George Lessey

Embezzler, shill, all around confidence man S. Quentin Quale is heading west to find his fortune; he meets the crafty but simple brothers Joseph and Rusty Panello in a train station, where they steal all his money. They're heading west, too, because they've heard you can just pick the gold off the ground. Once there, they befriend an old miner named Dan Wilson whose property, Dead Man's Gulch, has no gold. They loan him their last ten dollars so he can go start life anew, and for collateral, he gives them the deed to the Gulch. Unbeknownst to Wilson, the son of his longtime rival, Terry Turner (who's also in love with his daughter, Eva), has contacted the railroad to arrange for them to build through the land, making the old man rich and hopefully resolving the feud. But the evil Red Baxter, owner of a saloon, tricks the boys out of the deed, and it's up to them - as well as Quale, who naturally finds his way out west anyway - to save the day.

After losing nearly all of an inheritance to taxes, sisters Kay and Barbara Latimer, waitresses at a drive-in restaurant in Texas, scheme to find rich husbands. With the aid of their aunt Susan, the sisters take the last of their money and head to a well-known Miami resort where they soon meet two wealthy young men, Phil and Jeff, who begin a fierce rivalry for Kay, not realizing that Barbara has fallen in love with one of them.

Judge Hardy takes his family to New York City, where Andy quickly falls in love with a socialite. He finds the high society life too expensive, and eventually decides that he liked it better back home.

Two brothers are separated after the death of their father. One grows up to be a politician, while the other gets involved in corruption.

This final Carter film is a lot of fun, with Nick (unwillingly, at first) taking on a ring of Fifth Columnists (since this was filmed before the US entered the war, we're not told the villains are Nazis, but it's pretty clear anyway). Of course, the helpful and persistent Bartholomew is at his side--much to Nick's irritation. To further complicate things--and to make them still funnier--Joyce Compton is along for the ride too, as a delightfully brainless "detective" named Christine Cross.

Edna marries Texan Sam Gladney, operator of a wheat mill. They have a son, who is killed when very young. Edna discovers by chance how the law treats children who are without parents and decides to do something about it. She opens a home for foundlings and orphans and begins to place children in good homes, despite the opposition of "conservative" citizens, who would condemn illegitimate children for being born out of wedlock. Eventually Edna leads a fight in the Texas legislature to remove the stigma of illegitimacy from birth records in that state, while continuing to be an advocate for homeless children.

Spanish coquette Tula Moliana finds herself encumbered with two husbands, and to get a divorce from the first, Senator Wakefield, she engages Jim Blake, the fiancé of Helen, the senator's daughter, to be her correspondent. Jim agrees to help her but finds himself entangled in a web of deceit and has difficulty in making excuses to Helen for the numerous adventures in which he becomes involved, especially when a jealous rival pursuing Tula threatens his life. Matters are cleared up when Helen discovers he has been victimized, and Tula accepts her first husband. This film is lost.

A café in Chicago, 1942. On a rainy night, veteran reporter Homer Howard tells an increasing audience the story of Roxie Hart and the crime she was judged for in 1927.

This MGM Crime Does Not Pay series short looks at the U.S. Department of Immigration's efforts to halt the smuggling of illegal aliens into the country. Desperate immigrants, tired of waiting for legal entry, pay exorbitant fees and risk a grisly death to enter by illegal means.

A mild-mannered insurance salesman gets mixed up with gangsters.

When a teenager's father is accused of murder, the boy and his high-school classmates set out to find the real killer.

Thanhouser's version of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Professor Pierre is assigned to find a missing heiress whose fortune will go to a worthless relative if she isn't found. He uses most of his dialect ability in the search by posing as a Chinaman, an Englishman, a sailor and a Scotchman, but is unable to find her. He meets his sweetheart at a restaurant and, there, discovers she is the heiress he has been searching for. She breaks off their romance when she finds out she is rich.

A waitress falls for a foreign businessman (Mohr), while receiving attention from a pair of motorcycle cops, Curtis and Defore. She soon realizes that Mohr is actually a crook and goes back to flirting with her fast cop friends.

A troubled youth is offered the opportunity to serve as a Senate page in Washington, DC.

Part of MGM's "Crime Does Not Pay" series, this short film focuses on crimes revolving around pension scams.

Two buddies who rise from fly-by-night wildcatters to oil tycoons over a twenty year period both love the same woman. McMasters and Sand come to oil towns to get rich. Betsy comes West intending to marry Sand but marries McMasters instead. Getting rich and losing it all teaches McMasters and Sand the value of personal ties.

Ruby Keeler teams with the Nelsons (of TV and radio fame) as the singer in Ozzie's band. The setting is a college campus which is suffering from monetary woes, but somehow Ozzie's band manages to attract enough attention to increase the enrollment and keep the school from having to shut down.

