Wallace Reid

A documentary of Hollywood's first great Latin Lover, the contradictions in his personal life, and his premature death.

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 House That Shadows Built (1931) is a short feature, roughly 48 minutes long, from Paramount Pictures made to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the studio's founding in 1912. It was a promotional film for exhibitors and never had a regular theatrical release and includes a brief history of Paramount, interviews with various actors, and clips from upcoming projects (some of which never came to fruition). The title comes from a biography of Paramount founder Adolph Zukor, The House That Shadows Built (1928), by William Henry Irwin.

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.

Truckdriver Dusty Rhoades leads a team of truckers over dangerous roads to deliver emergency supplies before a crucial dam breaks.

A young man and his manservant, escaping from a backwoods family feud, are persuaded by a beautiful young heiress to help her rid her newly-gained Spanish castle of ghosts.

John Cadwalader Floyd gets himself into a lot of trouble when hot-headed Italian Giacomo Polenta finds him in the arms of his wife, Rosa.

Sylvester Tibble is a clerk in his uncle's restaurant. Sylvester dreams of becoming a famous dancer and tries to inject a little of the jazz life into his uncle's old-fashioned establishment. When dancer Junie Budd shows up at the restaurant, Sylvester sees a chance to make his dream come true.

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

Teddy Darman is the construction superintendent for the Continental Gold Dredging Company. But the farmers of the valley where the firm is doing its dredging are upset because it is ruining their land. Led by John Wade, the farmers form a fierce opposition. This doesn't bother Darman until he realizes that Dora (Lois Wilson), his sweetheart -- who is also Wade's daughter -- is siding with the farmers. This turns him around and the farmers mortgage their farms so that Darman can build a dredging machine that resoils the land.

A picture depicting the engrossing adventures of a small town youth in Hollywood and showing the intimate home life of some of the screen's greatest stars.

A silent romantic adventure melodrama (from the play and novel by Richard Harding) about a womanizer who follows a beautiful Hispanic woman to her home country and his adventures there. He ends up helping her father become dictator of the entire country, and is rewarded with marriage to her and he is named Minister of Finance!

Young William Burroughs comes from wealth but not nobility, so despite his income he is not welcomed when he pursues Lady Elizabeth Galton, and indeed he is not only beaten by her cousin but thrown out by his own father for the disgrace he has caused. He travels to the United States where he becomes a champion prizefighter. Upon his return to England, he finds circumstances quite changed for Lady Galton and he sets out to change her circumstances further.

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

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.

The poor man, professing love for his family, drinks what he presumes to be poison in order to make a thousand dollars for them, but the drink proves to be harmless.

Rimrock Jones is the toughest and most likeable prospector in a thriving Arizona copper camp. Having already been cheated out of several valuable copper strikes, Rimrock nonetheless forges ahead optimistically, hoping to strike it rich just once more. Unfortunately, he can't find anyone to finance his latest expedition -- except for a pretty public stenographer who uses her life savings to grubstake our hero. When Rimrock finally hits pay dirt, he tries to repay the girl for her generosity, only to find that she wants to be a full partner in his copper mine. While he mulls this over, Rimrock's rivals try to bamboozle him out of his mine with the help of a sexy "vamp".

John Dayton is shot by George Willis in a saloon quarrel. The deed is seen by Arline Marsdon, who gives Willis money and a marked timetable, whereby he escapes and goes further west. Mrs. Dayton is determined to bring the murderer to justice and engages the services of Craig Burton, a detective.

Rival logging companies battle for the Valley of the Giants (redwood trees) when a young engineer returns home to help his father by building a new rail line to transport the logs to the sawmill. A romance between the engineer and the rival's niece complicates the situations.

Absorbed in his painting, Robert Gainsworthy neglects his beautiful wife - not intentionally - but rather in the pre-occupied way of a man who did not want the single train of thought broken. He worked for days in his studio without ever speaking to her and the strain told on their relations for the wife brooded bitterly. Jack Sanders, a globe-trotting cousin of Robert, visited at the Gainsworthy home. He took many strolls with the heart-sick wife and found himself madly infatuated.

