Rod La Rocque

Rod La Rocque

Born: November 18, 1898
Died: October 15, 1969
in Chicago, Illinois, USA
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roderick Ross La Rocque (November 29, 1898 – October 15, 1969) was an American actor.

He was born in Chicago, Illinois to Edmund La Rocque and Ann (née Rice) La Rocque. His father was of French-Canadian descent and his mother was of Irish descent. He began appearing in stock theater at the age of seven and eventually ended up at the Essanay Studios as a teenager in Chicago where he found steady work until the studios closed. He then moved to New York City and worked on the stage until he was noticed by Samuel Goldwyn who took him to Hollywood. Over the next two decades, he appeared in films and made the transition to sound films.

In 1927, he married Hungarian actress Vilma Bánky in a lavish and highly publicized wedding. They were married until his death in 1969. He retired from movies in 1941 and became a real estate broker.

For his contribution to the film industry, La Rocque was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Movies for Rod La Rocque...

Meet John Doe
Title: Meet John Doe
Character: Ted Sheldon
Released: March 14, 1941
Type: Movie
As a parting shot, fired reporter Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from unemployed "John Doe," who threatens suicide in protest of social ills. The paper is forced to rehire Ann and hires John Willoughby to impersonate "Doe." Ann and her bosses cynically milk the story for all it's worth, until the made-up "John Doe" philosophy starts a whole political movement.
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Dark Streets of Cairo
Title: Dark Streets of Cairo
Character: Inspector Joachim
Released: December 1, 1940
Type: Movie
A rapid series of murders occurs when a professor disrupts a tranquil Egyptian tomb by removing some precious jewels.
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Dr. Christian Meets the Women
Title: Dr. Christian Meets the Women
Character: Prof. Kenneth Parker
Released: August 5, 1940
Type: Movie
A conman arrives in town trying to sell his miracle methods of weight loss to the ladies. It's left to the good Dr. Christian to expose this fake and save a fragile young girl's life.
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Beyond Tomorrow
Title: Beyond Tomorrow
Character: Phil Hubert
Released: May 10, 1940
Type: Movie
The ghosts of three elderly industrialists killed in an airplane crash return to Earth to help reunite a young couple whom they initially brought together.
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The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Title: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Character: Phillippe
Released: December 29, 1939
Type: Movie
Paris, France, 1482. Frollo, Chief Justice of benevolent King Louis XI, gets infatuated by the beauty of Esmeralda, a young Romani girl. The hunchback Quasimodo, Frollo's protege and bell-ringer of Notre Dame, lives in peace among the bells in the heights of the immense cathedral until he is involved by the twisted magistrate in his malicious plans to free himself from Esmeralda's alleged spell, which he believes to be the devil's work.
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International Crime
Title: International Crime
Character: Lamont Cranston
Released: April 23, 1938
Type: Movie
The second and final Grand National Pictures film to feature The Shadow, played again by Rod La Rocque. In this version, Lamont Cranston is an amateur detective and host of a radio show with his assistant Phoebe (not Margo) Lane. Cabbie Moe Shrevnitz and Commissioner Weston also appear.
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The Shadow Strikes
Title: The Shadow Strikes
Character: Lamont Granston
Released: October 29, 1937
Type: Movie
Lamont Cranston assumes his secret identity as "The Shadow", to break up an attempted robbery at an attorney's office. When the police search the scene, Cranston must assume the identity of the attorney. Before he can leave, a phone call summons the attorney to the home of Delthern, a wealthy client, who wants a new will drawn up. As Cranston meets with him, Delthern is suddenly shot, and Cranston is quickly caught up in a new mystery.
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The Drag-Net
Title: The Drag-Net
Character: Lawrence Thomas Jr.
Released: April 15, 1936
Type: Movie
A playboy takes a job as an assistant district attorney, finds himself up against a tough crime boss and his gang.
