Ernest Torrence Trailers
Clara Bow: Discovering the "It" Girl TrailerThe Tingler TrailerScreen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10) Trailer
He was the man you loved to hiss. This towering (6' 4"), highly imposing character star with cold, hollow, beady eyes and a huge, protruding snout would go on to become one of the silent screen's finest arch villains. Born Ernest Thayson Torrence-Thompson on June 26, 1878, in Edinburgh, Scotland, he was, unlikely enough, an exceptional pianist and operatic baritone. A graduate of the Stuttgart Conservatory, Edinburgh Academy before earning a scholarship at London's Royal Academy of Music, he toured with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in such productions as "The Emerald Isle" (1901) and "The Talk of the Town" (1905) before serious vocal problems set in. Both Ernest and his actor brother David Torrence came to America directly from Scotland prior to WWI. Focusing instead on a purely acting career, both brothers developed into seasoned players on the New York stage. Ernest made his Broadway bow with "Modest Suzanne" in 1912 and a standout role in "The Night Boat" in 1920 brought him to the attention of Hollywood filmmakers.
He earned superb marks playing the despicable adversary Luke Hatburn in Tol'able David (1921) opposite Richard Barthelmess, and immediately settled into films for the rest of his career. Adept at both comedy and drama, Ernest avoided what could have been a damaging stereotype with his sympathetic portrayal of a grizzled old codger in the classic western The Covered Wagon (1923). He further bolstered his celebrity with plum, lip-smacking roles alongside Lon Chaney in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) as Clopin, king of the beggars, and Betty Bronson in Peter Pan (1924) as the dastardly Captain Hook. In an offbeat bit of casting he paired up with Clara Bow in Mantrap (1926) as a gentle, bear-like backwoodsman in search of a wife, and participated in other silent classics such as The King of Kings (1927) (as Peter) and Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) as Buster Keaton's steamboat captain Dad.
Despite his celluloid villainy, Ernest was known as a courtly and cultivated gentleman in private. He made the transition into talking films intact and was able to play a marvelous nemesis, Dr. Moriarty, to Clive Brooks ' Sherlock Holmes (1932) before his untimely death. Ernest died following his filming as a smuggler in I Cover the Waterfront (1933) starring Claudette Colbert in New York on May 15,1933, at the relatively young age of 54. It seems that while en route to Europe by ship, Torrence suffered an acute attack of gall stones and was rushed back to a New York hospital. He died of complications following surgery. Looking and usually playing much older than he was, Hollywood lost a marvelously talented and robust character player who had dozens of films ahead of him.
Most Popular Ernest Torrence Trailers
Total trailers found: 53
03 May 1930
An adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's The Circle. A young woman married into an aristocratic English family finds life with her husband dull and decides to elope with a Canadian.
03 October 1931
Wallingford is a con-man whose specialty is taking money from suckers. His partners are Schnozzle, a pickpocket and car thief; and Blackie, who has played the game for years.
22 July 1923
Horace Ventimore, a young London architect, stumbles across an old brass bottle. When he picks it up a genie suddenly appears and promises Horace that he will grant every wish Horace wants in exchange for his freedom.
05 November 1932
Moriarty is sentenced to death, and Sherlock Holmes prepares to retire to the country and marry his girl.
25 April 1931
A sailor falls in love with the admiral's daughter but finds they can't marry because of his lowly rank.
01 January 1942
The edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of edition #1, then a tribute to movie people who have died in those 25 years.
30 March 1929
This first cinematic version of the classic book is a part-talkie, although the only surviving print is silent (housed in the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY).
20 March 1926
A young woman inherits her father's large Texas ranch and plans to begin a cattle drive to Abilene, Kansas, 1000 miles away.
18 November 1931
A guilt-ridden U.S. Marine returns to Cuba to try to find the woman he promised to marry.
10 May 1926
The story of a racetrack tout whose prayers could bring a dry or muddy racetrack, and how he learned to capitalize on those powers.
18 July 1931
An aspiring classical singer is romanced by both a famous opera star and his younger understudy.
09 March 1929
Jewel thieves pull a heist on a diamond mining operation in Africa and take the foreman hostage before escaping into the Kalahari Desert, but when they get lost, the foreman must take charge and save them.
16 August 1930
A postulant falls in love with a flamboyant singer from a cafe next door to her convent.
07 October 1929
Bill Whipple is a happy-go-lucky mechanic for MacDonald who thinks that he is the worlds greatest driver and lover.
15 February 1930
Bill O'Brien is promoted to lieutenant in the police department for his arrest of Mike Patello, gang leader and racketeer, for murder.
19 February 1922
The story takes place in the pre-Civil War era South. Judge Price has a fondness for liquor which really goes into overdrive after his wife runs away with another man and she takes their boy with her.
19 August 1925
Jether, a shepherd, is lured from his home by Tisha, priestess of the goddess Ishtar. He journeys to the city of Babylon, where he lavishes Tisha with gifts and spends his share of his father's wealth on riotous living.
06 September 1923
In 15th century France, a gypsy girl is framed for murder by the infatuated Chief Justice, and only the deformed bellringer of Notre Dame Cathedral can save her.