Young Billy Burns is in love with Irene Brander, to whose father he is private secretary. Irene returns his affection, but is very much afraid that her father will force her to marry Bert Austin, a young society and club man of his choice. Billy, seeing that this is imminent, goes boldly to Irene's house and asks her father for her hand.

Dorothy and her father have staked all their hopes on their mine. While they are awaiting the arrival of Mr. Reid, who is to report on the value of the mine, Pedro, a Mexican, makes familiar advances to Dorothy and is sternly repulsed. Reid arrives and a mutual attraction springs up between himself and Dorothy, to the chagrin of Pedro.

Wally Bristow is a wealthy young chap infatuated with a heartless society girl. He discovers that she is not true to him and leaves her. At the club he runs into an argument among the members to the effect that none of them could start out with nothing and return in a year, married and successful. Wally takes his friends up on the bet. Wally goes west and secures employment on a ranch. He becomes the butt of the cow punchers jokes, and his employer's daughter thinks him a prig until, one day, she observes him thrash a ranch bully for ill-treating a dog. Soon after she promises to be his wife. The society girl, meantime, hears of it and starts west to break up the match. Arriving in the neighborhood she sends a note to her rival saying that the man is untrue to her and to go to a certain place and she will see him with another woman.

Thwarted by his despotic uncle from continuing his love affair, a young man's thoughts turn dark as he dwells on ways to deal with his uncle. Increasingly convinced that murder is merely a natural part of life, he kills his uncle and hides the body. However, the man's conscience awakens; paranoia sets in and nightmarish visions begin to haunt him.

Much to the delight of the simple old father, his daughter becomes engaged to a big-hearted mountaineer. He builds their hut in the wilderness, and she is happy, though she often dreams of the great world outside. Then comes the intruder from the city, a man of the world. He obtains hoard at the girl's home. He blinds her eyes to the beautiful things of the; woods with his talk of pretty places and things of the great world without. He tempts and wins her away from the big-hearted backwoodsman. The young mountaineer, who has been working on his cabin, returns and finds the old man dozing and the girl gone.

The husband and his wife live alone in the mountains, where he is working out a claim. A stranger from a distant mine is injured in the vicinity. The husband nurses him back to health. During his convalescence the stranger persuades the wife to elope with him.

Old Man Hathaway was a trapper and lived with his only daughter in the mountains. Pretty Claudine often went forth to visit the traps with him and one day, when no bound, they saw a youth kiss a maiden affectionately. Seeing a chance for an object lesson, the old trapper sagely shook his head, saying, "My child, such kisses are poison. Guard against them."

The woman has been leading an adventurous life. Her admirer grows tired and casts her off. She departs and sinks down in the street, tired mentally and bodily. The artist is painting the Madonna. His model fails to give him the inspiration needed and he discharges her. Passing down the street he observes the woman with the beautiful tired face, speaks to her and finally persuades her to go with him and be his model and embrace a better life. The painting is finished. The woman has supplied the inspiration. She tires and longs for the old, merry life. She meets the tempter once more and goes with him to his home.

Peter Barton leaves his wealth to his niece, Mary, disinheriting his dissipated son, Edgar, who steals the will. Jack Smart, a rascal, an associate of Edgar's, keeps close watch upon him. At the point of a revolver he compels Edgar to surrender the will to him. Mary, the niece, is obliged to go to work, takes a position as a reporter, and meets Tom Swayne, who falls in love with her. Tom sees Jack Smart in a restaurant, and after the villain leaves, Tom picks up a menu card, upon which Smart has written some hieroglyphics. Mary shows him an envelope which she picked up in her uncle's room, where Smart took the will from Edgar, after he had stolen it. Tom compares it and the hieroglyphics on it with those on the menu card. They are the same.

Randall is a rich mine owner whose business affairs cause him to neglect his somewhat frivolous wife. There is a mutual friend whom Randall carelessly allows to entertain his wife. As a result, the friend pays more than natural attentions to the woman. The three visit one of Randall's mines. The wife and friend go down the mining shaft in a bucket. While they are yet underground, a quantity of dynamite explodes. The mine is filled with poisonous fumes.