Scout William F. Cody marries a U.S. senator's daughter, fights the Cheyenne and leads a Wild West show.

An elderly bank clerk declines to donate money to a tuberculosis fund, but soon his daughter comes down with the disease.

A remake of a 1917 Dustin Farnum Western, Durand of the Bad Lands is the story a rancher falsely accused of a crime actually committed by Sheriff Clem Allison and his henchman Pete Garson.

The son of a sheriff is caught in the eternal battle between sheepmen and cattle ranchers.

Humorist Robert Benchley discusses the issue of food and how different situations can affect one's ability to consume and digest food, using his stock everyman and slightly bumbling character Joe Doakes to dramatize such situations. Situations that can impede digestion include receiving bad news resulting in stress, being in love, and feeling scared. Snacking or nibbling between meals can ruins one's appetite at meal time. Having the correct posture while eating is important for digestion; finding the right posture can be difficult in certain circumstances, such as being on a picnic or eating in bed (specifically for men when using trays). Sharing tables with staring strangers may also impede digestion. And it's difficult to digest food when one can't get any of it.

This western, with its simple story set in a gold mining camp, recycles many of the elements found in David Belasco's influential play, THE GIRL OF THE GOLDEN WEST, produced a decade earlier.

The theft of an important document from the ambassador's residence leads his daughter to investigate the crime.

A random passer-by is invited to a bachelor party of rich men where he tells a tale of loss to those present.

Henry and his pal Dizzy become Boy Scout leaders, but a spoiled brat in their troop quickly proves to cause them no end of trouble.

Myles Vanders feuds with hardnosed stable owner Davis Lockwood. Myles takes revenge by romancing and marrying Lockwood's daughter Linda. But as the big race looms nearer, Myles is distracted to discover that he really loves Linda.

This short promotes the premise that movies often create a demand for the fashions seen in them. It starts with a vignette in rural America. A mother and daughter go to town to buy a new dress. In the dress shop window is a designer dress worn by Joan Crawford in a recent movie. We then go to Hollywood and visit Adrian, MGM's chief of costume design, and see how multiple copies of a single clothing pattern are produced. The film ends with short segments of several MGM features.

A woman suffers a nervous breakdown and an oppressive mother before being freed by the love of a man she meets on a cruise.

The negligent owner of a tenement slum becomes romantically involved with one of the building's residents.

Hired actors posing as Russian royalty complicate a social-climbing mother's efforts to fix up her son with the daughter of a wealthy Texas rancher.

Roger Hudson, a wealthy businessman who has moved to Washington to work for the government as a "dollar a year man," is late for a radio broadcast about his new department, the Mobilization of Woman Power for War. He takes a cab driven by Dixie Dugan, who hopes that being a cabbie while the country's men are away fighting will help the war effort. Her incompetent driving, however, results in an accident for which Roger must take responsibility in order to reach the radio station in time. Dixie then returns home, where she lives with her father Timothy, who is constantly practicing his air raid warden duties, her mother Gladys, an aspiring Red Cross worker, and cousin Imogene, who studies incessantly to become a "quiz kid." The Dugans rent out their spare rooms to Dixie's fiancé, Matt Hogan, and to blustering Judge J. J. Lawson. Matt, who works in a munitions factory, wants Dixie to settle down and marry him, but Dixie is determined to help her country.

In flashback, fifty years after inventing the light bulb, an 82-year-old Edison tells his story starting at age twenty-two with his arrival in New York. He's on his way with the invention of an early form of the stock market ticker.

Two tuneful gamblers gambol across the country in a struggle for the money they need to run their respective casinos. It all begins when gangsters oust a gambler from the Big Apple. In need of quick cash, he goes to Las Vegas and enters a casino owned by a tough but pretty young woman. Cheating like crazy, the gambler breaks the house back and takes his considerable winnings back to New York to open his own casino. The woman is in hot pursuit and eagerly plans to turn the tables in her favor.

The eldest of three sisters protects their Fifth Avenue mansion from a developer she once married.

Jimmy and Mary get a group of kids together to play in a school orchestra. A huge contest between schools is coming up and they have a hard time raising money to go to Chicago for the contest.

A radio actor faces trouble when a science-fiction story causes the audience to panic.

Kildare tries brain surgery, advised by Dr. Gillespie, and faces a rival for nurse Lamont.

Spies from Japan conspire to steal the Channing "preparedness" fortune and invade the United States, beginning in New York, then allying themselves with Mexicans across the border. They are stopped by the efforts of munitions factory heiress Patria Channing and U.S. Secret Service agent Donald Parr.

