
Acting
Joseph Franz
Born 1884-10-12 · Utica, New York, USA
Acting credits
NRAfter Bob Baldwin is fired for playing too many jokes on the tenderfoot owner of the Diamond K Ranch, he sets out for the nearby town of Freloe Beanos and meets Percival Longstreet on the way. Percival has been seriously injured in an accident and is therefore unable to assume his duties as the town's new schoolmaster. Distressed, Percival confesses that he and his sister Dolly, who is en route to the town, are doomed to starve, which so moves Bob that he agrees to serve as the schoolmaster during Percival's convalescence.
The Pretender
1918
5.7College students rally to save a struggling hotel from closing. Comedy.
College Holiday
1936
7.0An egotistical boxer romances a rich backer's daughter.
Invitation to Happiness
1939
8.0No synopsis available yet.
The Mints of Hell
1919
9.0Whiskey smuggler Dubec, trades liquor to the Indians, takes revenge on the Royal North West Mounted Police pursuing him by killing the wife of post commander Sergeant Delisle and abducting his teen-aged daughter Nonette.
The Devil's Trail
1919
7.0Dix plays radio announcer Robert Parker, working at a station run by his girlfriend's father. Becoming a bit overexcited on the air, our hero lets slip a few (fortuitously unheard) profanities. Fired from his job, Parker enters into an amusing series of misadventures with veteran bank robber Jim Bailey (Charles Sellon).
Easy Come, Easy Go
1928
5.3A love story that takes place at the time of the gold rush. Prospector Allister Burke is in love with Mary, but he believe the slanderous lies that are spread by Burke, his competitor.
The End of the Game
1919
8.0Young, introverted New York attorney Jimmie Pendleton is notoriously shy around women. Instead, he spends much of his time embarking on wild escapades with his friend, Herbert Austin. To fund these adventures, Jimmie frequently wires his eccentric Uncle Tobias in Kansabraska (a fictionalized Midwestern location) for emergency cash. Chaos ensues when Jimmie becomes engaged to Herbert’s sister, Mary. Following the engagement, Uncle Tobias unexpectedly arrives from the West. Jimmie is forced into a frantic, comical scramble to maintain appearances and conceal his true, wilder lifestyle—along with his careless spending habits—from his visiting uncle and his new in-laws.
Life's a Funny Proposition
1919
Behind the camera
Dee Halloran rescues Grace Macy from a runaway stage and learns that her grandfather was murdered before he could divulge the whereabouts of a large sum of money he had hidden from thieves. Buck Fitzgerald, the leader of a gang of desperadoes, weasels himself into Grace's confidence and leads her to believe that McKeller, a friend of Dee's, was responsible for the murder. Thinking that Grace knows the location of her grandfather's money, Fitzgerald later tries by force to make her talk.
Blue Blazes
1926
10.0Bing Howard a former stockbroker, is called the "Night Wind" because he is a fugitive from justice, persistently being trailed by Clifford Rushton, a private detective who has framed Howard on a bond robbery. Rushton's failure to catch Howard forces the chief to turn the case over to Detective Katherine Maxwell, alias "Lady Kate," whose brother was sent to prison for bond robbery on the same evidence Rushton has brought against Howard.
Alias the Night Wind
1923
Smiling Jim is a 1922 American silent Western film directed by Joseph J. Franz.
Smiling Jim
1922
10.0The unscrupulous attempts by speculators Dr. West and Jim Prince to have a railroad pass through lower California are met with opposition by Spanish landowners led by Dona Maria Saltonstall, who tries flirting with West to restore their property. Pereo, a religious fanatic who works for Dona Maria, believes in the curse of the Gray Wolf's Ghost: if a member of Dona Maria's family mates with an alien, fortune and life will be lost. Meanwhile, West's son Harry, whom he deserted years before, comes to avenge the wrong done to his mother.
The Gray Wolf's Ghost
1919
9.0Earl Stannard is framed for a murder he didn't commit, arrested and sent to prison. He escapes and sets out to find the real murderer and clear his name.
Youth Must Have Love
1922
John Whalen is ordained into the priesthood and assumes the leadership of a small-town New Jersey parish. His dying mother's last wish is for young doctor Edward Welsh and his sweetheart to be married. Rev. Whalen devotes much time and effort to overcoming the obstacles to the union, managing along the way to solve the problems of other townspeople.