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Till We Meet Again
Title: Till We Meet Again
Character: Carl Schrottle
Released: April 4, 1936
Type: Movie
In London, August 1914, Austrian star Elsa Duranyi (Gertrude Michael) and English matinee idol Alan Barclay (Herbert Marshall) are in love and plan an immediate marriage. But the War comes and Elsa mysteriously disappears. Alan's ease in speaking German results in his appointment to the British Intelligence and, to aid his use as a spy, they announce he was killed in action. He takes the name and personality of "shell-shocked" Hans Teller, a German prisoner, and is sent into Germany on an exchange of prisoners.
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The Preview Murder Mystery
Title: The Preview Murder Mystery
Character: Neil DuBeck
Released: February 28, 1936
Type: Movie
The star of "Song of the Toreador" receives threatening messages that he will not survive the preview screening of the film. The studio publicist works with the Director, the Producer and the police, to discover who is behind the threats.
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Taming the Wild
Title: Taming the Wild
Character: Dick Clayton
Released: February 14, 1936
Type: Movie
Madcap society girl June Bolton has a talent for trouble. Trying to evade a subpoena in connection with one of her misadventures, she winds up in jail and has to be bailed out by the family attorney, Dick Clayton. But June is soon in trouble again, this time involved with a mob boss and a shady lady. Exasperated by his wealthy client's reckless escapades, Clayton determines to quit... until he realizes he has fallen in love with the little madcap.
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Frisco Waterfront
Title: Frisco Waterfront
Character: Dan Elliott
Released: December 3, 1935
Type: Movie
As California gubernatorial candidate Burton is about to cast his vote a truck crashes into the polling booth, critically injuring him and his opponent. A flashback traces his career from unemployed veteran to dockworker to lawyer. A side thread traces his tortured relationship with his wife.
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Hi, Gaucho!
Title: Hi, Gaucho!
Character: Escurra, aka Captain Garcia
Released: October 10, 1935
Type: Movie
The son and daughter of feuding ranchers defy their fathers in the name of love.
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Mystery Woman
Title: Mystery Woman
Character: Jacques Benoit
Released: January 8, 1935
Type: Movie
A French military officer is convicted of treason and sent to Devil's Island. His wife takes it upon herself to obtain the stolen document and prove his innocence.
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S.O.S. Iceberg
Title: S.O.S. Iceberg
Character: Dr. Carl Lawrence
Released: September 22, 1933
Type: Movie
An expedition goes in search of a party lost in the Arctic the year before. This is the English language version of the German film S.O.S. Eisberg (1933), made at the same time but with a slightly different cast and released later that year. The German film is approximately 10 minutes longer.
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Let Us Be Gay
Title: Let Us Be Gay
Character: Bob Brown
Released: July 11, 1930
Type: Movie
Dowdy housewife Kitty dotes on her self-centered husband but divorces him when his mistress shows up at their home one day to break up their marriage. Bob had become bored with her lackluster appearance, their children and himself. Kitty re-invents herself and becomes a Continental favorite, dressing like a fashion model and behaving gaily. Three years after their divorce, Bob is at the home of a wealthy matron romancing her soon-to-be-married granddaughter, when the matron invites Kitty to a weekend party to steal Bob away from the granddaughter. When Kitty and Bob see each other, neither lets on they have a past, and the party continues as Bob pursues his ex-wife and new conquest equally.
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One Romantic Night
Title: One Romantic Night
Character: Prince Albert
Released: April 30, 1930
Type: Movie
A princess is forced to choose between a charming tutor and a rakish prince.
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Beau Bandit
Title: Beau Bandit
Character: Montero
Released: March 2, 1930
Type: Movie
Mexican-bandit Montero and his deaf-mute sidekick Coloso are being pursued through the sand-dunes of southern Arizona by lawman Bob-Cat Manners and his posse. Montero has intentions of robbing the bank owned by skinflint Lucius Perkins, but is sidetracked by the attractions of singing-teacher Helen Wardell. He learns that Perkins has marital designs on Helen and holds the mortgage on her ranch. But Helen is in love with Bill Howard. Perkins offers Montero money to kill his rival.
