Robert G. Vignola
Biography: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Robert G. Vignola (born Rocco Giuseppe Vignola, August 5, 1882 – October 25, 1953) was an Italian-born American actor, screenwriter and film director in American cinema. One of the silent screen's most prolific directors, he made a handful of sound films in the early years of talkies but his career essentially ended in the silent era. Born at Trivigno, in the province of Potenza, Vignola left Italy with his family at the age of 3 and was raised in upstate New York. He made his acting debut at 19 performing in "Romeo and Juliet", with Eleanor Robson Belmont and Kyrle Bellew. He began his film career as an actor in 1906 with the short film The Black Hand, directed by Wallace McCutcheon and produced by Biograph Company, generally considered the film that launched the mafia genre. In 1907 he joined Kalem Studios, for which he made numerous movies. One of Vignola's most notable film roles was as Judas Iscariot in From the Manger to the Cross (1912), directed by Sidney Olcott, one of the most successful films of the period. Vignola directed 87 films, most notably The Vampire (1913), sometimes cited as the first "vamp" movie, and Seventeen (1916), where Rudolph Valentino did an uncredited cameo. He had a long association directing the early movies of Pauline Frederick such as Audrey (1916) and Double Crossed (1917). His biggest success was the big-budget epic When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922), starring Marion Davies, which achieved critical and commercial acclaim. Other films include Déclassée (1925), with the uncredited appearance of the then unknown Clark Gable; Broken Dreams (1933), which received a nomination for Best Foreign Film at the Venice Film Festival, and The Scarlet Letter (1934), the last film of Colleen Moore. Vignola died in Hollywood, California in 1953. He lived in a mansion at Whitley Heights owned by William Randolph Hearst. Hearst's mistress Marion Davies was allowed to stay without him at Vignola's mansion, worried that she was having affairs and considering Vignola a trusted companion for her as he was homosexual. He was buried in St. Agnes Cemetery, Menands, New York.
Place of Birth: Not available
Birthday: August 05, 1882
Deathday: October 25, 1953
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Known For
Over the Hills to the Poor House
1908-06-26
Over the Hills to the Poor House
Overview: The widowed elderly mother of three adult children, two sons and a daughter, wishing to relieve herself of the burden of care of her property, decides to divide it up among her children. To her son Charles, a wild but kind young fellow, she leaves a small amount, feeling that he will soon run through it. The good-hearted boy is perfectly satisfied, believing in the wisdom of his mother's actions. He assumes she will find a home with one of his siblings, who are married and settled. The old woman moves in with her married son, but is driven out by his wife over an argument about her young granddaughter. She is forced to move into a squalid apartment in a cheap tenement house, but is evicted for failing to pay her rent. Mack Sennett appears as a bartender in this film.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-06-26
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Shenandoah
1913-07-04
Shenandoah
Overview: Bronson Howard's Great Civil War Story in Three Reels, Featuring General Philip Sheridan's Ride from Winchester, 20 Miles Away.
Genres: Drama War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-07-04
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The Padrone's Plot
1913-12-01
The Padrone's Plot
Overview: Tony Vallenci, just over from Italy, is offered a job by Pietro Valli, an unscrupulous padrone. Ignorant of American money, Tony signs a contract calling for a wage of sixty cents a day. He goes to work in a quarry owned by Dodge. The following day Tony is knocked down by an auto containing Mrs. Dodge. He is uninjured, but the kind lady takes him to his home.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-12-01
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The Show Girl's Glove
1914-06-22
The Show Girl's Glove
Overview: Hampton, a broker, employs a detective to investigate Stella, a show girl, with whom his younger brother Dick is in love. As a result of the detective's discoveries, Dick breaks his engagement with Stella. The woman calls at Dick's office late that afternoon. Hampton leaves the two alone. Unable to alter Dick's decision, Stella seizes a knife and threatens suicide. Dick tries to wrest the weapon from her and is accidentally killed.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1914-06-22
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The War Correspondent
1913-03-08
The War Correspondent
Overview: Jack Fisher secures a position as reporter on a metropolitan daily and incurs the enmity of Martin, the star reporter, because of friendly relations which he establishes with Myrtle, a young lady in the office. Martin secretly changes the copy which Jack has prepared for an important story and places the young man in such a position that he is discharged. Some time later Jack learns of an opening in Central America. He bids goodbye to Myrtle, who has never lost faith in him, and leaves for his new field. Shortly after his departure war is declared in a Central American republic and Martin is sent to the scene as war correspondent.
