James Cruze

Directing

James Cruze

Born 1884-03-27 · Ogden, Utah, USA

Acting credits

No artwork available
1.0

Comte Paul De Valreas is attracted to Frou Frou, the frivolous wife of Henri De Sartorys and the indifferent mother of their young son Georges. Paul persuades Frou Frou to bring her somber sister Louise, who secretly loves Henri, into the household, thus freeing her from any domestic duties.

Frou Frou

1914

No artwork available
8.0

He was a hard-headed old business man and very mercenary, so when he received a letter from a debtor in a little country town asking for more time in which to pay the amount he owed, he decided to show no mercy. But on the way to the home of his debtors he had an accident. He slipped and fell from a cliff upon a projecting ledge below. He was thinking less of the money than of the chances of prolonging his life when he heard someone call him, and looking up he saw a girl standing on the cliff.

His Heroine

1913

Zudora poster
NR

Zudora, not knowing she's an heiress to a $20 million fortune, lives with her uncle, a mystic and detective, who covets her inheritance. She wants to marry John Storm but her uncle is against it. However, the uncle makes a bargain; if Zudora can solve the next twenty mysteries brought to him, she can marry as she chooses. Episodes 1,2 and 8, plus another unidentified chapter, survive. The rest is believed to be lost.

Zudora

1914

The Thunderbolt poster
9.0

A broker who was trying to get rich dishonestly, found himself in danger of arrest. Just as he was preparing for flight a neighbor entered. This man had been poor all his life, but coming unexpectedly into a legacy of $10,000, decided that the broker was the man who could invest the money for him.

The Thunderbolt

1912

Undine poster
NR

In the days long ago when knights were brave and venturesome, enchanted forests grew and mythical creatures lived among us.

Undine

1912

Tannhäuser poster
5.0

Dramatic three-reel film based on Wagner's opera of chivalry and spiritual struggle. Wandering minstrel Tannhauser wins the heart of Elizabeth, niece of the powerful Landgrave. Later, under the spell of Venus and her nymphs, Tannhauser passes into Venusberg, a netherworld of earthly pleasures. Returning to the Landgrave's court, he praises Venus in song and sparks the righteous anger of all present. His own prayers and those of Elizabeth free him from enchantment and he takes up the habit of a monk, devoting himself to God. He sets off to seek absolution in Rome while Elizabeth waits at court, ever weakening in his absence.

Tannhäuser

1913

Joseph in the Land of Egypt poster
5.0

Film realization of the Biblical story of Joseph, played here by future director James Cruze.

Joseph in the Land of Egypt

1914

No artwork available
NR

Two young people marry in a Continental village and receive the congratulations of all save the rejected suitor. He bides his time while the couple live happily and are blessed twice with children. War is declared after the husband has suffered an injury for life and the rejected suitor enlists.

The Patriot and the Spy

1915

Good Morning, Judge poster
10.0

A young clubman, who prided himself upon his popularity, made a wager with a friend that he would marry a certain society girl. His wooing met with great success as far as the girl was concerned, but her father, a judge, did not look with favor upon the young man, so the latter induced the girl to elope. She wrote her husband-to-be, telling him to have a closed carriage at a certain corner near her home and she would fly with him.

Good Morning, Judge

1913

No artwork available
8.0

A dapper sergeant in the army won the love of a pretty young stenographer, and they had planned that as soon as his term of enlistment was up he would enter private life and marry her. The girl was employed by a firm who had offices in one of the tallest of New York's skyscrapers, and her sweetheart saw her there. She took him to her favorite observatory, the roof of the building, where he obtained a magnificent and uninterrupted view of the greatest city in the world. He, on his part, took his sweetheart to the army maneuvers, where she witnessed with delight the well drilled troops, but would not confess that there was one man among them who could not compare with the one of her choice. She was particularly interested in the signal corps, however, and at odd times the sergeant instructed her in the code until she had become fairly proficient in it.

The Top of New York

1913

No artwork available
NR

The course of true love was running very smoothly until the girl became interested in the cause of votes for women. Her fiancé did not approve of it. There was a quarrel, and the engagement ring was haughtily returned. The young woman not only stubbornly refused to make up, but decided to become a really truly militant suffragette.