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The Locked Door
Title: The Locked Door
Character: Frank Devereaux
Released: November 16, 1929
Type: Movie
On her first anniversary, Ann Reagan finds that her sister-in-law is involved with a shady character that she used to be intimate with, and determines to intervene.
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The Delightful Rogue
Title: The Delightful Rogue
Character: Lastro
Released: September 21, 1929
Type: Movie
A modern-day pirate vies with a society playboy for the love of a dancer.
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Our Modern Maidens
Title: Our Modern Maidens
Character: Glenn Abbott aka 'Dynamite'
Released: September 8, 1929
Type: Movie
Young vivacious Billie uses her charms on influential businessman Glenn Abbott in hopes of getting her secret fiancée Gil a diplomatic appointment. Meanwhile Gil's affections meander to beautiful ingenue Kentucky, Billie's best friend.
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The Man and the Moment
Title: The Man and the Moment
Character: Michel
Released: July 6, 1929
Type: Movie
Rich lout marries for freedom.
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The One Woman Idea
Title: The One Woman Idea
Character: Prince Ahmed
Released: June 2, 1929
Type: Movie
He was a great Persian Prince. His Harem was filled with seductive beauties. Yet he loved one woman- a woman from another country-wife of another man.
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Show People
Title: Show People
Character: Himself (uncredited)
Released: November 20, 1928
Type: Movie
Hollywood hopeful Peggy Pepper arrives at a major studio, from Georgia, to become a great dramatic star. Things don't go entirely according to plan.
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Captain Swagger
Title: Captain Swagger
Character: Captain Swagger / Hugh Drummond
Released: October 13, 1928
Type: Movie
Hugh Drummond goes broke living too high and turns to crime in order to pay his bills.
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Hold 'Em Yale
Title: Hold 'Em Yale
Character: Jaime Emmanuel Alvarado Montez
Released: May 14, 1928
Type: Movie
A young man from Argentina goes to Yale where he plays football and falls in love with a professor's beautiful daughter.
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Stand and Deliver
Title: Stand and Deliver
Character: Roger Norman
Released: February 18, 1928
Type: Movie
Our heroine, Miss Velez (despite the fact that she seems to be just along for the ride) is much her usual over-eloquent self (how fortunate she has no sound track!), while Warner Oland makes such an impressive and villainously seedy bandit, he needs no sound track at all. We can just imagine his oily, purring accents all too well.
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The Circus: Premiere
Title: The Circus: Premiere
Character: Self
Released: January 13, 1928
Type: Movie
Footage from the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 film 'The Circus'.
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The Fighting Eagle
Title: The Fighting Eagle
Character: Etienne Gerard
Released: August 28, 1927
Type: Movie
The exploits of Brigadier Gerard who helps expose Foreign Minister Talleyrand as a traitor to Napoleon.
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Resurrection
Title: Resurrection
Character: Prince Dimitry Ivanitch Nekhludov
Released: March 19, 1927
Type: Movie
Katusha, a country girl, is seduced and abandoned by Prince Nekludov. Nekludov finds himself, years later, on a jury trying the same Katusha for a crime he now realizes his actions drove her to. He follows her to imprisonment in Siberia, intent on redeeming her and himself as well.
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The Cruise of the Jasper B
Title: The Cruise of the Jasper B
Character: Jerry Cleggett
Released: December 12, 1926
Type: Movie
The film stars actor Rod La Rocque as Jerry Cleggert, a good-natured descendant of an infamous clan of pirates who resides aboard the rickety ship Jasper B. Cleggert is informed that in order to inherit a large inheritance, he must marry by his twenty-fifth birthday-- otherwise he would relinquish all claims to his impending fortune. Jerry soon meets his ideal would-be bride Agatha Fairhaven and the two immediately fall in love. Complications arise when Jerry's cousin, the dastardly lawyer Reginald Maltravers claims Agatha as his own. The courting couple suffer a series of mishaps on the way to altar; they are waylaid en route by a trio of bandits, escape from a runaway taxi cab, and outrun a mob of unscrupulous state authorities.
