You Never Can Tell 1920
Bebe Daniels is charming in this light comedy, based on a Saturday Evening Post story by Grace Lovell Bryan.
Bebe Daniels is charming in this light comedy, based on a Saturday Evening Post story by Grace Lovell Bryan.
Itinerant magician Balzamo arrives in the town where Dr. Emerson and his pretty young wife live. Smitten with Mrs. Emerson, Balzamo places her under a hypnotic spell and takes her away with him. Many years later, as she lies near death, she warns her daughter Dorothy to flee from the evil Balzamo.
Ed Simpson has been raised in an orphanage where he has caused much trouble. He can't stand living there anymore and runs away. On the streets, he finds a friend in newsboy Mike. Mike teaches him how to survive, but inevitably Ed gets hauled into court. The judge sees potential in him and hands him over to be adopted by a young politician.
The wife of sculptor Roger Heath is killed by a maniac because of Roger's madly jealous admirer Olivia Larkin. To care for his home and son Peter, Roger hires Irish immigrant Nora O'Hallahan as a nursemaid whom he realizes is possessed by the soul of his departed wife.
The eldest daughter of a poor preacher, Penelope Penn leaves her country home to seek her fortune in the big city.
Hilda lives in a tenement apartment with her aunt, Mrs. Brady, and her crippled younger brother Micky, and works in a department store where her boss lusts after her. But happiness comes into her life when she meets artist Emery Gray. Gray's wife deserted him long ago, leaving him with their daughter Susan (Mary Jane Irving) to raise. While Susan and Micky become playmates, Hilda restores Gray's faith in womanhood.
Cora and Frank Rodham are happily married until Frank lands a lucrative position. He doesn't want to see his pretty wife slaving away at domestic chores so he hires servants to do the work for her. As a result, Cora becomes fat and lazy. Frank is very unhappy with his wife's change in attitude and appearance and starts to take an interest in her friend, Lila Drake, who is secretly just as lazy.
Because he believes that romance is dead, the city editor wants to can the "advice to the lovelorn" column. Rosalie Beckwith, the column's author, naturally disagrees with him. The editor suggests that she prove him wrong by seeing if she can find romance within a 40-mile radius of the city.
A spoiled rich young woman overspends from her parents' savings and ruthlessly vamps on young men that she calls up randomly on the telephone. When her fiancée and his friends get word of this, they hatch a plan to teach her a valuable lesson.
Countess Natalya is a glamorous refugee from the Bolshevik revolution. Supporting herself and her ailing sister by dancing in a Shanghai dive, she's is talked into a marriage with a wealthy Chinese gentleman. She has been led to believe that this marriage of convenience is not binding, thus she sees no reason not to marry American diplomat Kenneth Harlan once she's arrived in the States.
Christina Elliott is concerned about her cousin's relationship with a snake dancer. Many complications ensue until a happy ending for almost all.
Removed from an orphanage, Nance Olden is taken to live at Mother Hogan's boarding-house for crooks. There she becomes Tom Morgan's partner, helping him steal a jewel from Edward Ramsey at Union Station.
A young woman spurns her too conventional fiancé and flees to an artists' colony.
New York police sergeant Jim Dark is determined that his daughter, Jenny, will be shielded from any knowledge of evil. Consequently, she lives in a dream world, imagining herself to be a descendant of Saint Jeanne d'Arc, but has a loyal friend in reporter Pep Mullins. Her school friend, Adele, also raised by overly protective parents, is ejected from her home when she becomes inebriated after spending an evening with a disreputable young man.
Anne Shirley, an orphan, is taken into the lives of a generous farmer and his sister. She grows from an adventuresome young lass into a charming and much sought-after young lady.
Barnabetta Dreary's grim life of slaving for her Pennsylvania Dutch father Barnaby and her two brothers, is surprisingly changed when Barnaby marries Juliet Miller. Known as Erstwhile Susan, she becomes fond of Barnabetta, and because she retains control of her fortune, induces the other Drearys to relieve Barnabetta of some of her drudgery.
A French orphan girl is adopted into the home of wealthy Americans. There she becomes romantically involved with a farm worker and at the same time entangled in the deteriorating marriage of the American couple who rescued her.
On her journey to the United States, Marya Nisko falls in love with another immigrant, Sascha Rabinoff. Arriving and discovering her sister's poverty, she fails as a lady's maid and then arranges an introduction to a theatrical manager, though Sascha is opposed to her becoming a professional dancer.
Lady Marjorie Donegal becomes a nurse in hospital, much to the dismay of her aristocratic family. She falls in love with one of her patients, a commoner labor leader.
Pansy O'Donnell, a salesgirl, is given a two-week vacation at a summer resort, where she advertises clothing made by her company. The hotel clerk mistakes her for movie actress Marie La Tour, and gossip spreads that she is staying incognito.