Ruth Clifford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ruth Clifford (February 17, 1900 – November 30, 1998) was an American actress of leading roles in silent films, whose career lasted from silent days into the television era. Clifford got work as an extra and began her career at 15 at Universal, in fairly substantial roles. She received her first film credit for her work in Behind the Lines (1916).
By her mid-twenties, she was playing leads and second leads, including the role of Abraham Lincoln's lost love, Ann Rutledge, in The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln (1924). But sound pictures found her roles diminishing, and throughout the next three decades she played smaller and smaller parts.
She was a favorite of director John Ford (they played bridge together), who used her in eight films, but rarely in substantial roles. She was also, for a time, the voice of Walt Disney's Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck.
Clifford's obituary in the Los Angeles Times noted that she "became a prime source for historians of the silent screen era".
| Known For | Acting |
|---|---|
| Most Rating | 1.337 |
| Birthday | 1900-02-16 |
| Place of Birth | Pawtucket, Rhode Island, USA |
| Also Known As | Ruth Clifford Cornelius, Ruth Cornelius, |
1941
Mr. Celebrity
4/1
A couple attempts to win custody of their orphaned grandson, who's being raised by his veterinarian uncle in a racetrack environment.
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Mr. Celebrity
1920
The Invisible Ray
5/1
A scientist discovers a death ray and locks it in a box, giving the key to his daughter, who soon finds herself hunted by criminals looking to steal t...
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The Invisible Ray
1925
As Man Desires
3/2
The story of a man who was robbed of his greatest love and the South Seas wildflower who found it for him, in the land of pawn trees where men of all...
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As Man Desires
1929
The Devil's Apple Tree
0/0
Unable to pay for her passage upon setting sail to the tropics to meet her mail-order husband, Dorothy Ryan assumes the identity of a wealthy passenge...
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The Devil's Apple Tree
1950
Wagon Master
6.7/134
Two young horse traders guide a Mormon wagon train to the San Juan Valley and encounter rugged terrain, the cutthroat Clegg gang, hospitable Navajo, a...
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Wagon Master
1952
Pluto's Christmas Tree
7.061/122
Pluto comes bounding outside to help Mickey get a Christmas tree. Chip 'n Dale see him and make fun of him, but the tree they take refuge in is the on...
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Pluto's Christmas Tree
1942
Holiday Inn
6.995/199
Lovely Linda Mason has crooner Jim Hardy head over heels, but suave stepper Ted Hanover wants her for his new dance partner after fickle Lila Dixon gi...
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Holiday Inn
1947
Mickey's Delayed Date
6.406/53
Even though Mickey's evening started slow and lazy, things get moving in a hurry when Minnie calls from outside the big dance, wondering why he's late...
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Mickey's Delayed Date
1944
First Aiders
5.933/15
Minnie's learning first aid; she asks Pluto and Figaro for help. Pluto keeps throwing Figaro into buckets and otherwise getting him into trouble. Then...
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First Aiders
1923
Hell's Hole
0/0
Cowboy Tod Musgrave and his pal Del Hawkins steal a ride on a train after being kicked out of a saloon. The conductor throws them off when he discover...
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Hell's Hole
1948
Donald's Dream Voice
6.143/28
Donald is trying to sell brushes door-to-door, but since nobody can understand him, nobody will buy anything. He happens across a street vendor sellin...
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Donald's Dream Voice
1949
You're My Everything
3.3/3
In 1924, stage-struck Boston blueblood Hannah Adams picks up musical star Tim O'Connor and takes him home for dinner. One thing leads to another, and...
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You're My Everything
1955
The Cobweb
5.8/30
Patients and staff at a posh psychiatric clinic clash over who chooses the clinic’s new drapes - but drapes are the least of their problems.
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The Cobweb
1947
Mother Wore Tights
5.3/9
In this chronicle of a vaudeville family, Myrtle McKinley (class of 1900) goes to San Francisco to attend business school, but ends up in a chorus lin...
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Mother Wore Tights
1944
The Keys of the Kingdom
7/48
A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a prie...
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The Keys of the Kingdom
1946
Bath Day
6.5/37
Minnie gives Figaro a bath and ties a ribbon around his neck. Figaro feels like a sissy, and when he mixes it up with some alley cats, they mock him,...
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Bath Day
1918
Midnight Madness
0/0
In the act of robbing a set of rare jewels from a museum, a robber is wounded in the hand. Prentice Tiller, while dressing a wound in his hand, overhe...
