Crane Wilbur

Brief history of American industry.

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A teenager is involved in running from the police in his hot rod hits a car in a hit-and-run case where the victims turn out to be his mother and his best friend in another hot rod.

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The history of a Polish family and its contributions to the war effort throughout American history.

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In this Oscar-winning short film, a Marine, Joe Fingers, on a South Sea island during World War II, tells tales of the influence he's had on various personalities. In the words of one of his buddies, he's either the biggest liar in the world or the most important man in show business.

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Sergeant Tex Gordon is surprised to learn that his new gunnery instructor is a woman.

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The story of President Monroe's response to attempts by Spain to interfere in South America.

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This short subject is a lavish costumed color production which dramatizes the birth of the American Bill of Rights. It depicts leading political figures of the American Revolution and the despotic British colonial rule which led to the creation of the Bill of Rights.

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A young boy whose father is dead joins a secret society that, unknown to him, has subversive motives. His mother realizes the menace represented by the society, and in a vision her husband warns her to protect their son. She explains to him the danger in the type of patriotic business practiced by the club, and he agrees.

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A temperamental director multiple times completely changes the concept during a movie's production.

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An elderly grandfather proves to be heroic when he takes a stand against local city corruption.

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In this musical short, a waitress at the Warner Bros. commissary gets her big break.

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This historical featurette focuses on Caesar Rodney of Delaware who in the summer of 1776 cast the deciding vote, at the meeting of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, so that the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

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Choreographer Bob Connolly and prolific screenwriter Crane Wilbur teamed up on the direction of Warner Bros.' The Patient in Room 18. Patric Knowles delivers a delightfully comic performance as Lance, an outwardly normal young man obsessed with detective stories. When his obsession threatens to lapse over into lunacy, Lance is sent to the hospital for a nice long rest. It isn't long before he gets mixed up in a genuine murder mystery, using his second-hand knowhow to solve the case. Up-and-coming Ann Sheridan is quite amusing as Lance's nurse and confidante, while the murderer is played by a fellow who is usually cast as the murder victim.

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This short film tells the story of a disgraced U.S. army officer who is charged with treason. At his court martial he is sentenced to lifetime exile aboard American ships at sea, no crew member can mention anything about the United States within his hearing, and in the books he is allowed to read all references to the United States are removed.

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A short historical drama about the Louisiana Purchase.

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The 'Farmer Poet' Robert Burns, after a bad romance, pens "Auld Lang Syne" to much fanfare and courts high society at the expense of his blossoming relationship with beautiful Jean Armour. Soon a marriage is arranged for Jean, and Robby must race to her side before she is married off.

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A federal agent and a female reporter team up to catch a criminal gang that has kidnapped a scientist in order to get his formula for a new type of poison gas.

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Two petty gangsters trying to elude their enemies join the French Foreign Legion.

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Spanish-language version of The Devil on Horseback (1936).

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An investigator looks into the activities of a movie producer he believes is involved in smuggling Asians into the U.S.

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This musical tells the story of Campo wooing Damita from Keating with songs "So Divine," "Out of the Hills," "The Love Fiesta," "Oh Bella Mia."

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Money was what gangster Vince M. Falcone wanted most and he did lay hands on millions of dollars by fair means or (mostly) foul. But once he became rich what he craved for was respectability. So why not marry a lovely society lady? And with a young daughter as a bonus Mister Falcone could show off among the creme de la creme. Of course when times got rough he felt free to desert his wife and little girl. Fortunately Taps, a lawyer working for the underworld, will console them both.

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Young Alice Mason wishes to start a family, but because her own has been deemed "defective" by the state health authorities—her parents are lazy alcoholics who continue breeding, and her siblings are disabled, have mental problems or are imprisoned—she is ordered by a court to undergo sterilization so that her family's "defective genes" won't be passed on to any further. Her boyfriend Jim and a kindly priest search desperately for a way to stop the forced surgery before it's too late.

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In this drama, a teenage boy and girl, tired of parental repression, begin sneaking out on dates and to parties. The parents are strict, but pay little real attention to their kids, therefore the kids turn to their high school biology teacher who is willing to really listen to their confidences.

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A socialite accepts a portrait sitting with a renowned artist, despite her fiancé's objections. After the sitting, the artist tries to embrace her, but she repulses him. In retaliation, the artist conceives a plan to paint her nude, and upon exhibiting the portrait, aims to destroy her reputation.

