Acting
A free-wheeling satire on the Hollywood industry at the height of the silent era. The film was noted for its stunts, which were claimed to be done by the stars of the film, Johnny Sinclair and Billy Jones. They did slug it out without any safeguards, on the roof of the thirteen-story Taft Building in Hollywood, where a crowd (allegedly of 20,000) watched them.
Having been discharged from the Marines for a hayfever condition before ever seeing action, Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith delays the return to his hometown, feeling that he is a failure. While in a moment of melancholy, he meets up with a group of Marines who befriend him and encourage him to return home to his mother by fabricating a story that he was wounded in battle with honorable discharge.
When Buttonshoe Bill steals some papers from Buckwheat Ben, and kidnaps Ben's daughter, Rodney Hemingway comes to the rescue.
This is an unusual farce comedy combining all the fast action, speed and thrills of the slapstick with the surprises of the farce. Main actor and director Al St. John was the nephew of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and considered as a wonderful pantomimist and an acrobat. The film was actually directed anonymously by his uncle. Being part of a series called "Tuxedo Comedies", Lovemania was set up by producers like Jack White and Joseph Schenck so that Arbuckle could work behind the scenes, since he couldn't appear on screen due to his 1921 scandal.
The morning after his engagement party, wealthy young New York playboy Billy Hepburn awakens, battered and bruised, but without any memory of what happened the night before. Billy's valet then informs him that he and prize fighter Battling Burke had gotten into a brawl over Billy's fiancée, and Burke won. Determined to regain his honor, Billy goes into training, with his valet's help.
A small country on the verge of bankruptcy is persuaded to enter the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics as a means of raising money.
When a builder receives a contract for the construction of a large dam, his business rival sets out to blacken his good name by substituting inferior cement while the dam is being built. Bob Downes, a bright young man who hates his soft job, learns of the plot to ruin the dam and lends his considerable energy to defeating the conspirators.
Brass Bancroft and his sidekick Gabby Watters are recruited onto the secret service and go undercover to crack a ruthless gang that smuggles illegal aliens.
Handsome action star Reed Howes, the former "Arrow Collar Man," starred in this low-budget silent melodrama as an adventuresome Yankee who saves the duly elected president of a South American republic from being overthrown by his unscrupulous secretary. Having fallen in love with Rosita Gonzales (Carmelita Geraghty), the daughter of the president of Costa Blanca, Ted Clayton accidentally overhears El Diablo (Jack Mower) discussing a scheme to illegally take control of the government.
An inept barber maintains his good-humored optimism in his small town shop despite having a hen-pecking harridan for a wife and a total lack of sartorial skill.
Benny Rubin is a Messenger Boy who gets into trouble with everyone.
To prove his thesis that any product--even one that doesn't exist--can be merchandized if it is advertised properly, a young man gets together with his father's savvy secretary to market a non-existent laundry soap. Complications ensue when his "product" turns out to be more successful than even he imagined--and now he has to deliver.
Impoverished "bum" gets a close shave from a menacing barber, then gets tangled up with a banana king, escaped convicts and marathon runners.
A rare spoof. With the success of the 1925 film, The Lost World, it is common that when something is popular and successful, it is bound to be a subject for parodies and cash-in attempts. One of them was The Lost Whirl. This film featured stop-motion animation by Joseph L. Roop, who worked on the original classic, The Lost World.
Former boxer Billy Sullivan as Tommy Oliver, a young fighter who joins a gang of crooks in order to save Marjorie Bonner, the innocent girlfriend of gang leader Johnny Sinclair.
His Taking Ways is one of four films made for Biff Comedies, owned by independent producer Samuel Bischoff. Al St. John plays a hearing-impaired burglar who bumbles his way through a suburban break-in. One wonders how a criminal of such incompetence could be responsible for a “200 per cent” increase in burglary, but the premise is just an excuse for St. John to obliviously destroy household furnishings.
