Margerie Lowry in the movies Part 7

This post completes my overview of Margerie Lowry in the movies.

A Made-To-Order Hero (1928)

Starring Ted Wells (seen above), Marjorie Bonner played Margery Murray, Pearl Sindelar, Jack Pratt, Ben Corbett and Gilbert Holmes. Directed by Edgar Lewis, and written by William A. Berke and Gardner Bradford, released on June 03 of 1928 in the USA.

As with many westerns of the silent era, much of this is played for humor. Aunty says niece Margery Bonner must marry a society man—or a hero, so cowboy Ted Wells has his pals (Dick L’Strange, Pee Wee Holmes, Ben Corbett, Scotty Maltraw) pretend to be outlaws as he rides to Margery’s fake rescue—as a hero! But Ted’s plans go awry when a real outlaw (Jack Pratt) shows up. Wells (1899-1947) was handsome, a superb horseman and even exhibited decent acting skills here, but was stymied when Universal shut down production of westerns in late ‘29 during the transition to sound. Ted continued to work sporadically as a stuntman, double (for Hopalong Cassidy) and extra in westerns and serials through 1947, but primarily found employment as a ranch manager in Colorado and co-owned a concrete block manufacturing business. He did manage to star in two bottom of the barrel Robert J. Horner westerns (DEFYING THE LAW and PHANTOM COWBOY, both ‘35) in the sound era that did absolutely noting to enhance his status in the film business. Silent Westerns

Trial of Courage 1928



Director: Wallace Fox; Writers: Frank Howard Clark, Helen Gregg; Stars: Bob Steele (seen above), Marjorie Bonner as Ruth Tobin and Thomas G. Lingham. No further details available.

Sinner's Parade 1928



Director: John G. Adolfi; Writers: David Lewis (story), Beatrice Van (adaptation), Stars: Victor Varconi (seen above), Dorothy Revier and John Patrick. Margerie plays Sadie in the film.

The Columbia programmer Sinner's Parade stars studio utility player Victor Varconi as shady dance-hall proprietor Al Morton. Schoolteacher Mary Tracy (Dorothy Revier) goes to work for Al to support her family. When Bill Adams (John Patrick), the son of anti-vice campaigner Mrs. Adams (Clara Selwynne), falls for Mary, she tries to quit her job, but Al won't let her. The girl's resentment for Al intensifies when the joint is raided and she loses her teaching job as a result. Amazingly, however, Al turns out to be the hero of the piece when the "respectable" Bill Adams reveals himself to be a gangster boss, whereupon Mary saves Al from being taken for a ride by Adams' hired goons. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A Rider of the Sierras (short) 1929

Director: Ray Taylor; Writers: William Berke (scenario), William Berke (story); Stars: Edmund Cobb, Marjorie Bonner and Bob Kortman. No other details available.

Dangerous Days (short) 1929

Director: Jack Nelson; Stars: Bobby Nelson, Edmund Cobb and Marjorie Bonner.

The Sign of the Cross 1932



The Sign of the Cross (1932) is a pre-Code epic film released by Paramount Pictures, produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille from a screenplay by Waldemar Young and Sidney Buchman, and based on the original 1895 play by Wilson Barrett. Read more on Wikipedia

Margerie played an uncredited Roman woman.



The Film Parade 1933

Director: J. Stuart Blackton; Writer: Howard Gaye; Stars: Kent Stevenson, Marian Constance Blackton and Violet Virginia Blackton. Margerie plays woman in Daguerre's Studio.

A two-reel short from Alliance (produced in England and not the USA as some sources indicate)covering the history of "moving pictures" from 1848 to the (then) present, and even going into detail about how stationary frames of pictures are made to move, and how Sound is put onto the track. Footage from many silent films is used, including Mary Pickford (identified as Gladys Nicholson) in 1910's "Simple Charity", and Camille's death scene from "La Dame aux cemelias" in which Sarah Bernhardt dies standing on her feet (possibly to ensure the other performers didn't upstage her) and takes her own sweet time doing it. Marlene Dietrich sings "Falling in Love Again" from the English version of "The Blue Angel", which is good as the German-language title of that song is tough to write on a keyboard that has no accent marks. This short's title was changed to "March of the Movies" in the USA, which makes more sense than what most of the US film titles were changed to in England. IMDb

A Clip From The Film Parade: A History Of Early Cinema - A funny movie is a click away

The above film has been released as follows:



The DVD is still available from Amazon which means this is the easiest way to see Margerie in a movie! As she is impossible to identify in the uncredited roles in the De Mille movies.

Margerie Lowry in the movies Part 6

I continue my look at Margerie Lowry in the movies.

King of Kings 1927

Margerie had an undetermined/uncredited part in the film.