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The Conscience of John David (1916) tells the story of a wealthy spender who promises marriage to a "Worldly Woman" and plans a big announcement party. Their engagement is interrupted by another admirer, the "Libertine," and John David's life is disrupted by scandal and societal pressure, ultimately leading him to seek a more meaningful existence and a deeper love beyond superficial pleasures.

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David McCare, a musical idol, discards his mistress, Margie, for the heiress Diana. McCare has Margie removed by his valet, Ludwig, who is also in love with Margie and eventually marries her. After McCare marries Diana, his infidelity with Diana's friend, Edna, leads to Diana divorcing him, and McCare ultimately marries Edna.

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When the Civil War breaks out, Alan Kendrick, an army officer born in the South, stays in the army to fight for the Union, but his sweetheart Maryland sides with the South. She soon discovers that Alan was captured by Confederates in a battle near her home and is to be executed. Although he is fighting for her enemy, she cannot bring herself to let him be killed and devises a plan to help him escape.

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To further his political ends and enrich himself, a political boss lets corruption run rampant in his city. A young couple sets out to expose him. This film is partially lost; only 34 minutes of 70 survive.

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At the crook of a road leading to Success is the little hamlet of Sleepy Hollow. One day, the regular road is closed for repairs, and the detour forces traffic to pass through Sleepy Hollow on the way to Success. Passing through the town is Avarice and his beautiful bride Innocence who stirs the envy of the village blacksmith, Ambition. Following them along the road to Success, the blacksmith encounters a wishing tree which enables him to switch bodies with Avarice.

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A socialite accepts a portrait sitting with a renowned artist, despite her fiancé's objections. After the sitting, the artist tries to embrace her, but she repulses him. In retaliation, the artist conceives a plan to paint her nude, and upon exhibiting the portrait, aims to destroy her reputation.

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Katherine Mortimer, a wealthy and eccentric young woman, spending the summer at the seaside with Mrs. Cochran, her aunt and companion, learns that she has been abandoned by her fiancé, Horace Castlebury, who has run off with Ethel Van Eltinge, a brewer's daughter. The headstrong Katherine vows to marry the first man she meets. She almost immediately enters into a marriage of convenience with Bill, but finds herself falling for the guy. After making a fool of herself when Horace unexpectedly shows up all ends happily when Bill knocks out Horace and tells Katherine he loves her too.

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Frivolous young Mrs. Pensonby Smythe, trapped in a loveless marriage, secretly accompanies the loutish "Billie" Carrington to "The House of the Mask," a notorious gambling palace where the rich play in secret with masked faces. While there Carrington attacks her and she is rescued by gambler Belmont Blair who recognizes her. In the ensuing scuffle Carrington is accidentally killed. Blair gets Mrs. Smythe out of the house before the body is discovered. In time Blair, who loves Mrs. Pensonby Smythe’s sister Grace, sacrifices himself to protect them both.

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Neurologist and hypnotist Dr. Andrew Smiley is the guardian of wealthy siblings Wilfred and Marcie Redmond. Smiley wants to marry Marcia, as he desperately needs money, but when he proposes to her, she rejects him. Smiley has a secret lover, Sarah Kayton, the head nurse of his sanatorium, and she has borne him a son, Paul Kayton, who is Smiley's secretary, unaware that his boss is the father. Smiley devises a plan to have Marcia adjudged insane and take her fortune. He almost succeeds but at the last-minute he fails.

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Peyton Carothers and Margaret Grayton want to marry but are impoverished. Margaret makes a calculated bargain with the wealthy Robert Van Allen to marry him for a million dollars. He agrees feeling he can win her love. What he doesn't know is she continues to see Carothers. When Van Allen discovers the duplicity he shackles the pair together and forces them to live together in a remote location. It does not go well with the lovers ending up hating each other and Carothers turning violent. Ultimately Margaret sees the error of her ways and stays with Van Allen.

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Orphaned and disabled Hope Hathaway has been left in the guardianship of the rapacious Rufus Flint and his son Abner. They scheme to force Hope to marry Abner to access her fortune but are held at bay by her faithful housekeeper Susie. Nearby a movie is being filmed and the picture's star Neil Stuart happens upon Hope one day when she is alone in a field. Concerned for her situation Neil tells Susie to contact him if he is ever needed. When Rufus and Abner make their play Neil swoops in and rescues Hope.

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Broken-down tramp Weatherby finds inspiration to change his life after seeing the play "Youth". The plot follows Weatherby as he is given money by a kind passerby, which he uses to buy a theater ticket and see the drama that becomes the catalyst for his transformation.

