Leslie Fenton

Leslie Fenton

Born: March 12, 1902
Died: March 25, 1978
in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, UK
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leslie Fenton (12 March 1902 – 25 March 1978) was an English-born American actor and film director. He appeared in 62 films between 1923 and 1945.

Fenton was born on 12 March 1902 in Liverpool, Lancashire, England. He moved to America with his mother, Elizabeth Carter, and his brothers when he was six years old. They sailed as steerage passengers on board the R.M.S. Celtic.

As a teenager, Leslie worked as an office clerk. He moved to New York and began a career on the stage. His film career began later with Fox Studios. He also directed 19 films between 1938 and 1951.

He married American actress Ann Dvorak in 1932. Dvorak (Anna May McKim) moved to Britain with Fenton while he served in the British armed forces during the Second World War. The union was childless and ended in divorce in 1945.

Fenton died 25 March 1978 in Montecito, California, aged 76. Some sources, including IMDb, incorrectly cite Frank Fenton, the noted screenwriter and novelist, as his younger brother. Frank Fenton's parents were actually John Fenton and Eveline Edgington (married Liverpool, 1900), as evidenced by the ship's manifest for the RMS Caronia (page 0817, line 0008), aboard which Frank Fenton arrived in the US on 21 April 1906.

Movies for Leslie Fenton...

Boys Town
Title: Boys Town
Character: Dan Farrow
Released: September 8, 1938
Type: Movie
Devout but iron-willed Father Flanagan leads a community called Boys Town, a different sort of juvenile detention facility where, instead of being treated as underage criminals, the boys are shepherded into making themselves better people. But hard-nosed petty thief and pool shark Whitey Marsh, the impulsive and violent younger brother of an imprisoned murderer, might be too much for the good father's tough-love system.
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Captain Kidd's Treasure
Title: Captain Kidd's Treasure
Character: Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Released: January 22, 1938
Type: Movie
In this short, a modern-day promoter tries to sell a man the idea of searching for Captain Kidd's buried treasure, claiming he has the original map. A flashback reveals that Kidd was known to be a pirate and also to have had a commission from William III at one time, which instructed him to act as a unit of the British Navy. What became of the fabulous treasure Kidd took from the ship "Kedah Merchant".
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Soak the Poor
Title: Soak the Poor
Character: Nick Garvey
Released: August 21, 1937
Type: Movie
This entry in MGM's "Crime Does Not Pay" series deals with racketeers shaking down small grocers and horning in on the relief tickets, forcing prices up with the consumers paying the freight.
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China Passage
Title: China Passage
Character: Anthony Durand
Released: March 12, 1937
Type: Movie
Americans Tommy Baldwin and Joe Dugan are hired to transport a fabulous diamond from Shanghai to San Francisco. They will be paid handsomely on success or killed on failure. The diamond is stolen as they take possession of it.
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The House of Secrets
Title: The House of Secrets
Character: Barry Wilding
Released: October 28, 1936
Type: Movie
Two men stumble into an old mansion, and get involved with a crazed scientist, torture chambers and sinister medical experiments.
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The Longest Night
Title: The Longest Night
Character: Carl Briggs
Released: October 2, 1936
Type: Movie
Love with a clerk and a robbery by gangsters preoccupy a department store's new owner.
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Sworn Enemy
Title: Sworn Enemy
Character: Steve Sherman
Released: September 11, 1936
Type: Movie
A law student poses as a fight promoter to catch a notorious gangster.
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Two in the Dark
Title: Two in the Dark
Character: Stuart Eldredge
Released: January 10, 1936
Type: Movie
Ford Adams regains consciousness in Boston, bloody and suffering from amnesia. Information he eventually uncovers (with the help of Marie Smith) connects him to a well-known producer--who's just been murdered.
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White Lies
Title: White Lies
Character: Dan Oliver
Released: December 27, 1935
Type: Movie
A powerful publisher John Mitchell whose pursuit of sensational headlines at the expense of all else takes a personal toll when his daughter Joan is implicated in a murder.
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East of Java
Title: East of Java
Character: Captain Wong Bo
Released: December 1, 1935
Type: Movie
Survivors of a shipwreck find refuge on a tropical island--but so do the ship's cargo of lions and tigers.
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Men Without Names
Title: Men Without Names
Character: Monk
Released: June 29, 1935
Type: Movie
A G-man woos a newswoman and corners bank robbers with a hostage in a factory.