This subject deals first with a woman who has lost her husband. Her two boys are now her mainstay and support. These boys are aged respectively 6 and 8. They sell papers and give their earnings to their mother. The elder of the boys is inclined to be wild and one day be is arrested for craps playing and is sent to a reformatory.

The "Firefly of France" is an elusive master criminal of uncertain loyalties. When the Firefly disappears from view with a satchel of important government documents in his possession, his sister Esme Falconer is suspected of beings in cahoots with him. Dashing aviator Devereaux Bayne believes in Esme's innocence and accordingly dons civilian garb and heads to Paris' Latin Quarter to get the low-down on the Firefly's whereabouts.

Country girl May loses at cards and must borrow $250 from Captain Stiles, but the wealthy roué's loan does not come without an expectation of repayment.

The son falls in love with his millionaire father's stenographer, against the parental wishes. To get rid of her influence over Wallace, Burton, Sr., discharges Madge. But the young man follows her and they are married. By so doing he separates himself from his father altogether.

Laura Bell runs away from her country home to the city, where she becomes a clerk in a department store. Her brother, Frank, follows her to New York, but is unable to place her. He becomes interested in a settlement house and obtains a position in social service work. Mary Ashton, daughter of the proprietor of the store where Laura works, is shocked to find that her father pays his clerks starvation wages.

Jacques watched through an opening in the foliage and saw Gilbert of the mounted police and his own wife exchange pleasant greetings. From that moment he hated the police officer. Gilbert was too fine-looking.

Two friends, Tad and Jack, are conversing with each other at the Club, when Dr. Matthews, the wealthiest man in town, enters. In contemplating the rich man, the two young men speculate as to whether or not, with all his wealth, he is happy. The argument leads them to a wager. Tad bets $1,000 that there is something in the physician's life he would hate to have known, and that as a consequence he is unhappy. Jack accepts the bet.

Two brothers live together in the Kentucky mountains. Wally, the younger, is a wood-cutter, while Phil is a cripple. The brothers receive word from a city physician that Phil can recover from his infirmity only by means of an operation which will cost $800. The amount, however, is far larger than they ever expect to own at one time. In the meantime, Nan Leslie, of the U.S. Revenue Service, is detailed to go into the mountain districts of Kentucky and get evidence against a gang of moonshiners.

A silent comedy in which a jealous woman wants to catch her husband in the act of infidelity.

Bob Madden returns home slightly intoxicated and his father angrily commands him to leave the place and shift for himself. The next morning he goes, leaving his father a note: "Dear Dad, I am going out West and try to make a man of myself. I hope some day you will be proud of me. Your son. Bob."

A drama about a poor composer who is betrayed by his family and left alone.

A regiment of cavalry surprises the Sioux and puts them to flight. Colonel Graham and others personally attend to the wants of the wounded, and the Colonel finds a wounded squaw in one of the tepees, with a little girl crouched in terror by her side.

Joe Mayfield and Sue Jarvis are the children of two families in the Blue Ridge Mountains, which have been at variance for years. Brady, Dorothy's brother, has had an affair with a simple mountain maid. She, unable to care for the child, lays it with a note, at what she thinks is Brady's door. In reality, she has taken it to Mayfield's cabin. He finds it, but out of love for Sue, and to spare her the reflected disgrace, he cares for it himself, keeping silent as to its parentage. The love between himself and Sue ripens. Sue is ready to forget the feud and marry him. In order to prevent this, Brady, not knowing whence the child came, accuses Mayfield of being its parent. The accused is silent and Sue turns away. Mayfield, in the meantime, is unable to stand the fruits of injustice and the taunts of Brady. He tells Brady the true parentage of the child. Brady is softened. He tells Mayfield he is going to find its mother and "Make it right."

The wife takes with her their small daughter, leaving the son to the care of the father. The forlorn woman wanders into a fishing village, and is taken into a kindly fisherman's family. To more surely separate herself from the world that knows her. She assumes her maiden name. Many years afterward the father and the son, now grown, pass through the village. The son becomes acquainted with his own sister, knowing nothing of the relationship, and falls in love with her. He persuades his father to spend his season at a summer resort nearby. Later, the son and the daughter are secretly married. The girl leaves a note for her mother, telling her of the act. The mother follows to the parsonage, and then the summer resort, where she overtakes the couple.