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Midnight Madness
1923
The Face on the Barroom Floor
5/1
As a derelict paints the face of a girl on a barroom floor, the plot is developed in a series of flashbacks: Robert Stevens, an artist engaged to marr...
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The Face on the Barroom Floor
1968
Funny Girl
7.164/396
The life of famed 1930s comedienne Fanny Brice, from her early days in the Jewish slums of New York, to the height of her career with the Ziegfeld Fol...
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Funny Girl
1921
Tropical Love
0/0
In San Juan, Puerto Rico, The Drifter, young and educated, and The Seeker, old and feeble-minded, meet and form a partnership. The Seeker meets Rosari...
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Tropical Love
1950
Key to the City
6.1/8
At a mayors convention in San Francisco, ex-longshoreman Steve Fisk meets Clarissa Standish from New England. Fisk is mayor of "Puget City" and is pro...
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Key to the City
1948
The Luck of the Irish
5.7/18
Following American reporter Stephen Fitzgerald from Ireland to New York, a grateful leprechaun acts as the newsman's servant and conscience.
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The Luck of the Irish
1933
The Constant Woman
5/4
A mother abandons her family only to become a crispy critter with her lover, the husband finds out about it AND that his son isn't really his, becomes...
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The Constant Woman
1933
The Hitchhiker
0/0
Harry Langdon messes up a movie shoot, hitches a ride on an airplane, and ruins everyone's trip. What will the passengers on the unlucky airplane do,...
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The Hitchhiker
1934
Woman Unafraid
5/1
A dedicated and compassionate policewoman risks her job by offering refuge to a young mother with mob associations. Crime drama.
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Woman Unafraid
1922
My Dad
0/0
Tom's father, Barry, lives at a lonely trading post up north and is constantly in fear the post's factor, who has threatened to turn him in to the Mou...
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My Dad
1936
To Mary - with Love
4.5/2
Mary stands by Jack after the Depression of 1929 but considers divorce when he again becomes successful by 1935. Bill, who loves Mary, works at keepin...
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To Mary - with Love
1945
Leave Her to Heaven
7.4/236
A socialite marries a prominent novelist, which spurs a violent, obsessive, and dangerous jealousy in her.
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Leave Her to Heaven
1948
Cry of the City
6.8/61
Petty crook and cop-killer Martin Rome, in bad shape from wounds in the hospital prison ward, still refuses to help slimy lawyer Niles clear his clien...
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Cry of the City
1949
Father Was a Fullback
6/1
Coach George Copper's college football team is losing game after game, much to the dismay of stiff-and-stuffy but influential alumni Roger Jessup, and...
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Father Was a Fullback
1935
Stolen Harmony
6/1
Band leader Jack Conrad is impressed by prison inmate Ray Ferrera on saxophone. Conrad hires Ray to join his band and tour upon his release. Ray hooks...
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Stolen Harmony
1960
Sergeant Rutledge
7.1/115
Respected black cavalry Sergeant Brax Rutledge stands court-martial for raping and killing a white woman and murdering her father, his superior office...
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Sergeant Rutledge
1936
Paddy O'Day
7/1
A wealthy, eccentric collector of stuffed birds and a beautiful Russian singer provide refuge to an orphaned Irish child who has arrived illegally in...
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Paddy O'Day
1933
Face in the Sky
4.5/2
Joe and Lucky travel around New England painting barns in exchange for an advertisement on one side. The meet Madge, who is cruelly treated by a her f...
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Face in the Sky
1949
Not Wanted
6.8/27
After a beautiful but unsophisticated girl is seduced by a worldly piano player and gives up her out-of-wedlock baby, her guilt compels her to kidnap...
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Not Wanted
1934
Miss Fane's Baby Is Stolen
5/1
Miss Madeline Fane is a famous California screen star who has been devoted to her baby son Michael since her husband's death the previous year. One mo...
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Miss Fane's Baby Is Stolen
1939
Wife, Husband and Friend
6/1
Woman hopes to be a great singer and is encouraged by her scheming teacher. After she flops her husband, encouraged by an amorous professional singer...
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Wife, Husband and Friend
1939
Swanee River
6.5/2
Swanee River is a 1940 American biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, t...