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Chinatown Squad
Title: Chinatown Squad
Character: Su Quong
Released: May 31, 1935
Type: Movie
Police search for the killer of a man who misused $700,000 intended for the Chinese Communists.
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Stolen Harmony
Title: Stolen Harmony
Character: Joe Harris (uncredited)
Released: April 20, 1935
Type: Movie
Band leader Jack Conrad is impressed by prison inmate Ray Ferrera on saxophone. Conrad hires Ray to join his band and tour upon his release. Ray hooks up with Jean, a dancer in the show, and the two become a successful dance act. However, when an ex-inmate buddy of Ray's robs the tour bus, Ray is suspected of wrongdoing by Jack and the others in the group. After a gang of thugs hijacks the tour bus, Ray tries to use his street smarts to redeem his reputation.
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Star of Midnight
Title: Star of Midnight
Character: Tim Winthrop
Released: April 19, 1935
Type: Movie
When a dancer disappears from a theater, Clay Dalzell is asked to investigate, leading him on a trail of murder and deception.
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The Casino Murder Case
Title: The Casino Murder Case
Character: Dr. Kane
Released: March 15, 1935
Type: Movie
When Philo Vance receives a note that harm will befall Lynn at the casino that night, he takes the threat seriously while the DA dismisses it. At the casino owned by Uncle Kinkaid, Lynn is indeed poisoned under the watchful eye of Philo. However, he recovers, but the same cannot be said for Lynn's wife Virginia, who is at the family home. Only a family member could have poisoned Lynn and Virginia and everyone has their dark motives. Philo will follow the clues and find the perpetrator.
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Strange Wives
Title: Strange Wives
Character: Svengaart
Released: November 30, 1934
Type: Movie
When a young man marries a Russian girl, he finds that he has "married" her entire family.
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Marie Galante
Title: Marie Galante
Character: General Saki Tenoki
Released: October 25, 1934
Type: Movie
On the French coast, unlucky Marie Galante is abducted and forced to board an American cargo ship bound for the Panama Canal. When an escape attempt leaves Marie high and dry in the Yucatan, she takes work as a nightclub singer to earn her safe passage to the Canal region. But Marie faces bigger problems when she gets mixed up in a destructive plot against the U.S. Naval fleet, and so she accepts the kindly assistance of secret agent Dr. Crawbett.
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Fugitive Road
Title: Fugitive Road
Character: Frank Riker
Released: August 22, 1934
Type: Movie
An Austrian officer must face up to the good and evil aspects of his own personality as he becomes involved in a war.
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Take the Stand
Title: Take the Stand
Character: Hugh Halliburton
Released: August 7, 1934
Type: Movie
A radio columnist is threatened by gangsters and later murdered during a broadcast. A detective sets out to find the killers.
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I Believed in You
Title: I Believed in You
Character: Russell Storm
Released: April 9, 1934
Type: Movie
an aspiring writer and her boyfriend, a professional agitator head off to the Big Apple in search of good fortune. Unfortunately, the agitator soon finds himself in trouble with the cops. Meanwhile the writer attempts to become a Greenwich Village Bohemian type. She and her new friends are all starving for their art until a kindly gent offers them financial assistant. They refuse on principle. Tragedy pays a call when the writer learns that her boyfriend has been untrue.
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Lady Killer
Title: Lady Killer
Character: Duke
Released: December 9, 1933
Type: Movie
An ex-gangster tries to resist his old cohorts' criminal activities after he accidentally becomes a movie star.
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Night Flight
Title: Night Flight
Character: Jules' Radio Operator / Co-Pilot
Released: October 6, 1933
Type: Movie
Story of South American mail pilots, and the dangers they face flying at night.
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F.P.1
Title: F.P.1
Character: Capt. B.E. Droste
Released: April 2, 1933
Type: Movie
Urged by famous airman Ellissen the Lennartz Company puts into reality the project proposed by his friend Droste: F.P.1, a huge floating platform in the Atlantic that makes long-distance flights viable. Ellissen is in love with company heiress Claire, but when he returns from his adventures to save the endangered F.P.1 he finds out that he has lost her to Droste. English version of F.P.1 antwortet nicht with Conrad Veidt replacing Hans Albers as the jaded pilot Ellissen.
