Richard Bennett

Acting

Richard Bennett

Born — Died

1870-05-21 — 1944-10-22

Known for

Acting

Credits

28 titles

Richard Bennett (May 21, 1870 – October 22, 1944) was an American actor who became a stage and silent screen matinee idol over the early decades of the twentieth century. He was born in Deacon's Mills, Indiana in 1870 (some sources state 1872), the son of George Washington Bennett and Eliza Huffman. His younger sister was Ina Blanche Bennett. For a time, he was a sailor on Great Lakes steamer, a professional boxer, medicine showman, troubadour and night clerk in a hotel in Chicago. His silent movie debut was a reprisal of his stage role in Damaged Goods (1914), which co-starred his wife, Adrienne Morrison. He helped adapt the screenplay and direct the drama. In the drama The Valley of Decis…

Known for

Film credits

1930s · 11 titles

Arrowsmith poster
6.6

A medical researcher is sent to a plague outbreak, where he has to decide priorities for the use of a vaccine.

Arrowsmith

1931

If I Had a Million poster
6.5

An elderly business tycoon, believed to be dying, decides to give a million dollars each to eight strangers chosen at random from the phone directory.

If I Had a Million

1932

Strange Justice poster
6.3

Socialite banker Henry Judson maintains his extravagant lifestyle by embezzling from his bank, but is caught by sleazy assistant manager Waters and is blackmailed by him into continuing. Close to being found out, the two devise a scheme which sends Wally, the ex-con boyfriend of pretty hat check girl Rose Abbott, to death row.

Strange Justice

1932

Nana poster
6.0

Young Parisian Nana wards off of a boozed-up military officer at a local restaurant, and fellow diner Gaston Greiner is so impressed with her pluck that he decides to make her a performer at his musical theater. Soon, Nana is a star, and the girlfriend of Greiner and two other men. But when he learns that she's been getting around, Greiner fires her. As she tries to reclaim her singing job while dodging yet another suitor, her treachery might get the better of her.

Nana

1934

Bought! poster
8.0

Working-class girl dreams of living a better life and forsakes her friends when she has a chance to break into high society.

Bought!

1931

Five and Ten poster
6.1

John owns the largest chain of five and ten cent stores in the country. He moves his family to New York from Kansas City and their life, though grand, is falling apart due to his constant working. Wife and mother Jenny is lonely. Son Avery hates his job. Daughter Jennifer is snubbed by classmate Muriel and her friends. At a charity bazaar, Jennifer meets Berry and sparks are evident. However, he is engaged to Muriel and Muriel will make sure that she, and only she, marries Berry. After the marriage, Berry still thinks of Jennifer as Jennifer thinks of Berry. Avery laments about the state of his family since they were happy in Kansas City.

Five and Ten

1931

Madame Racketeer poster
5.3

International con artist Martha Hicks a.k.a. Countess von Claudwig is released from another stay in prison and decides to treat her rheumatism with a stay at her estranged husband's hotel at a Wisconsin spa. There undercover, she checks in on the two daughters she abandoned as infants.

Madame Racketeer

1932

This Reckless Age poster
7.0

Donald Ingals and his wife Eunice are conventional and loving parents who are shocked when their son Bradley comes home from college with ideas that they consider to be outrageous. His parents would like him to get involved with Mary Burke, a prim and proper young lady. More complications ensue because Bradley's sister Lois is attracted to the flapper lifestyle, but she isn't sure whether she can handle its emotional demands.

This Reckless Age

1932

Big Executive poster
7.0

When a married stockbroker falls in love with another woman, he becomes the prime suspect in his wife's accidental death.

Big Executive

1933

18 Minutes poster
9.5

A lion-tamer's partly innate and partly acquired attitude to other living beings - that they shall submit without question to his will - is applied with unseeing kindness to an orphan girl whom the lion tamer adopts.

18 Minutes

1935

No Greater Love poster
7.0

Owing more than just a passing nod to "Abie's Irish Rose," a kindly Jewish delicatessen owner in New York City, Sidney Cohen, adopts a young, crippled Irish girl, Mildred, with much opposition from many quarters.

No Greater Love

1932

1920s · 4 titles

1910s · 7 titles

The Valley of Decision poster
NR

Reformer Arnold Gray fights child labor and social issues. An ambitious clubwoman, Rhoda Lewis, helps him secure a gubernatorial nomination. Arnold marries a respected writer named Jane Morton. When Jane becomes pregnant, Arnold fears a child will hinder his political career. Pressured by Rhoda and Arnold, Jane suffers acute depression over the situation. Arnold wins the election, but Jane dies shortly after. Grief-stricken, Arnold dreams of his unborn son and wakes to find his wife alive, realizing the tragedy was only a nightmare.

