daredevil comes to the rescue of his long-lost father, "Tiger" O'Flagherty (George Nichols), the supervisor of a supply-wagon train destined for the miners in Sonora. Tiger is being terrorized by Jesse Wilks (J.P. McGowan), who hopes to starve the miners out of their claims. Falling in love with Tiger's ward, Sally (Dorothy Devore), Don Luis manages to turn the tables on Wilks, who is killed attempting to rob the supply train.

5.9/10

Amy and Matthew Dale separate and they place their young son, Matthew Jr., in a London boarding school. The boy grows up without knowing his parents, and is taunted by his schoolmates, who doubt the legitimacy of his childhood. By the time he is 20, Matt wants to find out about his parentage, so he travels to Paris, leaving behind his sweetheart, Margo.

A farm girl learns she is a princess and is swept away by a tornado to the land of Oz.

5.1/10

A bee keeper does his best to help the army.

7.2/10

Opera singer Julia Montfort (Irene Rich) returns to the stage when her husband, Verdugo Montford (Josef Swickard) loses his job...and then gives him work secretly paid for by herself. When a temperamental artist Babette Hermann (Pauline Garon) reveals the secret, Verdugo becomes disillusioned. Later, though, his faith in his wife is restored.

6.2/10

When old rancher Mark Ridgeway passes away, his property goes to relatives in the East instead of to trusted foreman Tom Taylor as promised. The relatives, Reginald (Taylor Graves) and his sister Marion, arrive to take over the ranch, and Tom quickly falls for the lovely Marion. The weak Reginald, on the other hand, sells his part of the property to evil Indian Joe Deerfoot, who then kidnaps Marion to get her share as well.

Men is a 1924 American silent drama film directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki and starring Pola Negri.

The tactics of a vicious slumlord and greedy businessman finally drive a distraught man to commit suicide. The businessman is tried for murder and executed, and is afterward taken by demons to the Hell where he will spend the rest of eternity. .

5.7/10

Barry Craven meets former sweetheart Gillian Locke, who is visiting India with her father. Craven's love for Gillian is revived, but he already has a wife, Lolaire, a native. In a jealous rage, Lolaire kills herself, freeing Craven, who returns to England and marries Gillian. His Indian servant, Kunwar Singh, casts a spell on Craven, causing him to leave Gillian and to go into the Algerian desert. There he joins Said, an old university friend who is the son of an Algerian sheik. Gillian follows, the servant is killed, and with him dies the spell, "The Shadow of the East."

A 1924 film starring Lew Cody and Renée Adorée directed by Bertram Bracken

Believing she's responsible for the death of her would-be seducer, a young woman flees to North Vancouver.

Mr. Billings Spends His Dime is a silent comedy film.

Ottilie Van Zandt is forced to wed her cousin, despite her love for Richard Wayne, the gardener's son. Richard leaves, vowing to return a wealthy man and eligible suitor for her. He returns to find she has already married and, in turn, marries another girl on impulse. Two generations later, the grandchildren of Ottilie and Richard, who both have inherited their names as well, meet and develop a close friendship that culminates in the romance that their grandparents began but could not consummate years before.

6.7/10

Janet Loring is a young widow with a young son. She marries millionaire Malcolm Trask, but doesn't tell him about her previous marriage or her son, Ranny. Abandoned to the streets by Janet, Ranny eventually moves in with a bookseller and her granddaughter Margy. As the years go by Janet comes to regret abandoning her son and takes out ads looking for him. Marcio, a vicious blackmailer, sends Ranny to Janet posing as her son, not knowing that the young boy actually is her son. Complications ensue.

A 1922 film.

7.6/10

Gilead, Northern lumber town, has a line through its centre. On one side lives Enoch Kidder, his son John, and the rest of his puritanicql family. On the other are Aaron Kidder, vengeful brother, and his followers in pleasure and lust. An old feud culminates when Aaron tries to lure John, a clean-cut youth, over into the bad side of town, to revenge himself on Enoch (Moving Picture Weekly).