A Militant Suffragette

1912

When the Studio Burned poster
7.5

A recreation of the Thanhouser Studio fire of 13 January 1913, it includes the rescue of a small child from the flaming building.

When the Studio Burned

1913

Believe Me, Xantippe poster
NR

George MacFarland, a wealthy young man who loves adventure, bets his friends Thornton Brown and Arthur Sole $20,000 that he can commit a crime and elude the police for a year. After he forges a check, George heads West and does escape arrest for nearly a year, despite the proliferation of police circulars bearing his name and his favorite expression, "Believe me, Xantippe." In a Colorado hunting lodge, he meets Sheriff Kamman's pretty daughter Dolly, who recognizes and tries to arrest him. According to the terms of the bet, however, he must be captured by a genuine officer of the law, which Dolly is not.

Believe Me, Xantippe

1918

No artwork available
7.0

Nello was a little boy who lived with his aged grandfather near Antwerp. They were very poor, but because they loved each other so much were happier than many persons who enjoyed luxury. The child's only friend, outside of her grandfather, was an animal, who has gone down in history as "A Dog of Flanders."

A Dog of Flanders

1914

No artwork available
8.0

Everybody agrees that Billy Budd should settle down. But no one has the nerve to tell him so. Billy Budd, says everybody, is fast. He travels in fast company, and be drives a fast automobile. It really is a pity. But who will undertake to reform him? It does not occur to anybody that Billy's auto has constituted itself his guardian spirit. Yet, the car, apart from Billy's influence, really is a remarkably good sort. One evening its owner leads it into evil ways. Stopping at a roadside inn to get some wine for himself and some gasoline for the auto, he finds the supply of gasoline has run out. Billy has had a lively day. So he reasons that if champagne be good for him it will do also for the auto.

His Guardian Auto

1915

No artwork available
7.0

During the French and Indian War, Col. Munro’s daughters journeying to Fort William Henry are betrayed by guide Magua. Hawkeye and Mohicans rescue them, but Hurons capture Cora. Uncas dies saving her; Hawkeye avenges him, symbolizing the Mohicans’ demise.

The Last of the Mohicans

1911

No artwork available
9.0

The girl's father is Gunga Ras, a Hindu student of the occult. The girl's uncle is found dead and the lover blamed, but she personally investigates the crime. The father is suspected, but it develops that the death was really caused by use of liquid air in the hands of another

The Heart of the Princess Marsari

1915

On the Level poster
NR

Rustler Pete Sontag kidnaps Merlin Warner after he kills her father. Pete, a drug smuggler who uses his saloon as a front, coerces Merlin though beatings to become the dancer Mexicali Mae. She meets and falls in love with morphine addict Joe Blanchard but Pete frames Joe for a murder that he committed, forcing Mae to hide Joe in a homestead in the hills. After many struggles, Joe is cured of his addiction and proposes to Mae. She accepts, but when his mother and fiancée Eleanor arrive, they offer her money to leave, Mae refuses the money but becomes convinced that she is not good enough for Joe and writes to him that she is returning to the saloon. Joe learning of his mother’s plot arrives at the saloon and in the resultant fight Pete is killed. Mae and Joe are reconciled.

On the Level

1917

David Copperfield poster
8.0

Thanhouser Company three-reel silent film based on Charles Dickens’s story of an English lad's tribulation-filled journey to adulthood, Thanhouser released the three films over the course of three weeks beginning on October 17, 1911, one 1,000 foot reel per week.

David Copperfield

1911

Whom God Hath Joined poster
10.0

A young mechanic, temporarily residing in a southern city, found that business was slack in his trade, and decided to send his wife to her relations in the north until happier days dawned. He did not dream that he was putting her in peril, and when later he received word that the ship upon which she sailed had been lost with all on board, he was frantic with grief and self-reproach. Life in this city became hateful to him, and having no ties that bound him there, he abruptly departed into the country, deciding to wander wherever fate might lead him.

Whom God Hath Joined

1912

Nan of Music Mountain poster
NR

Henry de Spain is determined to find the man who murdered his father. He becomes sort of an outsider with Duke Morgan's gang, cattlemen, and outlaws. Nan, daughter of the head of the clan, secretly loves Henry and when he is wounded in a fight with the Morgan clan, she helps him escape. This angers her father and he declares that she shall marry her cousin. Nan dispatches a message to Henry for assistance and he brings her safely to his clan. Nan then learns that her father was the murder of Henry's father. She returns to her father to learn the truth and together they go to Henry and reveal the murder's name. After a thorough understanding and forgiving, Henry and Nan are married.