A short comedy about the romance between Margaret and John. At a masked ball at the home of John's mother, Margaret is suspected of stealing jewellery. When the misunderstanding is cleared up, nothing more stands in the way of their romance.

Lieutenant John Miller, U.S.A., receives a note from his southern sweetheart chiding him for not getting through the enemy's lines to visit her. His pride determines him, and going to his general he asks leave of absence. The general tells Miller that leave of absence will be given him on condition that he purposely gets captured in his fiancée's home with a decoy dispatch on him.

Forbidden from marrying the man she loves by her wealthy businessman father because he is too poor Mildred Lord determines to find a solution. Attempting to live within the means her fiancée could afford, she finds the cost of food exorbitantly high and begins a campaign to force the prices down including taking on her father’s own company.

After graduating from Harvard University, Peter Siner returns to his small Tennessee hometown, where he hopes to start a school for black children.

For years, William West has been living in a little house owned by the railroad. He has never paid rent. One day, railroad employee. George Lessey is ordered to go collect back rent. When he arrives, he discovers two things: West has no intention of paying any money, and he has a pretty niece staying with him, Bessie Learn.

Alfalfa and the gang decide to turn to a life of crime, but Spanky tries to trick them with a fake burglary.

A writer of pulp Westerns cranks out more words than his editor and publisher want to pay for.

Father Flanagan raises funds, helps a disabled boy, and saves an older boy from reform school.

Through flashbacks going as far back as the end of WW1, the story of a Nazi war criminal is exposed during his trial.

Ambassador Joseph Davies is sent by FDR to Russia to learn about the Soviet system and returns to the US as an advocate of socialism.

The story of the life and career of the baseball hall of famer, Lou Gehrig.

The staggeringly wealthy Norah Hunter, a shipyard owner, too often finds herself the romantic target of gold-digging men. To attract a suitor whose main interest is not money, she changes places with her secretary, Sylvia Lockwood, and assumes the role of a young working woman. However, she then falls for recuperating fighter pilot Anthony Travis, who, in turn, is madly in love with Sylvia -- or, perhaps, with the millions he thinks she has.

Susan Miller works behind the girdle counter in a department store and dreams about the beautiful clothes and glamour she can never hope to have. Enter May Worthington and Warren, a pair of con artists who pose as the mother and uncle of a pretty girl in order to separate millionaires from their money. They convince Susan she has an opportunity to fulfill all her dreams, and the trio heads for Palm Beach. Susan meets John Wheeler who says he is shopping for a sailboat. Believing that he is a millionaire, Warren and May sell him a boat that doesn't belong to them, and make off with his $15,000 life savings. Looking for greener pastures, they work themselves into the family of wealthy Tod Fenwick, who falls for Sue, posing as "Linda Worthington". But John shows up as a guest of Fenwick and he tells "Linda", not knowing she was part of the scam, that he has a detective after the fake captain that sold him the boat...

This silent mystery is considered a lost film.

Miss Klutz is the worst dancer that has ever enrolled at the school ran by Maestro Boris Cobblier, and he is even considering giving her money back to get rid of her, a consideration not to his financial liking. But the owner of a competing dance school has lost her prize dancer and calls on Cobblier with a request to borrow one of his dancers. Seeing a way to kill two birds with one stone---get rid of Miss Klutz and ruin a competitor---he gladly loans Miss Klutz out. But things don't work out just as he had planned.

Mr. Hedder is an old fashioned man who will not let his daughter Anna own an evening gown, but she is given one by a friend who is a model. Hedder believes that she stole it and confers with Mr. Wallace, the owner of the store. On Wallace's advice, Hedder hits Anna, causing her to leave home and move in with some gold diggers.

A naive young man raised poor in a small town, comes to New York City to make his fortune. Overwhelmed by the city's hustle and bustle, and entranced by the rich and sophisticated high-society types he comes into contact with, he eventually finds himself caught up in the city's seedy underworld.

Madame Vavin dies alone in a small French village without knowledge of her second marriage in England known to anyone. Consequentially her first husband James Fullerton and his tyrannical sister Cornelia take custody of her young daughter Dora. The puritanical pair take Dora to America but disapprove of her spirited nature especially when Dora decides upon a theatrical career. On stage, Dora meets and falls in love with playwright Willard Holcomb, but the fears implanted by Fullerton and his sister make Dora incapable of romantic commitment. As she despairs of her fate, Professor Vavin, who has spent years searching for Dora, discovers his daughter and explains there is nothing to fear from love. Her confidence thus restored, Dora can continue with her life.

A distinguished young Naval officer from a celebrated military falls prey to a terrorist and his seductress accomplice bent on destroying the Panama Canal.