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Gigolo
Title: Gigolo
Character: Gideon Gory
Released: October 3, 1926
Type: Movie
The heir to a family business travels to Paris to try to stop his youth-obsessed mother from squandering the family fortune with her new husband, who's married her for her money. After he returns from service in World War I, he finds his mother, now broke and abandoned by her gigolo husband....
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Red Dice
Title: Red Dice
Character: Alan Beckwith
Released: March 14, 1926
Type: Movie
This unusual melodrama with comic touches was based on Octavus Roy Cohen's novel The Iron Chance. Alan Beckwith (Rod La Rocque) is a war hero who is very much down on his luck. He makes a deal with big-time bootlegger Andrew North (Gustave von Seyffertitz) -- if North will give him a large sum of money, Beckwith will kill himself at the end of a year's time. He is to marry a girl of North's choosing and take out an insurance policy naming her as beneficiary; North will collect from the widow. The plot thickens when Beckwith and Beverly (Marguerite De La Motte), the girl North has him marry, actually fall in love. Beverly's brother, Johnny (Ray Hallor), teams up with Beckwith to steal one of North's cargos of rum. North and his men catch them and things look bad until revenue officers -- called on by Beverly -- show up. The North gang is rounded up and Beckwith looks forward to a long life with his wife.
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Braveheart
Title: Braveheart
Character: Braveheart
Released: December 27, 1925
Type: Movie
Chief Standing Rock's tribe has a treaty protecting their fishing grounds, but a canning corporation is violating the treaty through intimidation and force. The tribe is divided as to how to handle the threat. Standing Rock's son, Braveheart, is sent to college to study law so that he can protect their rights, but others in the tribe, led by the hot-tempered Ki-Yote, want to provoke a more violent confrontation.
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The Coming of Amos
Title: The Coming of Amos
Character: Amos Burden
Released: September 5, 1925
Type: Movie
An Australian sheep rancher fulfills his promise to his dying mother by visiting his uncle on the French Riviera. He meets and falls in love with a Russian princess who was forced into a bad marriage to save her family from the Communists.
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Wild, Wild Susan
Title: Wild, Wild Susan
Character: Tod Waterbury
Released: August 4, 1925
Type: Movie
Wealthy New York girl, Susan Van Dusen, in search of thrills and laughter, leaves home and finds work with a private detective agency. She meets Tod Waterbury, who, under another name, is working as a cab driver (in search of story material for a novel), and the two fall in love.
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Night Life of New York
Title: Night Life of New York
Character: Ronald Bentley
Released: August 2, 1925
Type: Movie
John Bentley hates New York City, because of an unhappy romance as a young man, but his son, Ronald, tired of living in Iowa, is determined to take up residence in Manhattan. The elder Bentley therefore conspires with his New York manager, William Workman, to involve Ronald in so much trouble that he will gladly return to the sedate life of an Iowa burgher. Arriving in Manhattan, Ronald strikes up an acquaintance with Meg, a telephone operator, whose brother, Jimmy, has come under the evil influence of Jerry. Jerry and Jimmy rob a wealthy woman, and Ronald is charged with the crime on circumstantial evidence, keeping quiet in order to protect Jimmy.
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The Golden Bed
Title: The Golden Bed
Character: Admah Holtz
Released: January 25, 1925
Type: Movie
Femme fatale Flora marries a titled European to save the family planation. Her husband and a rival fall to their deaths in a glacier. Next Flora weds her sister Margaret's love Admah. She bleeds him dry, until he goes to prison.
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Feet of Clay
Title: Feet of Clay
Character: Kerry Harlan
Released: September 27, 1924
Type: Movie
Kerry Harlan (La Rocque) is unable to work because he was injured in a battle with a shark, so his youthful wife Amy (Reynolds) becomes a fashion model. While she is away from home, Bertha, the wife of his surgeon, is trying to force her attentions on Kerry and is accidentally killed in an attempt to evade her husband. After the scandal Amy is courted by Tony Channing, but she returns to her husband and finds him near death from gas fumes. Because they both attempted to make suicide, their spirits are rejected by "the other side," and learning the truth from Bertha's spirit they fight their way back to life. This film is presumed lost.