Nan of Music Mountain

1917

No artwork available
NR

Shows brief glimpses into the lives of movie stars of the time. Included is shots of Elsie Janis in her garden in Tarrytown, where she gives an impersonation of Mary Pickford. The film also shows the parts of the marriage ceremony between James Cruze and Marquerite Snow on January 28, 1913. The film claims this to be the first marriage to be captured on film. The film then moves on to some shots of Louise Glaum and her mother. This in turn is followed with a behind the scenes filming of a stunt involving a bathtub. The film then ends with some shots of Clara Kimball Young, Teddy (Mack Sennett's dog) and finally Marie Prevost.

Photoplay Magazine Screen Supplement #6

1919

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde poster
5.9

Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

1912

The Call of the East poster
NR

While visiting Alan, who works in Tokyo, she attends a festival with her Japanese maid while wearing a Japanese kimono. There she meets the wealthy Arai Takada, who is taken by the mysterious woman. Alan has dishonored and betrayed O'Mitsu, and her brother Arai plans a terrible revenge.

The Call of the East

1917

Behind the camera

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

Salvation Nell poster
7.0

Young Nell loses everything and her father is sent to prison. She joins the Salvation Army and tries to redeem him when he comes out....

Salvation Nell

1931

Gasoline Gus poster
8.0

Based on the comic strip character and his auto obsessed life.

Gasoline Gus

1921

The Big Fight poster
4.5

Based on the David Belasco stage production of the Max Marcin play in which heavyweight-champion Jack Dempsey played the role of the fighter, Tiger: This "behind-the-scenes look of a heavyweight-championship fight" looks much like all of the other boxing films in which the Champ gets involved in a frame-up and is asked to take a dive.

The Big Fight

1930

Wife Savers poster
7.0

Stationed in Switzerland after the Great War, soldiers Louis Hozenozzle and Rodney Ramsbottom both fall in love with local damsel Colette, much to the dismay of Colette's self-appointed boyfriend, General Lavoris. When Lavoris issues a fake order that all unmarried women must immediately take husbands, Hozenozzle weds Colette, at her request, to "save" her for the absent Ramsbottom. A lost film.

Wife Savers

1928

Thirty Days poster
8.0

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.

Thirty Days

1922

Mr. Skitch poster
7.3

After losing their Missouri home during the Great Depression, the Skitch family pulls up stakes and heads west to California to begin life anew. Comedy, released in 1933.

Mr. Skitch

1933

Hollywood poster
9.0

Angela comes to Hollywood with only two things: Her dream to become a movie star, and Grandpa. She leaves an Aunt, a brother, Grandma, and her longtime boyfriend back in Centerville. Despite seeing major movie stars around every corner, and knocking on every casting office door in town, at the end of her first day she is still unemployed. To her horror, when she arrives back at their hotel, she finds that Grandpa has been cast in a movie by William DeMille and quickly becomes a star during the ensuing weeks. Her family, worried that Angela and Grandpa are getting into trouble, come to Hollywood to drag them back home. In short order Aunt, Grandma, brother, boyfriend and even the parrot become superstars, but Angela is still unemployed...

Hollywood

1923

Sutter's Gold poster
7.0

Story of the gold strike on an immigrant's property that started the 1849 California Gold Rush.

Sutter's Gold

1936

Once a Gentleman poster
9.0

A butler goes on vacation, where he is wrongly taken to be a wealthy man.

Once a Gentleman

1930

Once a Gentleman poster
9.0

A butler goes on vacation, where he is wrongly taken to be a wealthy man.

Once a Gentleman

1930

Alias Mike Moran poster
NR

Department-store clerk Larry Young is determined to marry a rich girl. He falls for Elaine Debaux, whom he believes to be the daughter of a wealthy shipbuilder. However, when war breaks out Larry is drafted into the army. Before he is taken in, though, he and Elaine are rescued from gangsters by an ex-con named Mike Moran. It turns out that Moran wants to join the army but they won't take him because of his record. Larry, who doesn't want to go into the army because it will interfere with his plans to marry Elaine, comes up with an idea he thinks will work out for all concerned. Complications ensue.

