Theodore Roberts

The edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of edition #1, then a tribute to movie people who have died in those 25 years. Finally there are tributes to the Screen Snapshots series by Cecil De Mille, Walt Disney, Louella Parsons and Rosalind Russell.

The first part tells the story of Moses leading the Jews from Egypt to the Promised Land, his receipt of the tablets and the worship of the golden calf. The second part shows the efficacy of the commandments in modern life through a story set in San Francisco. Two brothers, rivals for the love of Mary, also come into conflict when John discovers Dan used shoddy materials to construct a cathedral.

Socialite Anatol Spencer, finding his relationship with his wife lackluster, goes in search of excitement. After bumping into old flame Emilie, he lets an apartment for her only to find that she cheats him. He is subsequently robbed, conned, and booted from pillar to post. He decides to return to his wife and discovers her carousing with his best friend Max.

Wealthy cripple Markley finances the education of blacksmith's daughter Ruth. When she returns to their small town he asks to marry her, but she runs off with city worker Jim Dirk who is then killed in a subway accident. Markley offers to marry her in name only to protect her new son.

Automobile maker John Kent is an old-fashioned sort who refuses to advertise his car line. His daughter Ginger, however, is determined to get him some publicity and goes speeding around town in one of his cars, hoping to get arrested. Roddy Smith, posing as a cop, stops her. His father owns a rival firm and he suggests that Ginger convince her father to enter his car in the Vanderbilt road race.

Three clerks for the Kincaid Piano Company -- Leonard Beebe, Chester Mullin, and Tom Baker are in competition for a promotion to factory manager.

Mary Maddock works as a seamstress to bring home money while her husband Steve, unemployed, has no real prospects of earning money. Mary's employers, are trying to strike an oil related business deal with a rich man by the name of Nelson Rogers. The deal does not seem to be on the table, as Mr. Rogers is leaving town shortly and does not have the time to work out the details of such a deal. In an order to entice him to stay, Mrs. Mallory - wife of Mr. Mallory who is proposing the business deal - convinces Mary to be her guest at a dinner party with the intent of making Mr. Rogers fall for her and thus stay long enough for Mr. Mallory to make him agree to a business deal.

Carol runs a restaurant out of her house, while her husband George collects the ferry's tolls. Unbeknownst to Carol, George is allowing his bootlegger brother to use the house as a hiding place for his liquor.

The Butterworth family attorney Gaspar Le Sage, and a suitor for the hand of Eleanor Butterworth, persuades a beautiful adventuress, Annabelle Wu, to help him steal the official plans for the coastal defense of California from Eleanor's brother, Lieutenant Butterworth.

Documentary short film depicting the filmmaking activity at the Paramount Studios in Hollywood, featuring dozens of stars captured candidly and at work.

Baron Reiner, a charming though unscrupulous Viennese aristocrat, becomes infatuated with Virginia, an innocent schoolgirl who is engaged to his best friend, Manfred. In order to seduce the girl, Reiner finances an oceanographic expedition for Manfred that takes him away for months (TCM).

In trying to decide whom to marry--Rita Pring, the daughter of a South Seas ship captain, or Lady Helen Deene, an Englishwoman with wealth and influence--Burke Hammond consults Professor Jansen, a psychologist. Jansen induces in Burke a hypnotic trance in which he sees his future with each of the women. If he marries Helen, he will have fame, material comforts, and political power, but no love from his wife. If he marries Rita, his life will be humble but happy until Captain Pring's first mate, Jim McLeod, stirs up trouble and a shot is fired at Burke. Jansen cannot tell if the shot means death to Burke; nevertheless, Burke unhesitatingly chooses life with Rita.

Andrew Bullivant, a retired lawyer known as "Grumpy" for his irascibility, calls on all his experience and powers of deduction to expose Chamberlin Jarvis as the thief of a valuable diamond being transported by Ernest Heron. A gardenia is the clue; and Virginia Bullivant, Ernest's sweetheart, is Jarvis' unwitting dupe.

Though betrothed to fellow socialite Richard, Iris weds her chauffeur Tom leaving Richard to marry the family laundress' daughter Shamrock. Class differences lead to divorces and remarriages.