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Swanee River
1941
Along the Rio Grande
6.3/3
A trio of cowboys infiltrate a cattle rustler's gang to seek vengeance for one of their fathers' murder.
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Along the Rio Grande
1949
Pluto's Sweater
6.7/41
Minnie Mouse knits a sweater for Pluto. When she puts it on him, Pluto does whatever he can to try to get it off, eventually shrinking it to the perfe...
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Pluto's Sweater
1940
The Man Who Wouldn't Talk
4/2
A man involved in a crime (Nolan) kills his key witness by mistake and resigns himself to death. He changes his name so as not to harm his family. The...
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The Man Who Wouldn't Talk
1935
She Married Her Boss
7/1
A super-efficient secretary at a department store falls for and marries her boss, but finds out that taking care of him at home (and especially his sp...
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She Married Her Boss
1993
The Silent Feminists: America's First Women Directors
1/1
A documentary exploring the origins of the pioneers of women directors during the silent era.
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The Silent Feminists: America's First Women Directors
1958
The Last Hurrah
7.1/57
In a changing world where television has become the main source of information, Adam Caulfield, a young sports journalist, witnesses how his uncle, Fr...
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The Last Hurrah
1946
My Darling Clementine
7.4/421
Three brothers stop off for a night in the town of Tombstone. The next morning they find one of their brothers dead and their cattle stolen. They deci...
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My Darling Clementine
1949
Free For All
6/2
The discovery of a way of turning petrol into water makes a fortune and romance for the young inventor.
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Free For All
1936
Hollywood Boulevard
2.5/2
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 w...
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Hollywood Boulevard
1945
Circumstantial Evidence
4.8/8
A man waits on death row while his son and friend try to prove that he did not kill a grocer with an ax.
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Circumstantial Evidence
1942
It Happened in Flatbush
4.8/4
A washed up baseball player returns to Brooklyn to manage his old team but an old sports reporter is eager to prove that he is a loser.
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It Happened in Flatbush
1942
Blue, White, and Perfect
6.3/9
In order to win back his girlfriend, Mike Shayne promises to give up his detective practice and get a job as riveter in an aircraft plant. He quickly...
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Blue, White, and Perfect
1952
The Quiet Man
7.28/525
An American man returns to the village of his birth in Ireland, where he finds love and conflict.
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The Quiet Man
1950
Sunset Boulevard
8.308/2589
A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.
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Sunset Boulevard
1940
Lillian Russell
6.1/9
Alice Faye plays the title role in this 1940 film biography of the early-20th-century stage star.
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Lillian Russell
1948
Hazard
8/1
A compulsive gambler bets her freedom against a $16,000 debt to a crime boss…and loses. But before he can collect, she skips town, with a private dete...
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Hazard
1961
Two Rode Together
6.4/126
Two tough westerners bring home a group of settlers who have spent years as Comanche hostages.
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Two Rode Together
1933
Pilgrimage
6.8/15
A mother from Arkansas is very possessive of her grown son. To prevent him from getting married she has him drafted into WW I.
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Pilgrimage
1940
Free, Blonde and 21
8/1
Stories of women who live in an all-women hotel. One (Bari) works hard and marries a millionaire; another (Hughes) cheats and goes to jail.
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Free, Blonde and 21
1941
Road to Happiness
5.5/4
A struggling singer, devoted to his young son, fears the child's super-spoiled, unloving but wealthy mother will gain custody of the boy.
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Road to Happiness
1948
3 Godfathers
6.7/180
Three outlaws on the run discover a dying woman and her baby. They swear to bring the infant to safety across the desert, even at the risk of their ow...
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3 Godfathers
1944
The Lodger
6.335/88
In Victorian era London, the inhabitants of a family home with rented rooms upstairs fear the new lodger is Jack the Ripper.
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The Lodger
1942
Ten Gentlemen from West Point
5.8/5
This historical drama tells the story of the first class to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In the early 19th Century, Congress...
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Ten Gentlemen from West Point
1923
The Dangerous Age
0/0
Married for 22 years, Mary Emerson treats her husband, John, more like a son than a husband. He is stung by her rebuffs and, therefore, succumbs to th...
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The Dangerous Age
1956
The Searchers
7.7/1404
As a Civil War veteran spends years searching for a young niece captured by Indians, his motivation becomes increasingly questionable.
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The Searchers
1926
Brooding Eyes
0/0
Slim Jim Carey, the leader of a criminal gang, is in reality a nobleman called Lord Talbois, and his daughter is the rightful heir to the family estat...
