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The Show Off

1926 Movie Comedy Drama

A blowhard who poses as a railroad executive (but is really just a $30-a-week clerk) catches a young bride and then drives her family's finances to the brink of ruin.

Same cast & genre

30 Shares actors and at least one genre with this title
Dollar Down poster
FILM

Just before he propelled the crime melodrama to new, macabre heights in The Unholy Three, Browning directed this partially lost morality tale pertaining to a different kind of horror: that of a middle-class family living beyond their means and falling prey to moneylenders. Produced by and starring Ruth Roland for FBO Studios, a small operation that later became RKO Pictures, Dollar Down follows Roland as the spendthrift daughter of a manufacturing firm’s general manager (Henry Walthall), who pawns a ring purchased on credit to throw an extravagant party and sends the family’s livelihood into a tailspin. Because its last reel completely disintegrated before it could be copied, the film remains an ultra-rare curio that nonetheless captures an important chapter in Browning’s career before his successful string of films made for MGM.

Dollar Down

1925 Drama
Wealth poster
FILM

Artist Mary McLeod, while returning to New York, discovers she has lost her train ticket; young Phillip Dominick, a millionaire playboy, offers her his drawing room, posing as her brother, and their friendship in time develops into love. They are married, and Phillip takes his bride to his wealthy mother, on whom he is financially dependent. Mrs. Dominick, however, has plans to separate the couple and marry Phillip to a society girl, and though Mary begs him to take her away, she agrees to remain until the birth of her baby. The grandmother assumes full charge of the child, but despite careful nursing the child dies, and a subsequent misunderstanding causes Mary to leave. Phillip finds her and promises to start a new life in their own home on his own resources.

Wealth

1921 Drama
Object: Alimony poster
FILM

Ruth Butler, a clerk in an emporium, marries Jimmy Rutledge and thereby greatly displeases his mother, the owner of the emporium, because of Ruth's lowly origins. Renaud Graham, one of Mrs. Rutledge's friends, becomes interested in Ruth, forces his way into her apartment, and attempts to make violent love to her. Jimmy walks in on their embrace and, suspecting the worst, leaves Ruth. In the family way, Ruth finds refuge in a boardinghouse where she meets Al Bryant, an aspiring writer. Ruth tells Al her life story, and he makes it into a bestselling novel and then into a play. Jimmy sees the play and comes to his senses, winning Ruth's forgiveness.

Object: Alimony

1928 Drama
Contraband poster
FILM

After inheriting a newspaper in a small country town, Carmel Lee leaves her home in the city to take charge of it. She soon discovers that the town is terrorized by a band of bootleggers, who abduct and later kill the local sheriff. With the aid of Professor Pell, who has been recently fired as school superintendent, Carmel makes a public issue of the sheriff's murder, editorializing in her paper for justice and reform. Pell and Carmel are kidnapped by the bootleggers, but Carmel escapes and alerts the police. The bootleggers are arrested, the sheriff's murder in solved, and Abner Fownes, a politician and one of the town's leading citizens, is uncovered as the leader of the gang.

Contraband

1925 Drama
French Dressing poster
FILM

Philip and Cynthia Grey are a pair of recently-wed Bostonians, and Cynthia is properly back-bay no-action quiet and dowdy, and Philip resigns himself to the quietness (no action) regularity of their home. But then along comes a blonde, Peggy Nash, who adds some action and outside-regularity to Philip's life. Cynthia is somewhat upset at this turn of events, and decides to go to Paris - the Wickedest City in the World - and get a quiet divorce. Cynthia soon finds out that Paris is a really gay city, especially after Henri de Briac, shows up and offers to be her guide to the delights of Paris (primarily him). Cynthia quickly sheds some of her dowdy ways and dowdy clothes, and is having herself what was once quaintly described as a gay old time. Philip then shows up in Paris, deciding he wants Cynthia back as his wife, and Peggy shows up right behind him and, soon, it is up to Henri to make the pairing-arrangements for the foursome.

French Dressing

1927 Comedy
Burglar Proof poster
FILM

When John Harlow loses his sweetheart Jenny Larkin as a result of poverty, he vows never to be broke again and leaves town. He moves to the city, and several years later, after pinching his pennies, he becomes financially successful. One night, while at a dance hall, he runs into Jenny who is now employed as a dance hall hostess. Jenny decides to fleece John and sets him up with Laura, one of her colleagues. Laura is innocent of the scheme, and she and John fall in love. Jenny becomes jealous and attempts to reclaim John by telling him that Laura is having an affair with Richard Crane. John believes her until he discovers that Crane has just married Laura's mother. He proposes to Laura, and she accepts on the condition that he relinquish his spendthrift ways.

Burglar Proof

1920 Comedy

Closely Ranked

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