Thomas H. Ince

Production

Thomas H. Ince

Born — Died

1882-11-16 — 1924-11-19

Place of birth

Newport, Rhode Island, USA

Known for

Production

Credits

48 titles

Thomas Harper Ince (November 16, 1880 – November 19, 1924) was an American silent era filmmaker and media proprietor. Ince was known as the "Father of the Western" and was responsible for making over 800 films. His untimely death at the height of his career, after he became severely ill aboard the private yacht of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst, has caused much speculation, although the official cause of his death was heart failure.

Known for

Soul of the Beast poster
6.5

This northwoods comedy-drama, by way of a circus drama, was directed by John Griffith Wray for Thomas H. Ince, and stars Madge Bellamy.

Soul of the Beast

1923

Shark Monroe poster
6.0

In this 1918 film, newly restored by MoMA, Hart is a ship's captain in the Pacific Northwest who abandons his post to pursue a woman who does not love him (MacDonald) across the Klondike, eventually rescuing her from the grip of a white slaver.

Shark Monroe

1918

Silk Hosiery poster
5.0

In a prologue, as a woman pages through a book, male figures, including a musketeer, a cowboy, a swordsman and a military officer, appear and bow. In the main story, the visit of Prince Ferdinandi sends New York society ladies scurrying to purchase gowns for the upcoming ball. The woman seen earlier looking longingly at the book, model Marjorie Bowen, fights off the advances of Cadwallader Smith, who accompanies a patron. When handsome Sir Derwain Leeds, the prince's aide-de-camp, arrives to see his fiancée Yvette Fernau outfitted, Marjorie exchanges a shy smile with him.

Silk Hosiery

1920

The Green Swamp poster
NR

Most of the patients of Dr. Ward Allison are women, and his wife Margery is becoming increasingly jealous of all the time he spends with them. One day he tells her that he has been called out of town, but she is told that he is really staying at the house of a friend and colleague, Dr. Hendon, and the two are planning wild parties with their female patients. What she finds out, however, is even more shocking than what she expected.

The Green Swamp

1916

Civilization poster
5.2

Count Ferdinand, a submarine commander and secret pacifist refuses to torpedo a defenseless passenger ship during wartime. His submarine is sunk in the following fracas. In the spirit world, Christ commends the captain, and returns to earth in the commander's body to promote His message of peace.

Civilization

1916

The Wrath of the Gods poster
6.2

An American sailor falls in love with a fisherman's daughter and convinces her that Jesus is more powerful than the gods who have cursed her.

The Wrath of the Gods

1914

Film credits

1990s · 1 titles

Behind the camera

Soul of the Beast poster
6.5

This northwoods comedy-drama, by way of a circus drama, was directed by John Griffith Wray for Thomas H. Ince, and stars Madge Bellamy.

Soul of the Beast

1923

Shark Monroe poster
6.0

In this 1918 film, newly restored by MoMA, Hart is a ship's captain in the Pacific Northwest who abandons his post to pursue a woman who does not love him (MacDonald) across the Klondike, eventually rescuing her from the grip of a white slaver.

Shark Monroe

1918

Silk Hosiery poster
5.0

In a prologue, as a woman pages through a book, male figures, including a musketeer, a cowboy, a swordsman and a military officer, appear and bow. In the main story, the visit of Prince Ferdinandi sends New York society ladies scurrying to purchase gowns for the upcoming ball. The woman seen earlier looking longingly at the book, model Marjorie Bowen, fights off the advances of Cadwallader Smith, who accompanies a patron. When handsome Sir Derwain Leeds, the prince's aide-de-camp, arrives to see his fiancée Yvette Fernau outfitted, Marjorie exchanges a shy smile with him.

Silk Hosiery

1920

The Green Swamp poster
NR

Most of the patients of Dr. Ward Allison are women, and his wife Margery is becoming increasingly jealous of all the time he spends with them. One day he tells her that he has been called out of town, but she is told that he is really staying at the house of a friend and colleague, Dr. Hendon, and the two are planning wild parties with their female patients. What she finds out, however, is even more shocking than what she expected.

The Green Swamp

1916

Civilization poster
5.2

Count Ferdinand, a submarine commander and secret pacifist refuses to torpedo a defenseless passenger ship during wartime. His submarine is sunk in the following fracas. In the spirit world, Christ commends the captain, and returns to earth in the commander's body to promote His message of peace.

Civilization

1916

Civilization poster
5.2

Count Ferdinand, a submarine commander and secret pacifist refuses to torpedo a defenseless passenger ship during wartime. His submarine is sunk in the following fracas. In the spirit world, Christ commends the captain, and returns to earth in the commander's body to promote His message of peace.

Civilization

1916

The Wrath of the Gods poster
6.2

An American sailor falls in love with a fisherman's daughter and convinces her that Jesus is more powerful than the gods who have cursed her.