An 18-part silent American adventure film serial now considered to be lost. Chapter Titles: 1. The Sea Raiders 2. Shipwrecked 3. The Cannibals' Captives 4. Hidden Gold 5. The Ship of Despair 6. Friday's Faith 7. The Swamp of Terror 8. Marooned 9. The Jaguar Trap 10. A Prisoner of the Sun 11. No Greater Love 12. The Island of Happiness 13. The Sword of Courage 14. The Buccaneers 15. The Jolly Roger 16. The Idol's Bride 17. When the Heart Calls 18. Back to the Primitive

6.8/10

A young man raised in the American South discovers he is an Indian prince whose throne was taken by usurpers.

6.3/10

To evade a gang conspiring to assassinate him, wealthy businessman Stuart Granger induces his unsuspecting, look-alike cousin, Jack Burton, to impersonate him for a month.

In the Spanish town of Magdalena live María and her sweetheart, Pancho, son of the governor. When the town is captured by brigands led by Ramírez, the governor is deposed, and Don Domingo Maticas is appointed in his place. Ramón, son of the new governor, becomes infatuated with María. She repulses him, but he is encouraged by her mother.

Set in the years before and during World War I, this epic tale tells the story of a rich Argentine family, one of its two descending branches being half of French heritage, the other being half German. Following the death of the family patriarch, the man's two daughters and their families resettle to France and Germany, respectively. In time the Great War breaks out, putting members of the family on opposing sides.

7.2/10
8%

A farce in which the poor Lamo has to flee after he tries to rob a rich cinema operator. While on the run, he starts working for a blacksmith, who then betrays him.

Lilian is engaged to an older man in poor health when she meets his son Michael, whom she falls for. Due to a misunderstanding between the two, Lilian leaves after her fiance's death. Years later, Lilian becomes known around town for her "loose morals," but what happens when she runs into Michael again?

At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Charles Darnay goes to Paris to rescue an imprisoned former family servant. He is himself imprisoned and condemned by the revolutionary forces there. His wife, the former Lucie Manette, is secretly loved by a gentlemanly wastrel, Sydney Carton. Carton embarks on a daring plan to save the husband of the woman he loves.

6/10

A Social Cub is a 1916 short silent comedy film directed by Clarence G. Badger and starring Gloria Swanson

Madcap Gloria disguises herself as a man, in order to lure a "dangerous" vamp away from her beau, Bobbie.

5.9/10

A waiter tricks his way into command of a sub in order to rob a ship carrying gold bullion.

5.3/10

After being falsely accused of theft, Pete, the station master's assistant, rescues his girlfriend from the genuine villain, marauding crook Desperate Dan.

5.2/10

Keystone silent comedy.

Mr. and Mrs. Gussle get up to some hijinks in this Keystone comedy.

6.1/10

A flustered father seeks a cook for his kitchen, his daughter seeks to elope and a pair of crooks seek to get some loot. Add the Keystone cops and stir vigorously.

5.2/10

Charles Murray out romancing in the park.

5.5/10

Pa Droppington sneaks out of the house to go to the theatre. Amid comic capers he is smitten by a dancer. Meanwhile his son is telling Ma that he's in love with a dancer! She is not happy but he takes her to the theatre (for her birthday). She sees hubby and chases him around, he's also chased by another performer. The son calls a clergyman, Pa saves the girl and they marry at the end.

5.7/10

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.

After a dastardly villain steals milk from a baby, he tries to put the heroine through a laundry press.

5.5/10

A 1915 short film directed by Walter Wright.

7.6/10

After Walrus has been shot, Ambrose takes him into his house. When Ambrose sees Walrus flirting with his wife he leaves. When Walrus runs away with Mrs. Ambrose, Ambrose gets on a horse to save her. The Keystone Kops are also after Walrus.

5.2/10

The plot is driven by the confusion that results when two pairs of trousers are mixed up. One pair is owned by the landlord of an apartment building and the other by one of his lodgers. The lodger also has a wallet that contains rent money except when it doesn't, and the wallet passes from one pair of trousers to the other at unexpected moments. But neither the landlord nor the owner of the wallet are the central figures here, for The Rent Jumpers is primarily a love story between the landlord's daughter, played by the ever popular Mae Busch, and the lodger's roommate, young Charley Chase.

