Birthday:
03-12-1902
Deathday:
03-25-1978 (76 years)
Birthplace:
Liverpool, Lancashire, England, UK
Biography
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.
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.
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The Drag Net
Act like Shakespeare
event1928 star_border 6
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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.
Thunder Mountain
Act like Sam Martin
event1925
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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.
Boys Town
Act like Dan Farrow
event1938 star_border 6.7
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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.
Lady Killer
Act like Duke
event1933 star_border 6.7
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An ex-gang member tries to resist his old cohorts' criminal influence after he suddenly becomes a Hollywood movie star.
What Price Glory
Act like Lt. Moore
event1926 star_border 6
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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...
The Public Enemy
Act like Samuel 'Nails' Nathan
event1931 star_border 7.3
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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.
The House of Secrets
Act like Barry Wilding
event1936 star_border 5.6
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Two men stumble into an old mansion, and get involved with a crazed scientist, torture chambers and sinister medical experiments.
The Casino Murder Case
Act like Dr. Kane
event1935 star_border 6.5
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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.
The Man I Love
Act like Carlo Vesper
event1929 star_border 4.5
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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.
The Showdown
Act like Kilgore Shelton
event1928
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Passions run hot in the tropics as men fight over oil wells and a woman.
Soak the Poor
Act like Nick Garvey
event1937 star_border 7
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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.
Air Mail
Act like Tony Dressel
event1932 star_border 5.5
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A group of air mail pilots risk their lives to deliver important mail through bad weather conditions.
The Hatchet Man
Act like Harry En Hai
event1932 star_border 4.9
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When he's forced to kill his best friend, a Chinese hit man adopts the man's daughter.
The Strange Love of Molly Louvain
Act like Nick 'Nicky' Grant
event1932 star_border 5.9
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A fast-talking reporter befriends a young woman and her male companion who are wanted for a policeman's shooting.
The Pagan Lady
Act like Gerald 'Gerry' Willis
event1931 star_border 2.5
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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.
Two in the Dark
Act like Stuart Eldredge
event1936 star_border 5.9
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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.
China Passage
Act like Anthony Durand
event1937 star_border 5.5
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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.
The Longest Night
Act like Carl Briggs
event1936 star_border 5.7
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Love with a clerk and a robbery by gangsters preoccupy a department store's new owner.
Woman Trap
Act like Eddie Evans
event1929 star_border 5.2
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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.
The Guilty Generation
Act like Joe Palmero
event1931 star_border 6
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The children of feuding gangsters fall in love and fight to escape their parents' notoriety.
Paris Bound
Act like Richard Parrish
event1929 star_border 4.4
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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.
The Shamrock Handicap
Act like Neil Ross
event1926 star_border 5.1
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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.
Fugitive Road
Act like Frank Riker
event1934
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An Austrian officer must face up to the good and evil aspects of his own personality as he becomes involved in a war.
Thunder Below
Act like Webb
event1932
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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.
The Last Performance
Act like Buffo
event1929 star_border 6.2
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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.
Lazybones
Act like Dick Ritchie
event1925 star_border 6.5
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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.
Sandy
Act like Douglas Keith
event1926
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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.
F.P.1
Act like Capt. B.E. Droste
event1933 star_border 6.4
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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.
Strange Wives
Act like Svengaart
event1934
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When a young man marries a Russian girl, he finds that he has "married" her entire family.
Men Without Names
Act like Monk
event1935 star_border 6
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A G-man woos a newswoman and corners bank robbers with a hostage in a factory.
Sworn Enemy
Act like Steve Sherman
event1936 star_border 5.3
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A law student poses as a fight promoter to catch a notorious gangster.
Stolen Harmony
Act like Joe Harris (uncredited)
event1935 star_border 6
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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.
The Famous Ferguson Case
Act like Perrin
event1932 star_border 6
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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.
Take the Stand
Act like Hugh Halliburton
event1934 star_border 4
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A radio columnist is threatened by gangsters and later murdered during a broadcast. A detective sets out to find the killers.
Murder at Midnight
Act like Walter Grayson
event1931 star_border 5.4
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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.
Star of Midnight
Act like Tim Winthrop
event1935 star_border 6
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When a dancer disappears from a theater, Clay Dalzell is asked to investigate, leading him on a trail of murder and deception.
The Road to Glory
Act like David Hale
event1926 star_border 6
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May McAvoy is a woman who is blinded in an auto accident and relies on prayer to regain her sight.
A Dangerous Woman
Act like Peter Allerton
event1929 star_border 3
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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....
Havoc
Act like Babe
event1925
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A war drama produced only 7 years after the end of World War I. Based on the play by Henry Wallace it chronicles two Englishmen, Dick Chappell (George O'Brien) and Roddy Dunton (Walter McGrail) at the dawn of The Great War. Both men are in love with the same woman, Violet Deering (Margaret Livingston). Chappell, whose proposal has been accepted by Violet, enlists for the war in Europe hoping to distinguish himself and make his fiancé proud of him.
Marie Galante
Act like General Saki Tenoki
event1934 star_border 4.8
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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.
The Man Who Came Back
Act like Baron le Duc
event1931 star_border 3.5
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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.
Chinatown Squad
Act like Su Quong
event1935 star_border 6
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Police search for the killer of a man who misused $700,000 intended for the Chinese Communists.
Kick In
Act like Charlie
event1931 star_border 6
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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.
The First Kiss
Act like Carol Talbot
event1928
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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."
White Lies
Act like Dan Oliver
event1935 star_border 6
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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.
The Office Scandal
Act like Andrew 'Andy' Corbin
event1929
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Haver, a newspaper reporter persuades a judge to release the suspected killer of a wealthy racetrack owner.
Broadway
Act like 'Scar' Edwards
event1929 star_border 5.6
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A naive young dancer in a Broadway show innocently gets involved in backstage bootlegging and murder.
Captain Kidd's Treasure
Act like Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
event1938 star_border 5
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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".
I Believed in You
Act like Russell Storm
event1934
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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.
Night Flight
Act like Jules' Radio Operator / Co-Pilot
event1933 star_border 5.8
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Story of South American mail pilots, and the dangers they face flying at night.
East of Java
Act like Captain Wong Bo
event1935 star_border 6
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Survivors of a shipwreck find refuge on a tropical island--but so do the ship's cargo of lions and tigers.
East Lynne
Act like Richard Hare
event1925
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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.
The Gateway of the Moon
Act like Jim Mortlake
event1928
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John Griffith Wray silent South America romantic melodrama starring Dolores Del Rio, Walter Pidgeon, Anders Randolf, Lesle Fenton, and Noble Johnson.
Black Paradise
Act like James Callahan
event1926 star_border 4
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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.
Dynamite
Act like Young 'Vulture'
event1929 star_border 6.3
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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.
The Ancient Mariner
Act like Joe Barlow
event1925
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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.
Murder on a Bridle Path
Act like Don Gregg
event1936 star_border 5
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When the body of Violet Feverel is discovered on the Central Park bridle path, Inspector Oscar Piper is about to declare her death accidental from a thrown horse, until his friend and amateur detective Hildegarde Withers locates the horse and discovers blood on the horse.
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