Harry Benham
Actor · 1884 – 1969 · Valparaiso, Indiana, USA
From Wikipedia Harry Benham (February 26, 1884 – July 17, 1969) was an American silent film actor. Born in Valparaiso, Indiana, as a child Benham and his family moved to Chicago, where he was raised and attended school. Benham had a talent for singing and sang in his local church choir. In 1904, the production Peggy From Paris came to Chicago and, at age 20, Benham became a member of the chorus while earning a living in the wholesale paper business. Benham was soon selected to play the leading role in the production and remained in that role throughout the production's three-year run. He was subsequently able to garner more roles in other plays, such as The Sultan of Sulu, Woodland, Marrying Mary, The Gay Musician, H.M.S. Pinafore, Florodora, The Mayoress, and Madame Sherry. In 1910 Benham joined the Thanhouser Company in New Rochelle, New York, for whom he played the leading role in many of the company's films through 1915. He married actress Ethyle Cooke, and together they had two children, Dorothy and Leland, who also became prominent Thanhouser personalities. Benham died on July 17, 1969 in Sarasota, Florida, aged 85.
Movies24
Movie6.2DramaWith The Old Curiosity Shop and David Copperfield, both released in 1911, and Nicholas Nickleby in 1912, Thanhouser established itself as producer of the best Dickens adaptations in American film.
Nicholas Nickleby
1912 · 3 votes
- Movie1.0Drama
Comte Paul De Valreas is attracted to Frou Frou, the frivolous wife of Henri De Sartorys and the indifferent mother of their young son Georges. Paul persuades Frou Frou to bring her somber sister Louise, who secretly loves Henri, into the household, thus freeing her from any domestic duties.
Frou Frou
1914 · 1 votes
MovieMysteryAdventureZudora, not knowing she's an heiress to a $20 million fortune, lives with her uncle, a mystic and detective, who covets her inheritance. She wants to marry John Storm but her uncle is against it. However, the uncle makes a bargain; if Zudora can solve the next twenty mysteries brought to him, she can marry as she chooses. Episodes 1,2 and 8, plus another unidentified chapter, survive. The rest is believed to be lost.
Zudora
1914
MovieDramaA priest is trying to help a poor family when nearby the father is hit on the head by a criminal who then throws him off a bridge into the water below. The priest administers Last Rites then seeks to help the family and find the murderer.
The Victim
1920
- MovieCrimeDrama
After complaining about her dull life, shop girl Sally Manvers falls asleep on the roof of her apartment. Drenched from a downpour, Sally awakens and finds the roof entrance locked. She enters the apartment of society woman Mrs. Standish and encounters Mrs. Standish's brother, Walter Arden Savage, opening the safe. Sally protects Savage from a burglar, and after learning that he and his sister plan to steal their jewels to collect insurance money, she agrees to keep quiet if they take her with them to Newport.
The Outsider
1917
Movie8.0DramaRomanceA young lord elopes with an employee's daughter. The visit of a lady to her home causes the young wife to leave her husband. Years later the peer succeeds to his family estates. Approaching his wife for forgiveness, his entreaties are of no avail. He meets his daughter on the cliffs, and she by accident falls and is killed. The sight of the dead body causes the wife to seek the protection and consolation of her husband
Dora Thorne
1912 · 1 votes
Movie7.0CrimeDramaHaving misused funds held in his trust by investing them with his friend, Henry Lowe, Robert Reardon appeals to his future son-in-law, James Calvin, a candidate for the position of district attorney, for help. When Calvin threatens to indict Lowe for fraud if he is elected, Reardon's anger becomes so great that the engagement between Calvin and Reardon's daughter Helen is broken, resulting in Reardon's suicide. After Lowe comes into possession of a check forged by Helen's brother Jack, he uses the document to force a marriage with Helen. Treated brutally by her husband, Helen seeks Calvin's aid, but Lowe frames Calvin, now the district attorney, in a compromising situation with his ex-fiancée. Calvin is about to resign when Helen traps her husband with some marked money, causing his suicide through disgrace. Thus freed, Helen and Calvin find happiness together.
The Prey
1920 · 1 votes
Movie8.0DramaA kindly shop owner whose overwhelming gambling debts allow a greedy landlord to seize his shop of dusty treasures. Evicted and with no way to pay his debts, he and his granddaughter flee.
The Old Curiosity Shop
1911 · 1 votes
MovieDramaMelodrama in which the rich arrogant George gives money to poor Frank and Jane, so he may spend a night with Jane. Jane goes along with it because she need the money to save her sick husband.
- Movie10.0Comedy
In the course of a fashionable reception at her home, a young girl quarrels with her suitor. Piqued by a fancied wrong, the girl with complaisance accepts the proposal of a foreign nobleman and determines to forget The Man forever. As time progresses and the day set for her wedding to the sallow baron approaches, she is obsessed by a feeling of discontent and a yearning for her former lover.
Their Burglar
1911 · 1 votes
Movie7.0ComedyA good example of the clever light comedy Thanhouser produced for its Falstaff label, while other studios cranked out broad slapstick comedies. Harry Benham and Mignon Anderson were versatile and popular Thanhouser stars, here showing considerable skill in light comedy, a genre that invites plenty of satirical social observation such as the burgeoning beauty-salon industry here. Cinema technique shows much more intricate editing and freer use of closeups than just a year or two earlier.