Tom Wells is dissatisfied with his lot in life. Wondering aloud whether he'd be happier if things were different, he soon gets his chance to find out. The rest of the story is an extension on the old proverb which begins "Be careful what you wish for."

Dorothy informs the cracksman that when he has finally renounced his life of thieving he may return to her and claim her. The cracksman resolves to be worthy of her. In his home he doubts his ability to reform and takes out his revolver. A vision of the girl comes to him and he is about to cast it aside when a tray of gleaming jewels crosses his vision. His resolution wavers. He places the gun in his pocket and sallies out.

Lieut. Wallace leaves his fiancée, Dorothy West, to cross the border with his troops into Mexico. Later he is wounded, captured and taken to the hacienda of the Mexican officer, Senor Paranze, where his wounds are dressed by Senora Paranze. The latter falls in love with the American when he defends her from her brutal husband.

Lillian is an unfortunate woman. After leaving her baby at the door of a hospital she meets David, the author of her misfortune. It is a case of starvation or the "easiest way." She chooses the "easiest way." After eighteen years she again shows up, a social outcast and a tool for David's black profession.

Counters Betty Ardmore inherits from an uncle a large mining property in the United States. At the advice of her counselor she comes to America to personally superintend the conduct of her property. Her brother, a dissolute fellow, is left out of the inheritance, but at his solicitation and promise to reform, she takes him with her.

Dr. Frank Rosslyn, known to the world as a prominent physician, is in reality the head of a quack medical concern which dispenses patent medicines and advertises extensively.

Just prior to America's declaration of war, Margaret Kenwood of the Kenwood Manufacturing Company determines that the plant should produce munitions to support the Allies. Rodney Sheridan, her sweetheart and a vice president of the company, remains unimpressed with Margaret's patriotism until he begins to suspect that the plant's president is involved with a group of German spies.

A young mountaineer loves Dorothy, daughter of a backwoodsman. An artist comes into the district to paint and falls in love with Lucille, Dorothy's sister. Dorothy is interested in the artist on account of her sister's love for him, and she poses.

Cortez sends Alvarado to Montezuma who throws him into a dungeon from which he is rescued by Tecza who loves him. He is recaptured when her lover Guatemoco finds Alvarado hiding in her chambers. Tecza next leads Cortez into the city, thus causing the destruction of her nation and securing the love of Alvarado.

Mrs. Travers, a society leader, is madly in love with Arthur Ingraham, a rising diplomat. Arthur is not in love with her and avoids her advances. He is in love with Beatrice Langton, a young debutante, to whom he becomes engaged. Mrs. Travers is furious.

The story concerns the reformation of a fast woman who runs a gambling establishment. Her one fear is of death and her regeneration is brought about.

The girl has three suitors: a young Mexican, who symbolizes love, a cripple, who symbolizes devotion, and a wealthy haciendiero, who symbolizes wealth. Despite the protests of Love and the pain of Devotion, the girl is given in marriage to Wealth by her father. A year lapses and the girl has suffered by her father's choosing. Wealth is faithless to her and heaps upon her head humiliation and indignity and finally brutality. Love returns to her and after listening to her story swears that he will kill Wealth, but Devotion restrains him with the advice that if he kills Wealth he can never have the girl. To insure the girl's happiness Devotion kills Wealth himself and then takes his own life.

The Animal, a man of great strength and brutal impulses, becomes human when he reunites a mother and her lost child.

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

While out West, prospector Harry Webb makes enemies of a con artist, Mark Brenton and the con's crooked lawyer, Frank Beekman. Jack goes to the city and meets singer Janice Williams in a cabaret. They become engaged, but Brenton also has designs on her. He tricks her into going to a room to meet with him, and Webb, hearing of the scheme, follows. What he finds when he gets there is Brenton on the floor, dead, and Janice holding a gun.