The Parish Priest
1921
8.0Norman Draper, a Texas Ranger sent to round up a band of cattle rustlers, finds Phillip Carlson at the deathbed of his wife and assists him in burying her. Meanwhile, cow thieves are plaguing Marcos Valverde and his daughter Elicia; and Leon Serrano, the local deputy sheriff (actually the leader of the rustlers), realizing the community will demand a victim, arrests Carlson, who has innocently bought a stolen horse from the thieves. Draper rescues him from a lynching party and learns the whereabouts of the rustlers. Leon Serrano is unmasked as the culprit and then is arrested by Draper, who gives his reward to Carlson and is himself rewarded by the love of Elicia.
Tracks
1922
Society girl Constance Bailey becomes a schoolteacher in New York's Lower East Side, telling her fiancé, Bruce Van Griff, that she is sailing to Europe.
The New Teacher
1922
8.0The police find Queenie Ross murdered. Tip O'Neil, a newspaper reporter, is detailed to solve the mystery.
The Pell Street Mystery
1924
8.0Jim Wesley returns from college with a silk shirt and eastern ways, earning the contempt of the cowpunchers on his father's ranch. With a little hard riding and fancy roping, however, Jim proves himself to be a regular guy. Jim's father is involved in a dispute over water rights with Adam Grayson, a neighboring rancher, and the two men decide to settle the disagreement by a marriage between Jim and Grayson's daughter, Marguerite. The young people refuse, but when Marguerite is attacked by a rejected suitor, Jim comes quickly to her rescue.
The Desperate Game
1926
NRJerry Jerome, a rich young Wall Street broker, follows doctor's orders and goes West to relieve strain. He stops at the ranch of Jim Yancy, then agrees to be the maid of the farmhouse to earn his keep, because he is attracted to Yancy's daughter Ruth. After a series of stagecoach robberies by a masked man wearing a blue bandanna, Jerry, the new man in town, is suspected.
The Blue Bandanna
1919
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Bare-Fisted Gallagher
1919
10.0Returning to his father's cattle ranch after the excitement of serving in combat overseas, Bud McGraw becomes restless, and his father decides to send him to an old friend who commands the Border Police in Texas. On the way he meets Peggy Hughes, accompanying her Uncle Graham, a customs inspector, and he retrieves her hat from the rails of a train. At the headquarters, numerous scrapes and fights win him the admiration of, and friendship with, the men. Lazaro, a Secret Service agent, invites Mrs. Graham and Peggy, who are staying at the border station, for an automobile ride, and they are captured by bandits and held for ransom. Bud and his pals deliver the ransom and discover that Lazaro is the bandit chief. Lazaro refuses to release Peggy, but a jealous rival, Nita de Garma, causes his downfall and shoots him as the Border Police arrive to rescue the party.
Fightin' Mad
1921
9.0Margot Sperry, who keeps house for her guardian, a professor who wants to revert to primitive modes of living, finds it difficult to find food in the winter wilderness and resorts to pilfering from the Bates's winter camp. Divvy, engaged to a girl he does not love, meets Margot on one of her raids and falls in love with her. Baptiste, a half-breed employed by the Bates family, is discharged for stealing and burns the camp, driving the family to refuge with Margot. Elsie, hoping to regain Divvy's affections, dresses in boyish clothes similar to Margot's. Joining forces with Baptiste, they capture Margot, and Baptiste takes her in a canoe downstream. Realizing her mistake, Elsie warns Divvy, who bests the half-breed and then rescues Margot from the falls. A lost film.
The Cave Girl
1921
7.0Drifter Dick Manners arrives at a ranch owned by Colonel Angus McClelland. When he wagers that he will be able to ride a wild bronco and kiss the ranchman's haughty daughter, Jean -- and wins -- he lands a job there. But Manners and Jean really fall in love and Colonel McClelland fires him. He then meets a woman who is dying, and she begs him to marry her so that her child will have a name. Manners obliges, and then Jean finds out about the situation.
The Love Gambler
1922
7.0Mix is Grant Malvern, a rancher who befriends scientist Quentin Durant (Tom S. Guise) after rescuing him from a trio of Chinese crooks. The crooks want to find Durant's Arizona gold mine, and the map to the location is contained in a pair of rings. After the crooks track down Durant and kill him, one of the rings winds up with Durant's daughter, Helen (Adams), and the other falls into Malvern's hands.
Stepping Fast
1923
10.0Larry Lang is out to get desperado Claude Dutton (Ed Piel), the man who killed his father, which is why he is known as a sagebrush Hamlet.
A Sage Brush Hamlet
1919
Having struck it rich, two prospectors return to town, where one of them is to be married while the other will serve as best man. But on the eve of the wedding, the best man turns out to be the worst of the two, and elopes with the bride-to-be. Though heartbroken, the jilted bridegroom shrugs philosophically and returns to gold-mining. Several years later, the wife dies, and her husband becomes a high-rolling gambler.
What the River Foretold
1915