The King of Kings (1927) is a silent film directed by Cecil B. DeMille. It is a religious movie about the last weeks of Jesus before his crucifixion. H. B. Warner starred as Jesus. One of the last sequences of the movie, the Resurrection, is in Technicolor. Read more on Wikipedia

You can watch the movie on You Tube:



Poor Girls 1927


A Vivid Drama of the Night Clubs of New York IMDb

Director: William James Craft; Writers: Sophie Bogen (story), William Branch; Stars: Dorothy Revier (seen below), Edmund Burns and Ruth Stonehouse. Margerie played Vivian Stewart in the film.



The "poor girls" in this big-city melodrama are actually one in number: heroine Dorothy Revier, who has been raised to believe that she was born into a wealthy and well-connected family. Upon learning that her sainted mother is a "mere" nightclub hostess, the pampered Revier leaves home in a huff and heads for New York, where she lands a job in a department store. Only after being threatened by various urban pitfalls does Revier come to realize how much she truly owes her mother for sheltering her from such perils. Critics in 1927 complained that Dorothy Revier's character was too unsympathetic to sustain interest for six full reels. Nor were they impressed by leading man Edmund Burns, whom they found stiffer than usual. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi Artist Direct



The Four-Footed Ranger 1928



Director: Stuart Paton; Writers: Gardner Bradford (titles), Paul M. Bryan (screenplay), and 2 more credits; Cast: Dynamite the dog, Edmund Cobb [Jack Dunne], Marjorie Bonner [Katy Pearl Lee], Pearl Sindelar [Mary Doolittle], Francis Ford [Brom Hockley], Pat Rooney (Patrick Rooney) [Bull Becker], Frank M. Clark (Frank Clark) [‘Handsome’ Thomas], Carl Sepulveda [Jake], Lee Lin [the Chinese cook. I am unsure whether that is Marg in the above still from the movie.



Assisted by an above-average cast that included veteran Western lead Edmund Cobb (seen above)and rising ingénue Marjorie Bonner, Universal's Rin Tin Tin clone Dynamite headlined this likable silent Western}. Dynamite and Ranger {Cobb} are called in to investigate a series of cattle rustlings. In order to get close to the gang, {Cobb} dons the disguise of ranch hand on the {Lee} ranch. The owner of the ranch, unbeknownst to {Cobb}, is pretty {Marjorie Bonner}, who arrives from the East with a maiden aunt (Pearl Sindelar}) in tow. After numerous romantic and action-packed interludes, the ranger and his dog manage to unmask the leader of the rustlers, ranch foreman {Francis Ford}, and his underling, {Pat Rooney}. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi

Margerie Lowry in the movies Part 1

There is very little biographical information available about Margerie Bonner, Malc's second wife, before she met Malc in 1938 except what has been published in Day's and Bowker's biographies of Malc. Both biographers give scant details of her career as an actress in Hollywood. The most detailed discussion of Margerie's film career is Anthony Slide's Chapter Malcolm Lowry's Silent Film Connection: Margerie Bonner in Silent Topics: Essays on undocumented areas of silent film which was first published in an abbreviated version in the Malcolm Lowry Review, Fall 1991/Spring 1992. I recently checked the IMBd website and discovered that she is appeared in twenty films which is the most detailed list of her movie career to date:

Reno 1923
Daughters of Today 1924
High and Handsome 1925
The Ancient Highway 1925
Broadway Lady 1925
Secret Orders 1926
Riding Romance 1926
Rapid Fire Romance 1926
Paying The Price 1927
King of Kings 1927
Poor Girls 1927
The Four-Footed-Ranger 1928
A Made-to-Order-Hero 1928
Trail of Courage 1928
Sinner's Parade 1928
A Rider of the Sierras (short)1929
Dangerous Days (short) 1929
The Sign of the Cross 1932
The Film Parade 1933
Cleopatra 1934

I intend on looking at each of the films in detail over a series of posts:

Reno 1923



Directed by Rupert Hughes

Margerie played Marjory Towne in the film.

Roy Tappan obtains a divorce from Emily, his second wife, and marries Dora Carson, who has just divorced her husband. Emily, left penniless with two children, marries Walter Heath, a former suitor. She then discovers that she cannot live with her new husband because the divorce is not legal in her home state. Tappan and his new wife soon run out of money, each having thought the other was wealthy. His aunt promises to support him in exchange for his two children. He kidnaps the children and hides them from Emily in his aunt's home. After Emily and Walter find them, they go to Yellowstone Park, where they are considered legally married. Tappan follows and is killed after a fight with Walter when a boiling geyser throws him into the air and drops him onto the rocks below. TCM

Daughters of Today (1924)




Directed by Rollin S. Sturgeon

Margerie plays Maisie in the film

Country girl Mabel Vandegrift enrolls in a fashionable city college and there she joins a fast-moving crowd. During a houseparty Reggy Adams tries to force his attentions on her, but she escapes. Later, when he is found dead, she is accused of murdering him. Her country sweetheart, Peter Farnham, solves the mystery, and all ends happily. IMDb

High and Handsome (1925)



Margerie played Myrt Riley in the film. I couldn't find a synopsis.