The Wrath of the Gods

1914

The Wrath of the Gods poster
6.2

An American sailor falls in love with a fisherman's daughter and convinces her that Jesus is more powerful than the gods who have cursed her.

The Wrath of the Gods

1914

No artwork available
NR

After years on the international crime circuit, "Silver Jim" Farrel shares a comfortable and honest suburban life with Marjory, his sister, until word comes that an old friend from his thieving days is in desperate need of cash. To save his bankrupt friend from jail, Jim reluctantly executes a jewel heist, being careful not to involve Marjory or his sweetheart, who know nothing of his past, in the scheme.

Time Locks and Diamonds

1917

The Lieutenant's Last Fight poster
6.7

American Indian Buffalo Big falls in love with the daughter of Colonel Sherry.

The Lieutenant's Last Fight

1912

The Homebreaker poster
7.0

Traveling saleswoman Mary Marbury thrashes a masher on a train when he tries to kiss a young girl in a tunnel.

The Homebreaker

1919

The Death Mask poster
6.2

A Native American warrior travels to a faraway tribe to find and defend a woman that haunts his dreams.

The Death Mask

1914

The Return of Draw Egan poster
5.2

A small town marshal’s secret past as an outlaw comes back to haunt him when an old associate shows up and threatens to expose his former dark deeds.

The Return of Draw Egan

1916

No artwork available
NR

A lost film. George Dupont, a young farmer, is living with his parents on the farm, while his sweetheart, Sadie Allen, resides on an adjoining farm. George finds rural life irksome and is satisfied that he has talent as an artist. He enters a school of art. Unfortunately, a year passes and his money is exhausted, so the instructor tells him he has no talent, and dismissed him from the school. George tries to write home of his failure, but his nerve fails him. Meanwhile those at home have been waiting in vain for a letter, so Sadie resolves to go to the city and look him up.

Back to the Soil

1911

No artwork available
10.0

Clifton Boyle, a lead actor in a disbanded theater troupe. Boyle returns home to find his sister dying; she reveals she married Harold Welles, another actor, who abandoned her and their deceased baby. Boyle swears vengeance on Welles. Boyle tracks Welles down and uses the theatrical world to enact his revenge, making a real-life drama out of his sister's tragedy.

The Play's the Thing

1914

No artwork available
NR

Awaiting his release from prison an inmate takes stock of his life and resolves that never again will he be on the wrong side of the law.

Never Again

1915

Wolf Lowry poster
6.0

Tom "Wolf" Lowry confronts new settlers in his valley but has a change of heart when he sees Mary Davis.

Wolf Lowry

1917

The Coward poster
5.8

Set during the American Civil War, Keenan stars as a Virginia colonel and Charles Ray as his weak-willed son. The son is forced, at gunpoint, by his father to enlist in the Confederate army. He is terrified by the war and deserts during a battle. The film focuses on the son's struggle to overcome his cowardice.

The Coward

1915

The Coward poster
5.8

Set during the American Civil War, Keenan stars as a Virginia colonel and Charles Ray as his weak-willed son. The son is forced, at gunpoint, by his father to enlist in the Confederate army. He is terrified by the war and deserts during a battle. The film focuses on the son's struggle to overcome his cowardice.

The Coward

1915

No artwork available
10.0

Richard Barr, who lives in the suburbs of New York, and John Colville, honest directors of a dishonestly managed corporation, are fighting to save their own investments and those of small individual shareholders from ruin. They are holding a very important meeting that will last well into the night.

Thieves

1914

Hay Foot, Straw Foot poster
10.0

Silent military romantic love triangle comedy (based on the story by Julien Josephson), about a soldier named Ulysses S. Grant Briggs, who comes from the south and enlists in the army. He and his best friend, who is from the north, compete for a beautiful stage actress, and risks court-martial to win her.

Hay Foot, Straw Foot

1919

The Market of Souls poster
10.0

A country girl goes to visit friends in the big city, and observes a different kind of life.

The Market of Souls

1919

No artwork available
7.0

Reporter Tom Warder exposes a theatrical producer, Isaac Shuman, for sexually harassing young women, including Tom's girlfriend. After being forced out of town, Shuman returns years later to frame Tom for theft, leading to his imprisonment and the tragic death of his family.

The Failure

1915

The Criminal poster
NR

A young Italian immigrant girl, uneducated and superstitious, finds an abandoned baby on the stairs of her tenement, with a note attached explaining the baby is illegitimate. A young newspaper reporter, whom the girl knows from waiting on him at the restaurant where she works, reads the note for her. But the police arrest her, at no evidence whatsoever other than possession of the baby, for kidnapping.

The Criminal

1916

Hell's Hinges poster
6.1

When Reverend Robert Henley and his sister Faith arrive in the town of Hell's Hinges, saloon owner Silk Miller and his cohorts sense danger to their evil ways. They hire gunman Blaze Tracy to run the minister out of town. But Blaze finds something in Faith Henley that turns him around, and soon Silk Miller and his compadres have Blaze to deal with.