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Code of the Sea
Title: Code of the Sea
Character: Bruce McDow
Released: June 2, 1924
Type: Movie
Young Bruce McDow tries to live with the specter of his late Father's perceived folly as a Sailor. That led to the loss of a ship and its crew many years earlier. Struggling with his personal demons in a town that doesn't seem to want to forgive or forget.
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Triumph
Title: Triumph
Character: King Garnet
Released: April 27, 1924
Type: Movie
At the center of the story is Ann Land. Ann is a small factory worker and has only ever dreamed of great fame, recognition as an artist and applause ...
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A Society Scandal
Title: A Society Scandal
Character: Daniel Farr
Released: March 9, 1924
Type: Movie
Hector Colbert sues his wife Marjorie for a divorce after Peters, an admirer of Marjorie, deliberately compromises her. Colbert's lawyer, Daniel Farr, believing that Marjorie's behavior was wrong, gets the divorce, but he ruins the reputation of a fun-loving woman who was simply bored with her husband. Later, she and Farr meet; she plots a revenge against the lawyer but confesses her fabrication when she realizes that she loves him.
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Don't Call It Love
Title: Don't Call It Love
Character: Patrick Delaney
Released: January 6, 1924
Type: Movie
Don't Call It Love (1923)
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Forbidden Paradise
Title: Forbidden Paradise
Character: Capt. Alexei Czerny
Released: January 2, 1924
Type: Movie
Film based on the Lajos Biró play, directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
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The Ten Commandments
Title: The Ten Commandments
Character: Dan McTavish
Released: November 23, 1923
Type: Movie
The first part tells the story of Moses leading the Jews from Egypt to the Promised Land, his receipt of the tablets and the worship of the golden calf. The second part shows the efficacy of the commandments in modern life through a story set in San Francisco. Two brothers, rivals for the love of Mary, also come into conflict when John discovers Dan used shoddy materials to construct a cathedral.
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The French Doll
Title: The French Doll
Character: Pedro Carrova
Released: September 3, 1923
Type: Movie
The French Doll (1923)
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Jazzmania
Title: Jazzmania
Character: Jerry Langdon
Released: February 12, 1923
Type: Movie
The queen of a mythical European nation flees to America when a general threatens to overthrow her government.
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A Woman's Woman
Title: A Woman's Woman
Character: Dean Laddbarry
Released: September 24, 1922
Type: Movie
A woman finds herself being a unpaid skivvy to her husband, two daughters and her son.
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Paying the Piper
Title: Paying the Piper
Character: Larry Grahame
Released: January 16, 1921
Type: Movie
Larry and Barbara, both the products of rich but broken homes, plan a marriage of convenience. He really loves Marcia, a dancer, and Barbara vamps Keith, an architect. Keith's good sense prevails, and he marries Marcia and helps Larry make a man of himself. Barbara, after an unsuccessful attempt at an acting career, returns and asks forgiveness.
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Suspicious Wives
Title: Suspicious Wives
Character: Bob Standing
Released: January 9, 1921
Type: Movie
A melodrama of misunderstandings in which a rich couple grow more and more suspicious of each other fidelities after the groom’s father is shot dead on their wedding night.
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The Discarded Woman
Title: The Discarded Woman
Character: Samuel Radburn - Gold Digger
Released: July 10, 1920
Type: Movie
Esther Wells is dumped by her husband, Martin, just as she's boarding a train. She gets off at the next stop, wanders into a cabin owned by Samuel Radburn, who happens to have been swindled out of a mine by Martin.
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The Common Sin
Title: The Common Sin
Character: Hugh Stanton
Released: July 1, 1920
Type: Movie
Wall Street financier Frederick Searles goes bankrupt, prompting his mercenary wife to marry their eldest daughter Needa to the wealthy, disreputable John Davis Warren, despite Needa's love for Hugh Stanton.