03 September 1925
The Pony Express is a silent 1925 Western film produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures.
31 December 1921
Young David Kinemon is a good-natured, easy-going lad in a mountain village. Circumstances force him to take his brother's place as mail carrier for the community, and this brings him into deadly contact with the vicious Hatburn brothers.
08 August 1931
A horse with great potential is reluctantly sold by the breeder and by chance passes through multiple hands who do not treat him well.
14 March 1924
Southerner Tom Rumford was sent up north to be raised by relatives who happen to be Quakers. As a result, he returns home a passive, peace-loving young man, completely out of place in an area where men kill over issues of honor.
09 May 1928
The just-out-of-college, effete son of a no-nonsense steamboat captain comes to visit his father whom he's not seen since he was a child.
08 July 1927
Jerry always wins in his rivalry with Red over women, gunrunning, and diamond smuggling. While running booze into the U.
13 September 1929
When a rash of murders depletes their number, a billionaire's employees are brought together at an Englishman's estate.
23 November 1929
In her first Talkie, Joan Crawford plays Bingo, a jungle-raised oil heiress, who turns Manhattan upside down in her hunt for Andy McAllister, the man of her dreams.
04 April 1926
Even though Big Bill Devens is a powerful politician, he still sticks to his working man's roots. His wife walked out on him 20 years before and his daughter, Moira, believes she is dead.
29 July 1959
A pathologist experiments with a deaf-mute woman who is unable to scream to prove that humans die of fright due to an organism he names The Tingler that lives within each person on the spinal cord and is suppressed only when people scream when scared.
01 November 1926
Rafi arrives in the city in search of Pervaneh who was taken by the Sultan. He is joined by Hassan the confectioner.
07 October 1923
An English valet brought to the American west assimilates into the American way of life.
19 April 1927
The King of Kings is the Greatest Story Ever Told as only Cecil B. DeMille could tell it. In 1927, working with one of the biggest budgets in Hollywood history, DeMille spun the life and Passion of Christ into a silent-era blockbuster.
14 May 1927
A young divinity student helps and protects a down and out prostitute, at the cost of his own standing in the community.
23 June 1928
Stirring romance, hard riding, desperate fighting with the Cossacks playing their game of war and chivalry.
01 February 1931
Clint Belmet is a bit of a firebrand and is sentenced to at least 30 days in jail, but his partners, Bill Jackson and Jim Bridger talk a sympathetic Frenchwoman named Felice into telling the bumbling, drunken marshal that Clint had married her the previous night.
05 September 1930
Kitty Bellairs, a flirtatious young woman of 18th Century England, cuts a swath of broken hearts and romantic conquests as she visits a resort with her sister.
15 March 1923
Two wagon caravans converge at what is now Kansas City, and combine for the westward push to Oregon. On their quest the pilgrims will experience desert heat, mountain snow, hunger, and Indian attack.
21 July 1924
An English circus clown finds he's lost his touch after returning from war.
29 December 1924
Peter Pan enters the nursery of the Darling children and, with the help of fairy dust, leads them off to Never Never Land, where they meet the nefarious Captain Hook.
24 July 1926
A sexy young manicurist living with her older backwoodsman husband in a small Canadian town finds herself attracted to a young, rich and famous divorce lawyer who comes to town on vacation.
15 June 1919
Elderly millionaire James Rance, whose only passion is chess, warns his grandson Tommy, who missed the previous evening's game because he played poker with his uncle Gilbert, that should he miss another game, Gilbert will gain the boy's inheritance.
14 June 1999
Clara Bow: Discovering the 'It' Girl features scenes from 25 of her films, as well as interviews with family members and acquaintances.
26 November 1922
Spanish dancer Bonita della Guerda has a dream in which she is killed by a jester after declaring her love for a prince.
31 January 1926
A lost film - Mary Gray, whose father manufactures cold cream, is engaged to sappy Horace Niles, the son of Hugo Niles, the elder Gray's most competitive rival in the cosmetics business.
19 May 1933
An investigative reporter romances a suspected smuggler's daughter.
23 January 1924
The year is 1876 and Holderness "tyrant of the desert" is trying to force August Naab to sell his property.
30 March 1925
An American soldier falls in love with a French maiden but their romance is thwarted when the Yanks return home.
07 April 1928
While Joel and his older ship's captain brother Mark are at sea, the latter is abandoned in Singapore by devious ship's mate Finch who, upon their return, convinces the townspeople that Joel abandoned his brother.
25 December 1932
A Gypsy violinist searches for her missing fiance, a circus worker who recently won a sweepstakes prize and was kidnapped by a hypnotist.
02 August 1925
John Bentley hates New York City, because of an unhappy romance as a young man, but his son, Ronald, tired of living in Iowa, is determined to take up residence in Manhattan.
15 April 1923
June Tolliver is a Kentucky mountain girl whose family is feuding with the Falins. But their differences are temporarily put on hold when revenue officer John Hale (Antonio Moreno) comes around.
06 January 1924
Young marrieds Guy & Bee are ostracized by their supposed friends in town when Bee discovers she is expecting but the legitimacy of their union is called into question.
24 December 1922
Silent film directed by Victor Schertzinger