6/10

Hubby and wifey are in love, but he's henpecked by her mother. A nip of whiskey gives him Dutch courage, and he storms out, declaring he won't be a domestic slave anymore. He heads for a park bench where a photographer mistakes him for a seated woman's sweetheart. The tintype of the two of them falls into the hands of the woman's husband, whose jealous rage frightens our hero. He abruptly leaves town, telling wifey he'll be away on business. Wifey doesn't need her house while he's away, so, unknown to hubby, she moves in with mom and rents the house to the couple from the park. When our hero returns home sooner than expected, the renter has another attack of jealousy.

6.1/10

Fatty is a farm hand at Mabel's father's place. He and Mabel love each other, but dad wants to marry Mabel off to the landowner's son in exchange for tearing up the mortgage. When Mabel and Fatty find out dad's plan, they elope, pursued by dad, the hopeful suitor, and the local constables.

5.9/10

When a woman's husband leaves town, she begins to see odd things happening in her house. Afraid that gangsters are after her, she becomes increasingly anxious.

5.7/10

Charlie is a clumsy waiter in a cheap cabaret, suffering the strict orders from his boss. He meets a pretty girl in the park and tries to impress her by pretending to be an ambassador. Unfortunately she has a jealous fiancé.

5.8/10

Keystone short about two suitors getting into an increasingly, cartoonishly violent fight over a woman.

5.6/10

Charlie is in charge of stage "props" and has trouble with actors' luggage and conflicts over who gets the star's dressing room. Once the dressing-room issue is resolved the next issue is getting everyone on stage with the correct backdrop. Backstage Charlie and an old man fight, often disrupting the on-stage performances. The audience also break into a fight, and a hose brought out behind the scenes ends up squirted over them.

5.8/10

A painter turned tramp (Chaplin), devastated by losing the woman he was courting as a wealthy man, finds himself drunk and getting drunker by the minute with some sailors at a bar until he's literally falling down. He keeps futilely trying to draw the woman's picture on the floor with a piece of chalk until he finally passes out cold (or perhaps dies, as in the poem) at the end of the film.

5.2/10

Charlie is hanging around in the park, finding problems with a jealous suitor, a man who thinks that Charlie has robbed him a watch, a policeman and even a little boy, all because our friend can't stop snooping.

5.8/10

Fatty steals a ride on a train, discovered, and put off in the middle of nowhere. He stumbles along over the hot desert and finally passes out. A very plump Indian woman finds him and takes him to her tepee, woos him and finally, in desperation, Fatty agrees to marry her. While the tribe is preparing for the marriage ceremony, Fatty attempts to escape but is caught.

4.6/10

A Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle Keystone comedy.

4.5/10

A Rowboat Romance is a 1914 Comedy short.

Four miscreants get revenge on the police chief by planting bombs in his house.

5.4/10

Although only a dental assistant, Charlie pretends to be the dentist. After receiving too much anesthesia, a patient can't stop laughing, so Charlie knocks him out with a club.

5.8/10

A womanizing city man meets Tillie in the country, after a fight with his girlfriend. When he sees that Tillie's father has a very large bankroll for his workers, he persuades her to elope with him.

6.3/10
8.9%

After running into a friend and two ladies, a married man sends his wife a note saying that he's taken a train for business, but then his wife reads that the train crashed.

5.8/10

A new electric chair has been installed in the prison, and the officials impatiently await the first execution. The victim, with careless disregard for their feelings, makes his escape from the prison. The sleuth goes in pursuit, and finding the discarded convict's garb dons it as a disguise, hoping to meet the hunted man and ingratiate himself. Prison guards capture the sleuth, and disliking to disappoint the waiting crowd, decide to execute him. He is placed in the chair and the current turned on, but he stubbornly resists death. The current is doubled and trebled, to no avail. Meanwhile the real criminal has been captured, and he is brought back in time to save the sleuth from his perilous position.

Harold is in love with Ethel Parks, but finds scant favor with her father, Parks always manages to get his daughter away from her admirer, but one day Harold makes bold to call at the house.

Richard moves to a remote island to escape from the memory of Eve. Who had been forced to marry another man. But fate still has more in store.

5.1/10