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Brooding Eyes
1934
Making the Rounds
0/0
Two drunks cheat on their wives.
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Making the Rounds
1938
Four Men and a Prayer
6.3/11
The sons of a disgraced British officer try to clear his name.
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Four Men and a Prayer
1943
Coney Island
5.3/6
Set at the turn of the century, smooth talking con man Eddie Johnson weasels his way into a job at friend and rival Joe Rocco's Coney Island night spo...
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Coney Island
1938
Safety in Numbers
0/0
The Jones family patriarch, also mayor, is swindled into thinking the town swamp is a rich mineral deposit.
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Safety in Numbers
1918
The Cabaret Girl
0/0
Ann Reid moves to the city to study opera but is discouraged by her teachers and so becomes a cabaret singer instead. At Balvini’s cabaret, Ann’s frie...
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The Cabaret Girl
1917
The Desire of the Moth
0/0
The Desire of the Moth is a 1917 American silent western film directed by Rupert Julian
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The Desire of the Moth
1916
Behind the Lines
0/0
The daughter of an American diplomat is forced to spy for Mexican revolutionaries.
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Behind the Lines
1924
The Whispered Name
0/0
Anne Gray (Ruth Clifford) runs off with Robert Gordon (William E. Lawrence), believing that he is going to marry her. When they arrive at a hotel, ano...
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The Whispered Name
1917
The Door Between
0/0
The Door Between was based on Anthony the Absolute, a novel by Samuel Merwyn. The story begins in Japan, where American musicologist Anthony Eckert (M...
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The Door Between
1918
Fires of Youth
1/1
Lucille, a beautiful and romantic young woman, marries John Linforth, a wealthy businessman, who is twice her age, and too distracted by his business...
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Fires of Youth
1917
The Savage
0/0
When Marie Louise, the daughter of the town factor, returns home from school, Julio Sandoval, a reckless young half-breed ruled by his animal instinct...
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The Savage
1917
A Kentucky Cinderella
0/0
After the death of her father, a young girl goes to live with her uncle in Kentucky. She immediately comes into conflict with her uncle's shrewish wif...
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A Kentucky Cinderella
1924
The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln
0/0
A biographical film featuring the presidency and assassination of Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War.
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The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln
1919
The Game's Up
0/0
Struggling young painter Ruth Elliott has written her Eastern friend Mildred Colburn that she has gained fame in the West as an artist. When Mildred s...
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The Game's Up
1917
The Mysterious Mr. Tiller
0/0
Police headquarters has been plagued by a series of robberies, culminating in the theft of a priceless necklace smuggled from Europe. The detectives a...
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The Mysterious Mr. Tiller
1998
Mickey's Family Album
6.2/9
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Mickey's Family Album
1925
The Tornado
0/0
a tornado, flood, and log jam of astounding realism..a love theme as overwhelming as the tornado itself, acclaimed by critics as the most thrilling sc...
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The Tornado
1933
Only Yesterday
6.8/5
On the back of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, a young business man is about to commit suicide. With the note to his wife scribbled down and a gun in h...
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Only Yesterday
1923
April Showers
0/0
This silent romantic melodrama is believed to be lost.
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April Showers
1925
The Phantom of the Opera
7.1/343
The deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House causes murder and mayhem in an attempt to make the woman he loves a star.
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The Phantom of the Opera
1929
Show of Shows
5.5/2
Now hear this. The studio that gave the cinema its voice offered 1929 audiences a chance to see and hear multiple silent-screen favorites for the firs...
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Show of Shows
1945
The Spider
5.3/11
An ex-cop is suspected of murder after he is found with a dead woman. The private detective is on the run -- attempting to prove his innocence.
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The Spider
1938
Charlie Chan in Honolulu
6.4/21
While Charlie is distracted with the birth of his first grandchild, son Jimmy impersonates his father in order to investigate a murder aboard a freigh...
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Charlie Chan in Honolulu
1927
The Thrill Seekers
6/1
Minor silent action hero James F. Fulton starred in this low-budget melodrama distributed by Poverty Row company Hi-Mark. Fulton, who would later play...
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The Thrill Seekers
1941
Ball of Fire
7.364/206
A group of academics have spent years shut up in a house working on the definitive encyclopedia. When one of them discovers that his entry on slang is...