Produced as either an internal studio record or for promotional purposes, this raw footage shows Cecil B. DeMille on the set of The Affairs of Anatol with cast and crew in late 1920 or early 1921. from discussions with the scripturies on narrative details and guidance to re cast on filming specific scenes, to a group photo with all participants.

Jimmy Dent , son of John Dent, the maker of the reliable but plain Dent automobile, is dismissed from the firm after he refuses to drive a Dent. He goes west with the Tyler family, owners of a rival automobile firm, in one of their expensive high speed cars. 

Lulu Bett lives in the home of her sister Diana and Diana's husband, Dwight. One day Dwight's brother, Ninian, shows up, and he and Lulu Bett have a mock marriage. Dwight declares the marriage legal, but it turns out that Ninian already has a wife.

Marion Shipley is happily devoted to her husband, John, until Mrs. Willy Strong, a society "vampire," succeeds in capturing his affections. A jewelry salesman informs Marion of the affair, after John and Mrs. Strong enter his store together. Marion follows her husband to a restaurant, where she witnesses Mrs. Strong give John the key to her apartment. Gaining entrance to her rival's home, Marion transforms herself with the vamp's clothes and makeup, rendering herself unrecognizable to John in the dim light. Marion is in John's arms when Mrs. Strong arrives, and he denounces her for his wife.

Egotistical race-car driver Dusty Rhoades learns that humility pays off even better than acclaim.

Sally, seamstress for a fashionable modiste, supports a disabled father and adores her kitten, Tommy. Though loved by Jack a taxi driver, she is infatuated with Don Cesare Gracco, an operatic sensation.

Silent drama film based upon the play of the same name by Denman Thompson.

Based upon a description in a film publication,[3] Katherine Van Riper (Clayton) is an extravagant young society girl who is very much in debt, and her wealthy aunts and uncle refuse to give her any money. Katherine is desperate enough that she is considering marrying the wealthy Montee Buck (Hiers), although she is in love with the westerner Tom Jaffrey (Fillmore), who says he is poor. Finally, Katherine decides to sell the famous Van Riper pearls, pay off her debts, and marry Tom. However, upon examination the jewelry turns out to be paste, with her father having sold the genuine pearls several years earlier before his death. Montee is assured by the aunts that Katherine will marry him and tells this to Tom. Tom is about to leave town when Uncle James (Ricketts) steps in and pays off Katherine's debts, leaving the niece free to marry Tom.

Leila Porter comes to dislike her husband James, a glue king who is always eating onions and looking sloppy. But after she divorces him and marries two-timing playboy Schuyler Van Sutphen the now-reformed James looks pretty good.

Posing as a nobleman, Allan Harrowby takes out a policy with Lloyd's to insure that his upcoming marriage will occur, Dick Minot, Lloyd's assistant manager in the U. S., travels to San Marcos, Florida to handle anything that threatens to disrupt the wedding. On the train, Dick falls in love with Cynthia Meyrick, then discovers she is Harrowby's bride-to-be, he subdues his feelings.

American law clerks Anthony Hamilton Hawthorne and Rodney Blake are nearly broke in Monte Carlo when Hawthorne breaks the bank. While driving through the impoverished kingdom of Bovinia, Hawthorne falls in love with a woman he meets when he retrieves his blown-off cap. Deciding to stay, Hawthorne is persuaded to finance a revolution until he learns that the woman he loves is Princess Irma and that she is in danger of being assassinated.

Charles Murdock neglects his fat and lazy wife for another woman; When his other love interest becomes involved in a murder, he leaves for Paris.

When an aristocratic family and their servants are shipwrecked, the butler becomes their ruler.

Dr. Edward Meade and friend Richard Burton both love Sylvia Norcross. Both enlist in the military, but Meade stays back to care for deformed children. Sylvia thinks him a coward and marries Burton. After Burton is presumed dead, Meade and Sylvia are to wed, but Burton returns maimed and scarred.

Graehme, Ned Stewart's father, was accused of adultery and killed being innocent. Ned decided to avenge his father, but got captured and sent to the long journey to death "la longue traverse".

A married couple, each in love with another, attempts to unentangle themselves from their marriage in order to be with the one each truly loves. But the more they untangle one knot, the faster more confusing knots appear.

Little Sara Crewe is placed in a boarding school by her father when he goes off to war, but he does not understand that the headmistress is a cruel, spiteful woman who makes life miserable for Sara.