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The Conscience of John David (1916) tells the story of a wealthy spender who promises marriage to a "Worldly Woman" and plans a big announcement party. Their engagement is interrupted by another admirer, the "Libertine," and John David's life is disrupted by scandal and societal pressure, ultimately leading him to seek a more meaningful existence and a deeper love beyond superficial pleasures.

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David McCare, a musical idol, discards his mistress, Margie, for the heiress Diana. McCare has Margie removed by his valet, Ludwig, who is also in love with Margie and eventually marries her. After McCare marries Diana, his infidelity with Diana's friend, Edna, leads to Diana divorcing him, and McCare ultimately marries Edna.

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Stanley Clark seduces innocent young Marion in a hotel room, then tears out the incriminating page from the hotel register to use for blackmailing. Years later, Marion marries Governor John Loring whose brother, Richard, overhears Clark extorting money from Marion. Richard follows Marion to Clark's room where she begs for more time to raise the required money.

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Molly is a young woman who out of desperation after failing to find work steals a pocketbook from a society woman, Blanche Armstrong. This act leads her into a legal conflict involving the District Attorney, Roger Hackett, who uses the situation to pursue his own lustful interests.

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15 chapter mystery serial: [1] “The House of Secrets,” released 5 April 1915; [2] “The Face of Fear,” released 12 April 1915; [3] “The Silver Cup,” released 19 April 1915; [4] “The Ring of Death,” released 26 April 1915; [5] “No Other Way,” released 3 May 1915; [6] “The Strength of Love,” released 10 May 1915; [7] “Into the Night,” released 17 May 1915; [8] “In the Wolf’s Den,” released 24 May 1915; [9] “The Iron Hand of the Law,” released 31 May 1915; [10] “The Inspiring Sword,” released 7 June 1915; [11] “The Valley of the Shadow,” released 14 June 1915; [12] “The Sacrifice,” released 21 June 1915; [13] “The Man Who Did Not Die,” released 28 June 1915; [14] “A Story of the Past,” released 5 July 1915; [15] “The Coming of the Kingdom,” released 12 July 1915.

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Lord Edward Litchfield is in love with Beth, a beautiful American girl of modest descent. Lord Edward's father goes to Beth and tells her that if Edward marries her, it will ruin his entire career and, at the same time, be a great shock to her parents. Beth bows to his will and on her next visit tells Lord Edward that her love for him has died. In time Edward marries elsewhere and Beth enters a nunnery.

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The Perils of Pauline is a motion picture serial shown in weekly installments featuring the actress Pearl White playing the title character. Pauline has often been cited as a famous example of a damsel-in-distress, although viewers will find her character more resourceful and less helpless than the classic 'damsel' stereotype. Nine episodes (from a condensed 1916 re-release) survive to this day.

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Paul Panzer returns home from a night out with the boys at his bachelor's club. He wanders into the wrong apartment, where, of course, a young woman resides and panic ensues.

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Short directed by Joseph A. Golden.

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The painfully true story of welterweight boxing champion Barney Ross is detailed in Monkey on My Back. Cameron Mitchell stars as Ross, whose meteoric ring career is interrupted when he joins the Marines at the outset of WWII. A highly decorated hero, Ross contracts malaria oversees and is given morphine to assuage the pain. By the time he returns to the states, Ross is a confirmed drug addict. Before he can rise to the top again, he must hit rock bottom and his descent into the hell of narcotics dependency is graphically illustrated (so much so that the film was almost denied a Production Code seal). Though a cured Barney Ross served as technical advisor for Monkey on My Back, he ended up suing the producers for defamation of character -- and lost.

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The crew of a U.S. Navy ship in World War II goes into battle against the Japanese fleet.

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A crime-busting lawyer and his initially reluctant attorney father take on the forces that run gambling and prostitution in their small Southern town.

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A crusading psychiatrist battles a sadistic female warden to improve conditions at a women's prison.

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Don Gallico is an inventor of stage magic effects who aspires to become a star in his own right. Just before his first performance his act is shut down by capricious manager Ross Ormond who wants Gallico's brilliant buzz saw effect for the act of The Great Rinaldi, an established star. With this defeat, and the humiliation of having already lost his wife Claire to Ormond, Gallico decides it is time to take matters into his own hands.

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Reformed parolee Steve Lacey is caught in the middle when a wounded former cellmate seeks him out for shelter. The other two former cellmates then attempt to force him into doing a bank job.

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A sculptor opens a wax museum to showcase the likenesses of famous historical figures, but quickly runs into trouble when his business partner demands the exhibits become more extreme in order to increase profits.