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Ball of Fire
1950
Whirlpool
6.406/80
The wife of a psychoanalyst falls prey to a devious quack hypnotist when he discovers she is an habitual shoplifter. Then one of his previous patients...
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Whirlpool
1957
Designing Woman
6.5/70
A sportswriter who marries a fashion designer discovers that their mutual interests are few, although each has an intriguing past which makes the othe...
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Designing Woman
1924
Butterfly
0/0
Silent Feature Film by Clarence Brown
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Butterfly
1918
Hands Down
0/0
Miner Dan Stuyvesant finally strikes it rich, but on his way to report his claim, he is shot. When Jack Dedlow, the head of a gang of outlaws, hears t...
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Hands Down
1927
Don Mike
0/0
Following the "no good deed goes unpunished" idiom, when after rescuing a group of settlers, hero Don Miguel Arguella is double-crossed by the group l...
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Don Mike
1917
Mother o' Mine
0/0
Mrs. Standing, an old-fashioned country mother, sacrifices to put her son John through college so that he might have a better life. Upon completing sc...
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Mother o' Mine
1917
Eternal Love
0/0
Traveling from the Latin Quarter of Paris to Brittany to seek inspiration for his painting, artist Paul Dachette finds it in the person of Mignon, an...
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Eternal Love
1918
The Lure of Luxury
0/0
Dale Aldis and John Coventry, who were sweethearts as children, meet again after the death of Dale's mother and discover that they are still in love.
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The Lure of Luxury
1939
Drums Along the Mohawk
6.425/107
Albany, New York, 1776. After marrying, Gil and Lana travel north to settle on a small farm in the Mohawk River Valley, but soon their growing prosper...
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Drums Along the Mohawk
1918
Hungry Eyes
0/0
Ex-convict Dale Revenal arrives at Dudley Appleton's ranch bearing a letter of introduction from John Silver, Appleton's old friend. Appleton hires Da...
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Hungry Eyes
1946
Shock
5.9/53
In this thriller, psychiatrist Dr. Cross kills his wife and expects to get away with murder, until he discovers that the slaying was observed by a nex...
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Shock
1941
Cadet Girl
0/0
A West Point cadet and his bandleader brother fall for a singer in the band.
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Cadet Girl
1947
Figaro and Frankie
6.8/23
Figaro is hungry for a small, yellow canary named Frankie but must pass a barrier; Minnie Mouse.
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Figaro and Frankie
1923
Ponjola
5/1
Ponjola is a 1923 American silent drama film based on the novel of the same name by Cynthia Stockley and directed by Donald Crisp. The film stars Anna...
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Ponjola
1917
Polly Put the Kettle On
0/0
To support her younger sisters, Polly Vance finds work as a live-in companion to the aging Johanna Webb. Johanna's nephew, Chester Creigg, quarrels wi...
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Polly Put the Kettle On
1929
The Eternal Woman
0/0
Olive Borden returns home to Buenos Aires and discovers her father has been murdered and her sister has been attacked by an American.
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The Eternal Woman
1919
The Millionaire Pirate
0/0
In the early eighteenth century, pirate captain Jean Lafitte fights a rival pirate and wins a treasure and a beautiful female captive. Although the gi...
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The Millionaire Pirate
1934
Stand Up and Cheer!
4.8/10
President Franklin Roosevelt appoints a theatrical producer as the new Secretary of Amusement in order to cheer up an American public still suffering...
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Stand Up and Cheer!
1923
Mothers-in-Law
0/0
Farmer's son David Wingate marries city girl Vianna Courtleigh over his parents' objections. Her father gives him a job with the company; a baby is bo...
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Mothers-in-Law
1935
She Married Her Boss
7/1
A super-efficient secretary at a department store falls for and marries her boss, but finds out that taking care of him at home (and especially his sp...
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She Married Her Boss
1934
Whom the Gods Destroy
5.5/2
Broadway's most successful producer, John Forrester, is deeply in love with his wife Margaret and dreams of the future when his son Jack will step int...
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Whom the Gods Destroy
1935
The Farmer Takes a Wife
6.1/8
A farmer tries to convince a girl to leave her life on a canal boat to live with him on his farm.
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The Farmer Takes a Wife
1935
Let's Live Tonight
1/1
Nick Kerry (Tullio Carminati) is a rich rounder who holds tremendous fascination over women......mainly because he is rich and has his own yacht. At M...
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