Two American grandfathers in France try to arrange marriages for their grandson and granddaughter by promising them money. The young ones refuse and run off to join a theatrical group where they fall in love and marry as their grandparents had intended.

Madison Hale, a wealthy American financier, is bidding against Govrian Texler, the financial advisor to the King Stephen III of Maritizia, for the concession to run a transcontinental railway through the country. After Madison's son, Dick, completes his college education, he decides to visit Maritizia, the birthplace of his great-grandfather. There he meets Princess Irenia and they fall in love, arousing the jealousy of Ferdinand Vaslof, Govrian's nephew, who is also in love with the princess.

M'liss, a feisty young girl in a mining camp, falls for Charles Gray, the school teacher. Charles is implicated in a murder of which he is innocent, and the two must fight to save him from a lynching.

Justus Graves (Theodore Roberts) is a mean-spirited human being, so it's no surprise that when he returns home from a business trip, he finds his wife Elsie (Kathlyn Williams) in the arms of another man (J.W. Johnston). Graves shoots and wounds the man, then hides with his little daughter in Mexico.

Jack Hale, a revenue agent, is sent into the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to track down illegal alcohol producers.

A saloon hostess loves Ramerrez, a notorious highwayman. Sheriff Jack Rance, who loves the girl too, instigates a card game that will determine the fate of all three of them. If she wins, the girl's lover will go free; but if she loses…

The Secret Orchard is a 1915 American drama silent film directed by Frank Reicher.

Bobby Burnit, a naïve young man, inherits $300,000 from his father, a hard-working entrepreneur. Because the will specifies that the money must be invested, Agnes Elliston, Bobby's sweetheart, suggests that he take over his father's chain of stores. Soon Bobby becomes the dupe of various swindlers and charlatans, among them Sam Stone and Bobby's shady lawyer. With the help of Bobby's friend Biff Bates and Daniel Johnson, a loyal employee of Bobby's father, the swindlers are exposed in the newspaper and Bobby's inheritance is saved. Finally, after rescuing Agnes from Stone's advances, Bobby proposes to her, thus complying with all of his late father's wishes. -From TCM.com Database, powered by the AFI.

Col. Landers adopts two children, "How," an Indian boy, and Bess, whose parents were killed in an Indian uprising. When the children are grown, How proposes to Bess, whom he has loved since his childhood. She accepts his proposal, thus angering Clayton Craig, Lander's nephew who also wants to marry her. After Lander's death, How is exiled from the ranch, so he and Bess buy new land. One day, after he has been away, How returns to his cabin to see Bess and Craig embracing. How grants Bess her freedom after which she marries Craig and moves to New York. Some time later, How discovers oil on the land that he gave Bess, so he follows them to New York. There he finds that Craig has been unfaithful to Bess. In the end, Bess rejects Craig so that she and How can remarry and find "a trail to happiness together." -From TCM.com Database, powered by the AFI.

Everywoman is a lost 1919 American silent film allegory film directed by George Melford based on a 1911 play Everywoman by Walter Browne.

A WWI English officer is inspired the night before a dangerous mission by a vision of Joan of Arc, whose story he relives.

Planning on sailing his schooner, the Laughing Lass, to his ancestors' treasure island in the South Seas, veteran seaman Obadiah Wolf makes his last payment on the vessel to Ellory Glendenning, a crook who hopes to cheat the old man out of the boat and then sell it to the government at an outrageous price. Learning that Obadiah has a treasure map tattooed on his chest, a pirate called "Bad-Eye" forces the old buccaneer to accompany him to the island. Meanwhile, Ellory and his son Harold seize the Laughing Lass, ordering Rory O'Malley, who is loved by Obadiah's granddaughter Patricia, to sail it to the South Seas so that Harold may evade the draft.

Edward Abeles and Theodore Roberts as a couple of prospectors who get involved with greedy city types on a business trip to New York.

Richard Farquhar, the ne'er-do-well nephew of a titled Englishman, after a protracted "good time" finds himself penniless in an Algerian hotel. He expects money from England, but instead receives a cablegram stating his allowance has been stopped and that his uncle will have nothing further to do with him.

Framed for embezzlement, an English nobleman flees to America, eventually finding romance in Wyoming with a young Native-American. This is the 1918 remake of the 1913 original, the first feature length Hollywood film. It is considered to be a lost film with only one reel still extant.