I will return to Margerie's movies in the future

Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue

Lowry wrote to his teenage friend Carol Brown:

A gramophone playing "Rhapsody In Blue" reminding me of you awfully. Letter To Carol Brown April/May 1926 Collected Letters Of Malcom Lowry Vol. 1

Malcolm is writing to Carol from the Leys School. We can only imagine that they may have shared moments together when the song was played on his trips back to the Wirral on school holidays. Lowry often uses music as others have done to capture moments in time. His novels and stories often contain musical references as if it was a soundtrack to the story on the screen of his mind.

We can see the above in Tender Is The Night film script which was written by Malc and his wife Margerie as they litter the script with music. One such piece of music occurs early on in the script:

From a window in the tower - doubtless still a barracks - we hear a gramophone playing jazz music faintly: Gershwin's Somebody Loves Me

Malc's Jazz Mix Volume 2

Here is the second volume of jazz sides which I think Malc would have enjoyed listening to.

Tracklisting:

1. Joe Venuti Satan's Holiday
2. Bessie Smith Reckless Blues
3. Django Reinhardt Djangology
4. Django Reinhardt Oriental Shuffle
5. Bix Beiderbecke Davenport Blues
6. Original Memphis Five Bass Ale Blues
7. Joe Venuti & Eddie Lang Wild Dog
8. Frankie Trumbauer Way Down Yonder In New Orleans
9. Frankie Trumbauer Futuristic Rhythm

I've used a book cover from Scott Fitzgerald whose novels have come to epitomise the 1920's Jazz Age. Malc and his wife Margerie wrote a film script for Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night which was never made into a film and was only published in 1990.

If you like the above then tune into the first Malc's jazz mix.

Cambridge Film Guild 1929-30 Season

Lowry had a life-long love of cinema which began with his childhood visits to cinemas in the Wirral area.

Paul Tiessen in his essay A Canadian Film Critic In Lowry's Cambridge has given us an insight of how that love of cinema developed when Lowry attended Cambridge University. At Cambridge, Lowry met Gerald Noxon then a Trinity College undergraduate. Noxon was a Canadian film critic and writer who helped shape Lowry's enthusiasm for film in the early part of their friendship.

Noxon was one of the founders of the Cambridge Experiment magazine which published an early Lowry story called Port Swettenham in Issue 5 of the magazine. Noxon was also the founding president of the Cambridge Film Guild.

Noxon with his wife Betty Lane

You can read more about Lowry's friendship with Noxon in Noxon's memoir Malcolm Lowry 1930 available in Malcolm Lowry: Psalms And Songs in which Noxon details their shared passion for cinema and jazz. Lowry and Noxon also exchanged letters for many years which are available in The Letters of Malcolm Lowry and Gerald Noxon, 1940-1952.

Noxon exposed Cambridge University students to the some of the best European cinema of the period - "in order to afford people interested in the Cinema an opportunity of seeing films which are otherwise unavailable to them."

Tiessen in his essay details the following films which were shown:

The 1929-30 programme included:

Pabst's The Love Of Jeanne Ney 1927
Epstein's Finis Terrae 1929
Cavalcanti's En Rade 1927
Feyder's Therese Raquin 1928
Clair's Les Deux Timides 1928
Eisenstein's The General Line 1929
Kozintsev and Trauberg's CBD 1927
Turin's Turk-Sib 1929
Pudovkin's The End Of St Petersburg 1927
Pudovkin's Storm Over Asia 1928

1930-31 programme included:

Pudovkin's The End Of St Petersburg 1927
Vertov's Man With A Movie camera 1929
Dovzhenko's Earth 1930
Room's The Ghost That Never Returns 1930

Some of the above films are referenced in Lowry's letters and other writings.

Tiessen in several pieces and Kilgallin in his 1973 book Lowry have written about Lowry and cinema. However, there is still considerable scope for further research and a larger piece of work pulling together Lowry's visits to cinemas on the Wirral, his Cambridge days and a visit to Germany and his love of German Expressionist cinema, the time he spent in Hollywood as an abortive screen-writer, the fact he married a film actress Margerie Bonner, his film-script for Tender Is The Night (Tiessen did a fine job on the edition published in The Cinema Of Malcolm Lowry), the many references to films in all his work including his letters as well as the impact of cinema on his writing style.

In subsequent posts, I will offer up clips, posters, photographs detailing the films in the Cambridge Film Guild between 1929-31.

Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera 1930