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Air Mail
Title: Air Mail
Character: Tony Dressel
Released: November 3, 1932
Type: Movie
A group of air mail pilots risk their lives to deliver important mail through bad weather conditions.
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Thunder Below
Title: Thunder Below
Character: Webb
Released: June 17, 1932
Type: Movie
Story of an unhappy wife of oil rigger who labors in a Central American oil field. The bored Susan falls in love with Walt's good friend Ken but keeps her husband in the dark about her feelings... until he's plunged into darkness for real when he loses his eyesight. Susan finds her attentions then wandering yet another man, Davis, and Ken urges her to return to Walt.
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The Strange Love of Molly Louvain
Title: The Strange Love of Molly Louvain
Character: Nick 'Nicky' Grant
Released: May 28, 1932
Type: Movie
A fast-talking reporter befriends a young woman and her male companion who are wanted for a policeman's shooting.
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The Famous Ferguson Case
Title: The Famous Ferguson Case
Character: Perrin
Released: April 19, 1932
Type: Movie
A foreword warns against the peril of yellow journalism, and the story illustrates it by following events in the upstate New York town of Cornwall after prominant financier George Ferguson is killed. Two types of New York City journalists descend on Cornwall, one interested in facts, the other in getting sensational "news". Mrs. Ferguson is known to have been friendly with a local banker. The Fergusons quarrel the evening he is killed (by "burglars", his wife tells the police later), and she is arrested, spurred on by the "bad" journalists, who also manage to badger the banker's wife into the hospital. Meanwhile, young Bruce Foster runs the Cornwall Courier, and shows the big city reporters how to dig out real news while they attempt to subvert justice for their own ends.
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The Hatchet Man
Title: The Hatchet Man
Character: Harry En Hai
Released: February 6, 1932
Type: Movie
When he's forced to kill his best friend, a Chinese hit man adopts the man's daughter.
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The Guilty Generation
Title: The Guilty Generation
Character: Joe Palmero
Released: November 19, 1931
Type: Movie
The children of feuding gangsters fall in love and fight to escape their parents' notoriety.
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The Pagan Lady
Title: The Pagan Lady
Character: Gerald 'Gerry' Willis
Released: September 7, 1931
Type: Movie
Dot starts out as a bartender in Havana when in walks Dingo Mike (Charles Bickford) and orders up a drink that sounds like something you'd consume on a dare. He drinks the concoction down in one swallow and also manages to outsmart Dot's boss and his rum-running hooligans. You see, Dingo is a bootlegger himself. He literally sweeps the lady off her feet and they set up housekeeping in a tropical hotel full of colorful characters, some of whom are in the bootlegging business too.
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Murder at Midnight
Title: Murder at Midnight
Character: Walter Grayson
Released: September 1, 1931
Type: Movie
Wealthy Mr. Kennedy shoots his secretary, Channing, during a parlor game, but it turns out the gun was loaded with real bullets. Luckily, criminologist Phillip Montrose is on hand to help the police. When Kennedy quickly ends up dead as well, the police think it's a tidy murder-suicide, but the family lawyer knows of a letter that voiced Kennedy's suspicions about someone who was out to get him. Soon, the cops are on the trail of a ruthless and clever killer who is one step ahead of even Montrose.
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Kick In
Title: Kick In
Character: Charlie
Released: May 22, 1931
Type: Movie
Chick Hewes is released from prison and finds work as an accountant. Two years later, Chick's crooked friend, Benny LaMarr, to whom he is indebted for past kindnesses, steals a diamond necklace from the home safe of the district attorney. When the district attorney threatens to accuse the police of inefficiency in crime fighting, Garvey, who is campaigning for the office of police commissioner, promises to catch the thief in twenty-four hours.
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The Public Enemy
Title: The Public Enemy
Character: Samuel 'Nails' Nathan
Released: April 23, 1931
Type: Movie
Two young Chicago hoodlums, Tom Powers and Matt Doyle, rise up from their poverty-stricken slum life to become petty thieves, bootleggers and cold-blooded killers. But with street notoriety and newfound wealth, the duo feels the heat from the cops and rival gangsters both. Despite his ruthless criminal reputation, Tom tries to remain connected to his family, however, gang warfare and the need for revenge eventually pull him away.