Because Amy Fortesque's dying grandfather advises her to get all the joys out of life, she marries Dick Gaylord because he is funny, rather than Walter Melrose, a staid young lawyer who loves her.

During the Balkan Wars, Sonia is a young woman living in Montenegro and left to care for her younger brother Milos and the family farm while elder brother Marko goes off to battle. Unable to handle the daily tasks following her brother’s tragic death, help comes in the form of Mahmud Hassan, a captured Turk nobleman, now a prisoner of war. Tasked with helping Sonia, their initial frosty relationship soon melts into romance. As the war rages on Sonia, Mahmud and Milos will face near-insurmountable obstacles in their quest for a better life amidst the hell of war.

Headed by a young nobleman, the Russian League of Freedom determines to free the peasants from oppression by the government. Prince Paul Alexis is in love with Karin Dolokhof, daughter of the chancellor. Both are working for the league. Shortly after they announce their engagement the prince receives word from the Czar that he must marry the Princess Tanya, for political reasons.

No synopsis available yet.

John Humperdink Stover, otherwise known as "The Varmint" for his pestiferousness or as "Dink" when in special favor, was expelled from a boarding school and sent to Lawrenceville Academy. On the stage on the way to the school he meets a silent man whom Dink sizes up for a salesman and he proceeds to wax eloquent on the subject of his past career and the reason he was expelled from his previous school.

William C. DeMille adapted his screenplay for The Woman on the stage play by DeMille's father Henry and David Belasco. The story is set in Washington D.C., courtesy of the Lasky Studio's scenic department. Lois Meredith plays the title character, a woman of questionable morals currently involved with young politician James Neill. Political boss Theodore Roberts hopes to ruin Neill by making public the young man's romantic entanglements.

Soda jerk Harvey is the most popular man in Blakeville NY and deliriously happy through three years of poverty-stricken marriage to Nellie. After a musical comedy troupe comes through, Nellie becomes an actress. When she then falls for a millionaire and goes to Reno for a divorce, Harvey takes their child Phoebe home where her later illness brings her parents back together.

Mary Mac Neill (Katherine MacDonald), whose father (Theodore Roberts) marries her off to Lord Raa (Jack Holt) in order to satisfy an old grudge. But Mary wants nothing to do with the dissolute Lord and tells him so on their wedding night. So he takes his mistress, Alma Lier (Fritzi Brunette), to India and passes her off as Lady Raa, while Mary disappears to a French village, where she spends time with the man she loved all along, explorer Martin Conrad (Milton Sills).

Lord Percy hires attorney John Stoddard to find the missing Brentwood heiress. Failing his mission, John rescues an orphan named Margot and passes her off as the lost granddaughter. As guilt drives them to confess, Margot’s former abuser arrives and reveals a shocking truth: he killed her parents, making Margot the real, legitimate heir.

"Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo" is an interesting play of intrigue between the Grand Duke Augustus Peter of Russia, whose incognito is Mr. Grex, an English Secret Service agent, Lord Huntersley and a young American millionaire on pleasure bent, Richard Lane. Mr. Grex and two other diplomats who unofficially represent France and Germany, plan to meet as if by chance in Monte Carlo for the purpose of arranging a secret pact.

Fishermaid Marcia Manot finds an emerald which once belonged to a Norse queen and is cursed. Greedy American Silas Martin marries her, then sets her up for divorce. She kills him and weds his business manager Sterling, but a detective learns about Silas' death.

When he loses both his father’s canning factory and his girl “Tiny” to Stephen Douglas modest Simpson Hightower goes to work in a New York provisions office along with stenographer Hope and office boy Jimmy. To impress the Danish consul who is proposing a large contract Hope and Jimmy persuade Simpson to return to his hometown posing as a successful businessman accompanied by his secretary "Pep" and valet Jimmy. It works! Simpson manages to get the Danish contract, buy his factory back and realize Tiny’s worthlessness while recognizing his love for "Pep."

Carmen, a maid, steals a locket belonging to the Aragon princess Maria Theresa and sells it to Gaines, a New York art collector, not knowing that the locket contains the clue to the Aragon family fortune's whereabouts. Based on the 1909 Broadway play of the same name by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard.

When a young girl is placed under hypnotism, it's discovered that she has a split personality.