Madam Blanche, Beauty Doctor
1915 · 2 votes
Movie6.0DramaPolly Shannon takes a job as a maid to earn money to go to Paris and study opera. She becomes embroiled in a scheme by her two employers to help their friend in the love of a woman who does not fancy him: She will pretend to be interested in their friend instead. The film has been lost.
Polly with a Past
1920 · 2 votes
Movie5.9HorrorDr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
1912 · 41 votes
- Movie7.0Drama
The greenhouse proprietor did not take any heart in his work, for he firmly believed he was destined to be a great painter. The result was he neglected business for his easel and customers gradually fell off until the inevitable happened, he went into bankruptcy. His wife, who had faith in her husband's ability with the brush and a deep and abiding love for him, supported the household by her skill as a dressmaker. One day, unexpected good fortune came to the couple, a distant relative of the wife's died and left her $1,000 in his will. The woman made all sorts of plans, but finally decided that she would pay off the mortgage on their little home. Then she noticed for the first time that her husband had left the room, and following him she demanded to know what was wrong. At first he would not tell her, but he finally explained that he wanted the money himself, for it would pay for the art course in Paris.
A Woman's Loyalty
1914 · 1 votes
Movie8.0DramaRomanceA village schoolteacher, unaware that Eben, the village carpenter, is in love with her, marries a surveyor and has a son, David. Eben, distraught at losing her, goes away, and he returns years later to find that David, now an orphan, is running away from his cruel foster father, the squire. Eben befriends David, and when the town is destroyed by a storm the two escape harm. An epilog shows David 25 years later as a successful businessman, happily married, helping to rebuild the town.
The Town That Forgot God
1922 · 1 votes
- Movie7.0Drama
Happy in the love of his devoted wife and their child, a young businessman found life's pathway pleasant. Then the greatest of sorrows came; his wife died and he was plunged into gloom.
The Warning
1912 · 1 votes
Movie7.0DramaRomanceThis elaborate and well-staged silent version of Hertz' play is exceedingly well produced for 1913: it starts off by introducing the actors by name and role, then showing them in double exposure in street clothes and in costumes. The production values are also elaborate and the look of the set designs reminds one of the elaborate backdrops that Melies used in his shots.
King Rene’s Daughter
1913 · 2 votes
Movie9.0DramaThe husband was stern, solemn and never could understand why anyone should laugh. The wife didn't have much sense, perhaps, but she was full of life and laughter. Why they should have married was a mystery; that there should have come a matrimonial shipwreck was hardly a surprise.
Her Secret
1912 · 1 votes
MovieDramaThe affluent Carnabys have now dwindled in fortune and family, leaving just Lucy and her brother, Gordon in financial straits. Situations escalate as they struggle to pay their bills and deal with Gordon's gambling debts.
- Movie8.0Drama
The story's hero, a reformer in politics, has been accused and convicted of "padding the registration lists," but on procured evidence and on a frame-up, made by the ring leader's heeler, William Russell. He is sent to prison and the story works out to his coming home, a cleared and rehabilitated man, on Christmas Eve.
The Repeater
1912 · 1 votes
Movie7.0ComedyTo avoid marrying the elderly suitor her aunt has chosen for her, young socialite Ivis Van Astor decides to hire Horatio Worthington to pose as her husband. She hopes that as a "married woman" she will pique the romantic interest of Norman Kent, who perceives her as a sweet young thing. Ivis and her hired husband go to Newport, where she begins to flirt with Norman, who discovers her ruse and decides to teach her a lesson. He stages a duel over Ivis with Horatio and pretends to die. Once Ivis is properly chagrined, Norman "recovers," Ivis' aunt falls in love with Horatio, and all ends happily.
The Dangerous Paradise
1920 · 1 votes
Movie8.0DramaThanhouser Company three-reel silent film based on Charles Dickens’s story of an English lad's tribulation-filled journey to adulthood, Thanhouser released the three films over the course of three weeks beginning on October 17, 1911, one 1,000 foot reel per week.
David Copperfield
1911 · 1 votes
MovieRomanceThe Grand Duke Alexis has been happy with his wife, Lola, formerly the queen of the St. Petersburg ballet, and their baby daughter, Vasta. But the lowering cloud that has always hung over them through the refusal of the Russian Court to recognize their marriage breaks when the Duke learns there is an intrigue against his wife's life.
- MovieDrama
A wealthy miner, having no near relatives, leaves his two little daughters to the guardianship of a former chum of his, who had left the west with a fortune and returned to his old home in an eastern city. The guardian is rather overwhelmed by his responsibilities, but induces his old aunt to come and keep house for him, and prepares to give his charges a hearty welcome. The guardian is a young man, and is surprised to find that one of his wards is of marriageable age, beautiful and vivacious. He promptly proceeds to lose his heart to her, and while she admires him immensely the girl is finally thoroughly impressed with the idea that her guardian would gladly be rid of her. T
The Tomboy
1911