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The Man Who Came Back
Title: The Man Who Came Back
Character: Baron le Duc
Released: January 11, 1931
Type: Movie
A spoiled carefree rich kid gets into too much trouble for his father who sends him out on his own to prove himself capable of making a respectable man of himself.
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Dynamite
Title: Dynamite
Character: Young 'Vulture'
Released: December 13, 1929
Type: Movie
Wealthy Cynthia is in love with not-so-wealthy Roger, who is married to Marcia. The threesome is terribly modern about the situation, and Marcia will gladly divorce Roger if Cynthia agrees to a financial settlement. But Cynthia's wealth is in jeopardy because her trust fund will expire if she is not married by a certain date. To satisfy that condition, Cynthia arranges to marry Hagon Derk, who is condemned to die for a crime he didn't commit. She pays him so he can provide for his little sister. But at the last minute, Derk is freed when the true criminal is discovered. Expecting to be a rich widow, Cynthia finds herself married to a man she doesn't know and doesn't want to.
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The Last Performance
Title: The Last Performance
Character: Buffo
Released: October 13, 1929
Type: Movie
A middle-aged magician is in love with his beautiful young assistant. She, on the other hand, is in love with the magician's young protege, who turns out to be a bum and a thief.
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Woman Trap
Title: Woman Trap
Character: Eddie Evans
Released: September 28, 1929
Type: Movie
In Woman Trap, Hal Skelly is hard-bitten police sergeant Dan Malone, whose mission in life is to rid his community of gangsters. The revelation that Dan's own brother Ray is the secret head of all local criminal activities does not weaken Dan's resolve in the least. The barely relevant title is a reference to "heroine" Kitty Evans, the wife of a minor gang functionary. Screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz, presumably on a dare, makes a brief appearance as a crime reporter.
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Paris Bound
Title: Paris Bound
Character: Richard Parrish
Released: August 3, 1929
Type: Movie
Jim Hutton and Mary Archer are two liberals who are content to remain faithful to each other in spirit only. They are married with all the ritual of a church wedding, the bride believing that each should be allowed perfect freedom in personal contacts. Complications arise when these ideals are put into practice.
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Broadway
Title: Broadway
Character: 'Scar' Edwards
Released: May 27, 1929
Type: Movie
A naive young dancer in a Broadway show innocently gets involved in backstage bootlegging and murder.
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The Man I Love
Title: The Man I Love
Character: Carlo Vesper
Released: May 25, 1929
Type: Movie
Wellman’s first all-talkie, scripted by Herman Mankiewicz, with arrogant boxer Richard Arlen romancing Mary Brian, then falling for temptress Olga Baclanova (Freaks) on the eve of the big fight.
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A Dangerous Woman
Title: A Dangerous Woman
Character: Peter Allerton
Released: May 16, 1929
Type: Movie
The commissioner of an African outpost lives with a woman who drives the white men to their deaths with her seductive ways. The commissioner learns that his brother will be his next assistant, and the woman begins working her wiles on him....
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The Office Scandal
Title: The Office Scandal
Character: Andrew 'Andy' Corbin
Released: March 3, 1929
Type: Movie
Haver, a newspaper reporter persuades a judge to release the suspected killer of a wealthy racetrack owner.
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The First Kiss
Title: The First Kiss
Character: Carol Talbot
Released: August 17, 1928
Type: Movie
The Talbots, formerly one of the Eastern Shore's first families, have gone to seed: Pap is a drunk, soddenly decaying in his ruined ancestral home, and three of his sons (William, Carol, and Ezra) are lazy, shiftless young men. Mulligan, Pap's second son who supports the entire family by oyster fishing, falls in love with wealthy Anna Lee, but when he first kisses her, she calls him "white trash."
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The Drag Net
Title: The Drag Net
Character: Shakespeare
Released: May 1, 1928
Type: Movie
A 1928 silent film crime drama produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures, directed by Josef von Sternberg from an original screen story and starring George Bancroft and Evelyn Brent.
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The Showdown
Title: The Showdown
Character: Kilgore Shelton
Released: February 25, 1928
Type: Movie
Passions run hot in the tropics as men fight over oil wells and a woman.
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The Gateway of the Moon
Title: The Gateway of the Moon
Character: Jim Mortlake
Released: January 1, 1928
Type: Movie
John Griffith Wray silent South America romantic melodrama starring Dolores Del Rio, Walter Pidgeon, Anders Randolf, Lesle Fenton, and Noble Johnson.