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In 1917, three shepherd children living just outside Fatima, Portugal have visions of a lovely lady in a cloud. The anticlerical government wishes to squelch the Church; reports of religious experiences are cause for serious concern. Yet the children stand by their story, and the message of peace and hope the Lady brings. In the last vision, attended by thousands of people, the Lady proves her reality with a spectacular miracle that is seen by everyone present. Based on actual events at Fatima in the summer of 1917.

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After selling it to a cruel rodeo owner, a cowboy attempts to buy back the wild stallion he snared.

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A warden and his assistant clash over prison reform, triggering a violent riot.

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A fact-based story about a man who posed as an American Communist for years as part of a secret plan to infiltrate their organization.

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Larry Nelson, paroled from prison after serving nearly half of his thirty-year sentence, is determined to not fall into the clutches of the law again, and takes a quiet job at a country sanitarium. Thete, he meets and falls for a nurse, Charlotte Maynard, and he knows the only way to enter her web is to have a lot of money, for Miss Maynard is somewhat of a gold-digger.

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Molly's husband Rick was a gang leader somewhere in the middle west. When he's shot, the tough woman moves to S.F. with a couple of the gang to start anew. Disguised as a noble woman, she and her gang rob security transports. But when one day Rob confesses to her that he killed Rick out of jealousy, she shoots him down immediately. In lack of proof she can't be convicted for the murder, but she goes to jail for the robberies. It's a new and very open female prison, where she learns a profession for the first time in her life.

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Roy Martin aka Roy Morgan is a burglar and former war-time Radio & Electronics Engineer who listens in to radio police calls, allowing him to stay one step ahead of the cops.

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On the beach one night, Christine Faber, two years a widow, thinks she hears her late husband Paul calling out of the surf...then meets a tall dark man, Alexis, who seems to know all about such things. After more ghostly manifestations, Christine and younger sister Janet become enmeshed in the eerie artifices of Alexis; but he in turn finds himself manipulated into deeper deviltry than he had in mind...

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Prisoners battle each other -- and the police -- when they escape the Colorado State Penitentiary.

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Casanova, a young patriot in 18th-century Sicily, upon learning that his father and sister have been murdered, returns to Palermo and engages in guerilla tactics against the forces of the Governor. Lady Bianca, the Governor's daughter, is in love with one of the patriots, Lorenzo, and desires to escape from the palace. Her lady-in-waiting, Zanetta, enlists the aid of Casanova and he rescues them and takes them to the partisan's camp. The rebels are victorious. Lady Bianca makes plans to marry Lorenzo, and Casanova and Zanetta have similar plans.

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Family film about an elderly rancher, her young grandson, and the horse that the child raises from a colt.

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A teenager is involved in running from the police in his hot rod hits a car in a hit-and-run case where the victims turn out to be his mother and his best friend in another hot rod.

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The romantic, dangerous and fast-paced world of professional midget auto racing provides the backdrop for this dramatic tale of a young driver who decides to follow in his late father's footsteps and win the big race.

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The history of a Polish family and its contributions to the war effort throughout American history.

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Sergeant Tex Gordon is surprised to learn that his new gunnery instructor is a woman.

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Set during Prohibition, the movie centers on Touhy's rise from small time thug to the city's most powerful bootlegger whose empire is rivaled only by that of Al Capone (who is referred to, but never named in the story). It is his rival who frames Touhy for kidnapping and arranges for him to serve a life-long term in Stateville prison. Determined to be free again, the desperate Touhy and his cellmate Basil "the Owl" Banghart, begin plotting a violent break out.

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A lawyer tries to clear his wife's lover of murder charges.

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Outdoor drama about a newly-hired lumberjack discovering that his former girlfriend is now his new boss's wife.

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Dinny and his cowhand friends rescue Laura from a runaway stagecoach after it is robbed by outlaw Pancho Dominguez and his gang. Dinny is attracted to Laura, who isn't interested in him at all. The climax arises when Pancho's gang raids the town and robs the bank.

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A paroled convict's efforts to improve conditions at a boys' reform school alarm the school's corrupt warden, who has been embezzling funds from the institution. He hatches a plan to derail the reformed convict's efforts and have him sent back to prison, and part of that scheme involves cracking down hard on the reform school's inmates.

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A temperamental director multiple times completely changes the concept during a movie's production.

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Set during the American Revolution, this colorful 2 reel short tells the story of Haym Salomon, American patriot and financier of the American Revolution.

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A reporter gets himself sent to prison to expose a mobster.

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In this musical short, a waitress at the Warner Bros. commissary gets her big break.

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