The Valley of Decision

1916

The Gilded Youth poster
10.0

Pinky Cochrane is one of a trio of starving artists: the other two are Sam Wellbridge and Mac MacTavish. When one of their favorite models dies, the three heroes take charge of the woman's infant son Victor. Once the boy has grown to manhood, his three foster fathers decide to choose a likely wife for their "shared" son.

The Gilded Youth

1917

The End of the Road poster
8.0

Childhood friends Mary Lee and Vera receive two different versions of the 'birds and the bees' from their mothers. Mary Lee gets the facts, while Vera gets a prudish fairytale version. Their lives separate after graduation, Mary Lee becomes a nurse who falls in proper love with a Doctor, whereas Vera follows her mother's advice and seeks to marry a rich man, but falls for the unlawful and syphilitic charms of a wealthy cad. Mary Lee and her Doctor rescue Vera and help her get proper care after a series of revelations showing actual patients of the loathsome disease. Finally, Mary Lee and her new husband volunteer to help our boys fighting the Huns in France.

The End of the Road

1919

And the Law Says poster
1.0

Under an assumed name, law student Lawrence Kirby courts the daughter of Dr. Cartmell. When she becomes pregnant, however, Lawrence leaves town to escape the responsibility of rearing his illegitimate child. Years later Kirby, now a judge and a stern proponent of capital punishment, unknowingly sentences his innocent son to death in the electric chair on the basis of circumstantial evidence. As the youth is about to be executed, his identity is revealed and the horrified Kirby relents. The judge's plea for mercy is ignored, however, and his son electrocuted. Immediately afterwards, Dr. Cartmell, a longstanding opponent of the death penalty, revives the lad and restores him to his mother.

And the Law Says

1916

Philip Holden - Waster poster
NR

Philip Holden is a young dilettante and disappointment to his brother, Miles. His sister-in-law, Louise, attempts to interest him in something beyond literature, leading him to attend a bridge party that changes his trajectory.

Philip Holden - Waster

1916

The Sable Blessing poster
7.0

John Slocum has always been a decent young man. When he was twelve, his uncle Henry introduced him to little Bess De Voe, telling them that when they grew up they should marry. John's uncle sends him to the manager of a publishing house in New York with instructions to "give him a job for what it's worth and keep him until he succeeds."

The Sable Blessing

1916

Damaged Goods poster
1.0

"Damaged Goods" pictures the terrible consequences of vice and the physical ruin that follows the abuse of moral law. It is a stirring plea for a pure life before marriage, in order to make impossible the transmission of hereditary traits to future generations.

Damaged Goods

1914

Behind the camera

The Valley of Decision poster
NR

Reformer Arnold Gray fights child labor and social issues. An ambitious clubwoman, Rhoda Lewis, helps him secure a gubernatorial nomination. Arnold marries a respected writer named Jane Morton. When Jane becomes pregnant, Arnold fears a child will hinder his political career. Pressured by Rhoda and Arnold, Jane suffers acute depression over the situation. Arnold wins the election, but Jane dies shortly after. Grief-stricken, Arnold dreams of his unborn son and wakes to find his wife alive, realizing the tragedy was only a nightmare.

The Valley of Decision

1916

And the Law Says poster
1.0

Under an assumed name, law student Lawrence Kirby courts the daughter of Dr. Cartmell. When she becomes pregnant, however, Lawrence leaves town to escape the responsibility of rearing his illegitimate child. Years later Kirby, now a judge and a stern proponent of capital punishment, unknowingly sentences his innocent son to death in the electric chair on the basis of circumstantial evidence. As the youth is about to be executed, his identity is revealed and the horrified Kirby relents. The judge's plea for mercy is ignored, however, and his son electrocuted. Immediately afterwards, Dr. Cartmell, a longstanding opponent of the death penalty, revives the lad and restores him to his mother.

And the Law Says

1916

Damaged Goods poster
1.0

"Damaged Goods" pictures the terrible consequences of vice and the physical ruin that follows the abuse of moral law. It is a stirring plea for a pure life before marriage, in order to make impossible the transmission of hereditary traits to future generations.

Damaged Goods

1914