Alias Mike Moran

1919

Mannequin poster
10.0

Adapted from the Fannie Hurst story of the same name, Mannequin is the story of Joan Herrick, kidnapped in infancy from her wealthy parents and raised by a slatternly slum woman. The film is still extant.

Mannequin

1926

Mannequin poster
10.0

Adapted from the Fannie Hurst story of the same name, Mannequin is the story of Joan Herrick, kidnapped in infancy from her wealthy parents and raised by a slatternly slum woman. The film is still extant.

Mannequin

1926

The Mating Call poster
6.0

A World War I veteran takes on the Ku Klux Klan when he loses his wife to a womanizing Klansman. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with University of Nevada, Las Vegas Foundation.

The Mating Call

1928

A Full House poster
7.0

Lawyer George Howell leaves his bride Ottilie on their wedding day, having promised client Ned Pembroke that he would procure some old love letters from Vera Vernon, a chorus girl with whom Ned was formerly infatuated. George is detained for three days, and when he returns, Ottilie finds jewels and burglar's tools in her husband's suitcase which leads her to suspect that he is a thief.

A Full House

1920

Too Many Millions poster
NR

Walsingham Van Dorn has a fancy name but no money until he inherits 40 million dollars from a pair of wealthy, but wicked, uncles.

Too Many Millions

1918

Come On, Leathernecks! poster
7.5

The father of a star football player at Annapolis wants his son to follow the family pattern and join the Marines.

Come On, Leathernecks!

1938

Terror Island poster
5.3

Inventor Harry Harper travels to the South Seas, where there is buried treasure belonging to a girl, Beverly West. Naturally, others are after the loot, and Beverly's father is being held captive by cannibals until she returns to them with a pearl that belongs to one of their idols. The climax consists of Harper saving Beverly from a safe which has been lowered into the sea.

Terror Island

1920

A Man's Man poster
8.0

An aspiring actress goes to Hollywood to make movies and marries a soda jerk.

A Man's Man

1929

The Enemy Sex poster
8.5

A well-known sextet has been invited to a society gathering, and when one of them turns up missing, their manager asks Dodo to fill in. At the party, she meets four new men. She's smart enough to steer clear of two of them -- corrupt society leader Albert Sasson and powerful newspaper publisher Harrigan Blood. Instead she becomes passionately involved with Judge Massingale. The man who really steals her heart, however, is Garry Lindaberry, who seems to be a hopeless drunk.

The Enemy Sex

1924

The Goose Hangs High poster
8.0

Having a municipal position, Bernard Ingals has almost bankrupted himself sending his three children to college. The youngsters all arrive home for Christmas Eve, and their parents do their utmost to give them a good time, but the thoughtless and selfish children make other plans and go to a party, leaving their parents to a lonely dinner. A member of the common council arrives at the Ingals home and orders Bernard to reinstate a municipal employee who has been dismissed; Bernard refuses and submits his resignation. The grandmother, a strong-minded old lady, then sets out to put things right: she stakes Bernard to his life-long dream, a greenhouse of his own, and then lectures the children on their thoughtless and profligate ways. The children reform and get jobs, and the goose hangs high at last.

The Goose Hangs High

1925

The Goose Hangs High poster
8.0

Having a municipal position, Bernard Ingals has almost bankrupted himself sending his three children to college. The youngsters all arrive home for Christmas Eve, and their parents do their utmost to give them a good time, but the thoughtless and selfish children make other plans and go to a party, leaving their parents to a lonely dinner. A member of the common council arrives at the Ingals home and orders Bernard to reinstate a municipal employee who has been dismissed; Bernard refuses and submits his resignation. The grandmother, a strong-minded old lady, then sets out to put things right: she stakes Bernard to his life-long dream, a greenhouse of his own, and then lectures the children on their thoughtless and profligate ways. The children reform and get jobs, and the goose hangs high at last.

The Goose Hangs High

1925

David Harum poster
7.5

Rogers plays a small town banker in the 1890s whose chief rival is the deacon (Middleton) with whom he has traded horse flesh. Taylor is a bank teller who places a winning $4,500 bet on a 10-1 harness racing horse, making him Rogers' bank partner.

David Harum

1934