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What Price Glory
Title: What Price Glory
Character: Lt. Moore
Released: November 23, 1926
Type: Movie
U.S. Marine sergeants Quirt and Flagg are inveterate romantic rivals on peacetime assignments in China and the Philippines. In 1917, W.W. I brings them to France, where Flagg, now a captain, takes up with flirtatious Charmaine, inn-keeper's daughter. Of course, Quirt has to arrive and spoil his fun. But the harsh realities of war and the threat of a shotgun marriage give the two men a common cause...
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Black Paradise
Title: Black Paradise
Character: James Callahan
Released: May 30, 1926
Type: Movie
In San Francisco, Sylvia Douglas and her fiancée, James Callahan, a reformed crook, make their getaway after Jim, disgusted with his inability to find a job, un-reforms and steals a diamond necklace. Graham, a detective, gives chase to a desolate island in the South Pacific where a rum-running gangster, Murdock, holds him captive. Callahan becomes infatuated with a native girl, Leona, and Sylvia turns to Graham for protection against the offensive Murdock. A volcano eruption causes problems for all.
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The Shamrock Handicap
Title: The Shamrock Handicap
Character: Neil Ross
Released: May 2, 1926
Type: Movie
Because he refuses to collect rent payments from his impoverished tenants, kindly Irish nobleman Sir Miles Gaffney is in danger of losing his estate. He is forced to sell off part of his racing stable to a wealthy American, who takes along Gaffney's jockey Neil Ross as part of the bargain. When Neil is crippled in a racing accident, Sir Miles and his daughter Sheila sail to America with their prize horse "Dark Rosaleen" in tow. The first film having an Irish motif that John Ford directed, a six reel delight set in Eire's County Kildare and in the United States, with a steeplechase background, mixing charged elements of comedy and sentimental drama.
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Sandy
Title: Sandy
Character: Douglas Keith
Released: April 10, 1926
Type: Movie
Sandy McNeil adopts strictly unconventional jazz ethics and against the wishes of her parents runs with a fast young set. An auto breakdown after a party places her in a compromising situation, and she grudgingly marries a wealthy suitor of her father's choice. When her husband's cruelty results in the death of her child, she leaves him and meets Ramon, an architect with whom she becomes infatuated. The return of his former mistress causes her to seek refuge with her cousin Judith, where she falls in love with Douglas, Judith's sweetheart. As Sandy refuses to return to Ramon, he shoots her and then kills himself. Douglas, taking the blame for her sake, is tried for murder, but Sandy rises from her sickbed and confesses in court; she succumbs after restoring Judith to Douglas.
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The Road to Glory
Title: The Road to Glory
Character: David Hale
Released: February 7, 1926
Type: Movie
May McAvoy is a woman who is blinded in an auto accident and relies on prayer to regain her sight.
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The Ancient Mariner
Title: The Ancient Mariner
Character: Joe Barlow
Released: December 27, 1925
Type: Movie
Doris Matthews, a beautiful, innocent young girl, forsakes her sweetheart, Joel Barlowe, in favor of Victor Brant, a wealthy roué. On the night before they are to elope, an old sailor gives Brant a strange potion to drink and then unfolds before his eyes "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Deeply touched by this story about the consequences of the wanton destruction of innocent beauty, Brant leaves without Doris. After some time, he returns and finds to his pained satisfaction that Doris, having overcome her infatuation for him, has again turned her tender attentions toward Joel.
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East Lynne
Title: East Lynne
Character: Richard Hare
Released: November 23, 1925
Type: Movie
This most famous of Victorian melodramas was more than half a century old, and had already been filmed several times when it came to the screen once again in 1925. Director Emmett J. Flynn had an all-star cast and kept close to the original story.
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Lazybones
Title: Lazybones
Character: Dick Ritchie
Released: November 6, 1925
Type: Movie
Steve Tuttle, the titular lazybones, takes on the responsibility of raising a fatherless girl, causing a scandal in his small town. Many years later, having returned from World War I, he discovers that he loves the grown-up girl.
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Thunder Mountain
Title: Thunder Mountain
Character: Sam Martin
Released: October 11, 1925
Type: Movie
Sam Martin grows up in the Kentucky hills with a preacher as his closest friend and father figure. The young man goes away and gets an education, and when he returns home, he wants to build a school so that others can learn, too.