The Rector of a wealthy church loses the sympathy and support of parishioners when he preaches the doctrine of Christ to sacrifice worldly goods. He establishes a mission among the lower classes and, although he is beaten for his efforts, he gains happiness by doing good.

A son, down and out on liquor, finds redemption.

John Manley one day learns to his great sorrow that Caroline Hastings, whom he was going to ask to be his wife, is already betrothed to another.

Not "as in a looking glass" but "as in his own portrait" in a dream does Paul Le Grand, the famous artist, see the lines of dissipation come, one by one, after each successive debauch.

20 two reels episodic dramatic serial now lost. (1) Liquor and the Law (1915); (2) The Tenement House Evil (1915); (3) The Traction Grab (1915); (4) The Power of the People (1916); (5) Grinding Life Down (1916); (6) The Railroad Monopoly (1916); (7) America Saved from War (1916); (8) Old King Coal (1916); (9) The Insurance Swindlers (1916); (10) The Harbor Transportation Trust (1916); (11) The Illegal Bucket Shops (1916); (12) The Milk Battle (1916); (13) The Powder Trust and the War (1916); (14) The Iron Ring (1916); (15) The Patent Medicine Danger (1916); (16) The Pirates of Finance (1916); (17) Queen of the Prophets (1916); (18) The Hidden City of Crime (1916); (19) The Photo Badger Game (1916); and (20) The Final Conquest (1916).

Resemblance of a society man to a notorious crook forms the basis of this dramatic, thrilling romance. the crook is after the other's jewels and a young girl is searching for an important paper. All three are involved in a Tango which reaches a sensational climax in the death of the other crook.

A play based on a famous English case of a man being executed wrongfully on circumstantial evidence.

A socially-minded drama about a doctor who keeps his fiancée waiting at their engagement party, because a sick child needs help.

At the express wish of her father, Lucy Martin marries Leo Noakes, a stingy man and one twice her age. When they are at church one Sunday a fire breaks out and everybody manages to escape with the exception of Lucy, her husband and her former sweetheart, Walter. While Noakes sinks tremblingly upon the floor, Walter seizes Lucy and brings her to safety. Regardless of his many burns, he dashes back into the roaring flames and drags out old Noakes, But upon investigation it is discovered that he is dead. Even though he had been cruel and harsh to her, Lucy bewails his loss. Some time after the obsequies Lucy succumbs to the wooing of her former sweetheart.

A criminologist and a government agent team up to expose a ring of German spies.

Robert Gordon wants Donald, his son, to marry Sir Ralph Fisher's sister, but Donald loves Alice, a working-class girl, and weds her in secret.

A modern artist named Raphael dreams that he is the ancient Greek sculptor Phidias, who has been commissioned by the wealthy Georgias to carve a number of statues. When Phidias refuses to give up his work, Diogenes appears and suggests that the sculptor ask the statues themselves whom they would prefer as their owner. After coming to life, the statues abandon the sculptor for the rich man. Awakening, Raphael continues his pursuit of the beautiful Marco, a society woman who has posed for him. Marco ultimately spurns his love in favor of a wealthy viscount, however, leaving Raphael to seek happiness with the humble but loving Marie.

Tom Larnigan, encouraged by his victory over the Textile Trust, turns his attention to the Railroad Monopoly. Tom receives warning from the Graft Trust to cease his activities or suffer the fate of his father and brother.

The insurance companies, organized in one mighty trust, have been using the policy holders' money to speculate with. Tom Larnigan has announced that he will investigate and proceed against the trust. 9th episode of the Graft serial.

Bruce Larnigan, in connection with Jack Stevens, is editing the "Independent," the newspaper which Ben Travers had bought to assist the fight against the trusts. 10th episode in the Graft serial.

Stone assures Weisner, head of the Coal Trust, that Larnigan will never start for Pennsylvania. Weisner is skeptical and informs Stone that if he does go he may be killed, as a strike is in progress. Weisner, a little later in Maxwell's home repeats the statement of it being an easy matter to kill Tom should be come to the coal country. Dorothy Maxwell and Kitty Rockford overhear the conversation. They decide to go to the coal country and lend their aid to Tom. 8th chapter in the Graft serial.

Bruce Larnigan finds himself so bitterly opposed by the administration that he resigns his office as District Attorney. He enters into an agreement with Editor Nash of the Independent, whereby he intends to continue his attacks on the criminal trusts through the press. His first effort is directed against the combine of the grain interests and the subsequent raising of the price of bread. His investigation takes him to Chicago. Stone immediately has a tough character, known as "Red Mike," sent after him with instructions that he must prevent the return of Larnigan if possible, but there will be no reward unless the fatality "looks like an accident." 4th episode of the Graft serial. All now lost.