Hell's Hinges

1916

The Riddle of the Wooden Leg poster
10.0

Sauntry, secretary to John Graydon, the wealthy banker, commits many robberies in the city among the wealthy class, gaining a rather sinister reputation. He hides his tracks by placing a wooden leg on one of the good ones, thus leaving a print and a round mark. Graydon's diamond disappears and the chain to which it was tied is found by Limpy Fisher, a boy from the East Side, with a wooden leg.

The Riddle of the Wooden Leg

1915

No artwork available
9.0

Kentucky moonshiner, Bill Evans lives with his family in the back hills. His daughter Mary marries another moonshiner, Jack Keane, which angers Bill Gale. The plot involves a love triangle and family conflict stemming from the moonshining life.

The Raiders

1914

A Trip Through the World's Greatest Motion Picture Studios poster
6.0

A Trip Through the World's Greatest Motion Picture Studios (1920) presents a fascinating glimpse into the Thomas H. Ince studios at Culver City.

A Trip Through the World's Greatest Motion Picture Studios

1920

The Biggest Show on Earth poster
NR

Raised in a circus company, a young girl finds herself unhappily out of place at an upper class finishing school. She struggles to fit in with the young ladies of society, but it is her handiness with dangerous animals that finally breaks her through.

The Biggest Show on Earth

1918

No artwork available
9.0

A man who believes his wife cares more for her dresses and social status than for their home life. To teach her a lesson and cure her of her vanity, he devises a plan to make her think he has lost all of his money. He hopes that by facing poverty, she will abandon her superficial ways and become a more devoted, practical wife.

His Superficial Wife

1915

No artwork available
NR

When a malaria epidemic breaks out, miserly store owner Jed Thompson exploits the situation by selling essential quinine capsules at an exorbitant price to the local gold miners. He refuses credit to miner Ray Knowles, whose father is sick. Jed’s daughter Dora, however, gives Ray some capsules. For this Jed banishes her to work in the mines. When she falls ill with the disease, he withholds the medication and wandering in delirium she is taken in by the Knowles. Rallying the other miners, they cast Jed out into the desert where he perishes, imagining all around him has turned to gold.

A Midas of the Desert

1915

Hail the Woman poster
7.0

Oliver Beresford is a stern, Puritanical, and uncompromisingly rigid father. When shameful stories about his daughter Judith surface, rather than determine whether the stories are true, he bans her from his house. Her brother David, a pusillanimous reprobate, has secretly married and fathered, then abandoned, a child. Judith takes care of the child and finds a way to restore her family through the love for the babe.

Hail the Woman

1921

On the High Seas poster
NR

Dirk Morgan, a trusted member of a powerful international criminal gang, receives word that the steamer Empress has left Melbourne with a secret shipment of gold; the letter also contains plans for the ship's hold and cabins. Dirk books passage for himself and Anne and they board the steamer in Sydney.

On the High Seas

1915

Granddad poster
5.5

Mildred is staying with her grandfather, Civil War veteran Jabez Burr, when she receives a letter from her father. Her father has re-married, and will be bringing his new wife home soon. But when Mildred's stepmother finds out that Jabez drinks, she takes a dislike to him, and begins to resent his closeness with Mildred...

Granddad

1913

Beau Revel poster
5.0

Lawrence Revel, celebrated in society circles for his success with women, is devoted to his son Dick and objects to his marrying Nellie, a cabaret dancer. To prove her unworthiness, Beau asks his son not to see her for 2 weeks. Unwittingly, Beau falls in love with the girl, but his attentions are refused.

Beau Revel

1921

The Last of the Line poster
6.8

Sioux leader Chief Gray Otter sends his son Tiah to the white man's school so that he can become a great leader. The son returns home drunk, disappointing his father. Things get worse when the son joins a group of renegades and robs a payroll wagon. The father, observing the clash from a distance, takes a side.

The Last of the Line

1914

The Last of the Line poster
6.8

Sioux leader Chief Gray Otter sends his son Tiah to the white man's school so that he can become a great leader. The son returns home drunk, disappointing his father. Things get worse when the son joins a group of renegades and robs a payroll wagon. The father, observing the clash from a distance, takes a side.

The Last of the Line

1914

The Girl, Glory poster
9.0

Glory Wharton is the granddaughter of civil war veteran Jed Wharton. Jed entertains everyone with his war stories, but has a serious drinking problem. Glory is determined to help him overcome this.

The Girl, Glory

1917

Paris Green poster
9.0

A young man who falls for a Parisian dancer, but his wealthy family disapproves leading to societal conflict, misunderstandings, and eventual reconciliation as he navigates love, tradition, and his family's stubbornness in the post-WWI era, culminating in him choosing true love over strict duty.

Paris Green

1920

The Hater of Men poster
NR

Convinced that her impending marriage to fellow reporter Billy Williams will result in a loss of her freedom, Janice breaks her engagement and enters a period of Bohemian living.

The Hater of Men

1917