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A Philistine in Bohemia
Title: A Philistine in Bohemia
Character: Mr. Brunelli
Released: March 19, 1920
Type: Movie
Mr. Brunelli, a roomer at a boarding house, has caught the eye of Kate, the daughter of the woman who owns the house. Kate knows her mother, who doesn't want her daughter to have anything to do with her tenants, will disapprove of Mr. Brunelli, but she soon discovers that Mr. Brunelli isn't quite who she thinks he is.
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The Trap
Title: The Trap
Character: The Blackmailer
Released: August 10, 1919
Type: Movie
A schoolteacher in the Yukon promises her hand in marriage to a rich prospector, but instead she marries his no-good brother. After her husband disappears and is reported dead, she marries a rich New York stockbroker, but doesn't tell him about her first marriage. Soon she is contacted by someone who threatens to tell her new husband all about her past if she doesn't pay up.
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A Perfect Lady
Title: A Perfect Lady
Character: Bob Griswold
Released: December 1, 1918
Type: Movie
Dancer Lucille Le Jambon (whose real name is Lucy Higgins) loses her job when the morals committee of Sycamore, Kansas, headed by the self-righteous Deacon John Griswold, forces the Merry Models Burlesque show to close. Having grown fond of Sycamore, Lucy opens a combined ice cream parlor and dance hall, where she teaches the young people all the latest dances. ...
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A Perfect 36
Title: A Perfect 36
Character: O.P. Dildock
Released: October 20, 1918
Type: Movie
The plot involves Mabel's clothes being stolen in a mix-up while she was swimming, necessitating her spending most of the time running around clad only in her swimsuit trying to straighten everything out
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The Venus Model
Title: The Venus Model
Character: Paul Braddock
Released: June 16, 1918
Type: Movie
A young lady designs a wonderfully received bathing suit and saves her employer from financial disaster. In the course of this, she falls in love with her employer's son, who is in danger of ruin from a romantic scandal.
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Let's Get a Divorce
Title: Let's Get a Divorce
Character: Chauffeur
Released: April 28, 1918
Type: Movie
A bit too immature for marriage, Cyprienne allows her pretty head to be turned by an egotistical fop. The girl demands that her husband Prunelles grant her a divorce, but he devises a scheme to bring her back into the matrimonial fold.
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Ruggles of Red Gap
Title: Ruggles of Red Gap
Character: Belknap Jackson
Released: February 25, 1918
Type: Movie
Harry Leon Wilson has written nothing more diverting than this story of the irreproachable English valet who is lost in a poker game to a rough-and-ready westerner and taken to Red Gap ultimately to become its social mentor and chief caterer, and there is sheer delight in the story of how the Earl, brought over to save his younger brother from the vampirish clutches of Klondike Kate, makes the lady his Countess and once more stands Red Gap upon its somewhat dizzy head.
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The Dream Doll
Title: The Dream Doll
Character: Her Sweetheart
Released: December 10, 1917
Type: Movie
A. Knutt, a crack-brained chemist, discovers an elixir that will endow dolls with life. He does not know that it will change living persons to dolls. He shows his invention to the Toy King and his lovely daughter, and Ruby is overcome by the fumes and is changed into a doll, eloping with a doll lover and undergoing many strange adventures.
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Efficiency Edgar's Courtship
Title: Efficiency Edgar's Courtship
Character: Wimple
Released: September 3, 1917
Type: Movie
Efficiency wins success in business; why not in love? Edgar Bumpus, a rising young man, applies this reasoning to his courtship of Mary Pierce. He first eliminates Wimple, his closest competitor, who plays a guitar, by learning to play a saxophone, which makes louder noise, and by sending Mary flowers and candy each time Wimple calls on her. The plan works O.K., until the saxophone disturbs Mr. Pierce's slumbers. He and Edgar clash and the latter is forbidden to visit Mary any more. Edgar employs a clipping bureau to send news items to Mr. Pierce which tells of the troubles young girls get into when their fathers refuse to let them have beaux. One eloped with a milkman; another disappeared. This has no effect upon Mr. Pierce, however, except to make him hate Edgar more. However, the youth's persistence finally wins Mary's love. Then Edgar plays his trump card. He gets Mary to sign a legal agreement to forfeit $10,000 to him, unless she marries him.