Genres: Drama War
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-03-08
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The Vampire
1913-10-15
The Vampire
Overview: The story hinges on the redemption of a country boy, an artist, who has fallen among evil companions, and is an outcast.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-10-15
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An Arabian Tragedy
1912-06-19
An Arabian Tragedy
Overview: Ayub Kashif becomes embittered toward his wife, Fatima, because their union has been childless. He eventually determines to divorce Fatima and free her slave, whom he then will wed. Fatima, who still loves her husband, lives a life of sorrow, praying that her husband's love will return to her.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1912-06-19
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A Prisoner of the Harem
1912-07-19
A Prisoner of the Harem
Overview: Alice Durand, after weeks of discouragement, reads the following advertisement in the New York Herald: "Governess wanted. Young American woman, well educated and speaking French and German, may obtain lucrative position with prominent Egyptian. Fare and expenses will be advanced. Write, enclosing photograph, to Mahmoud Pasha, Sphinx Club, Cairo, Egypt." Answering the advertisement, Alice seven weeks later, secures the position and leaves her New York boarding-house for Egypt.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1912-07-19
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The Little Gluers
1912-11-18
The Little Gluers
Overview: The Kerry Gow is a 1912 short
Genres: Drama Documentary
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1912-11-18
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Ireland, the Oppressed
1912-12-14
Ireland, the Oppressed
Overview: The story of the Emerald Isle years ago. Showing the struggle against poverty, evictions by hard-hearted landlords, hill fighting and the final triumph of the downtrodden.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1912-12-14
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The Shaughraun
1912-12-23
The Shaughraun
Overview: Robert Ffolliott is a young Irish lad who is done out of his land and sent off to a penal colony in Australia following false accusations by the greedy Kinchella. Conn the Shaughraun comes to his rescue, helps him to escape from the prison ship and return to Ireland where he is united with his sweetheart.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1912-12-23
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A Sawmill Hazard
1913-01-11
A Sawmill Hazard
Overview: Mrs. Herton, a widow, lives in comfortable circumstances with her son, Roland. Over forty years of age, she is still an attractive woman, but lacks self-reliance and is greatly impressed by Geoffrey Stern who seeks her hand. Roland objects to Stern and endeavors to convince his mother that the selfish and unscrupulous suitor has been attracted by the comfortable home and timber lands owned by the widow. But the good woman is deceived by Stern's well-feigned devotion and agrees to marry him.
Genres: Drama Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-01-11
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A Desperate Chance
1913-01-18
A Desperate Chance
Overview: A railroad melodrama.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-01-18
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The Prosecuting Attorney
1913-02-03
The Prosecuting Attorney
Overview: The prosecuting attorney's impassioned address clinches the conviction of the criminal who, breaking away from his guard, viciously assaults the prosecutor but is finally quieted. At home, the attorney's wife reads a newspaper account of the affair and is greatly disturbed.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-02-03
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The Peril of the Dance Hall
1913-02-17
The Peril of the Dance Hall
Overview: After the death of his wife Pablo Florenti, an Italian, takes his little daughter, Pepita, and embarks for America, where he secures employment as a common laborer. Reaching young womanhood, Pepita becomes a typical American girl and is a source of joy to her father. One morning the old man meets with an accident while on his way to work and is assisted to his home by Ralph, a young motor-cyclist policeman. Ralph thus makes the acquaintance of Pepita. Pepita has refused several invitations to visit a public dance hall, knowing her father's objections.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-02-17
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The Message of the Palms
1913-02-26
The Message of the Palms
Overview: Henry Strong, a young civil engineer, is placed in charge of a party which makes a preliminary survey for a railroad. In their work they enter the property of Colonel Carlton who objects decidedly to the invasion of his ancestral land. Henry secures the aid of the sheriff, who convinces Carlton that the young engineer is acting within his rights but the Colonel develops a spirit of animosity toward the surveyor.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-02-26
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The Scimitar of the Prophet
1913-04-11
The Scimitar of the Prophet
Overview: While touring Egypt, Harris and his wife visit an old temple and are fascinated by a sacred scimitar, which, at the corner of a shrine, is religiously guarded by Hadjji, a Mohammedan priest. The wife is a curio fiend, and demands that Harris secure the scimitar, but the husband, having read in his guidebook that the scimitar was supposedly presented to the prophet in a vision and that the vengeance of Allah will follow whosoever disturbs it, begs her to abandon the foolish idea. She insists. That night Harris enters the temple with a rope ladder, steals the scimitar and escapes.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-04-11
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The Alien
1913-05-07
The Alien
Overview: Paolo, a skilled mechanic in a modler's factory in Italy, defends his friend Brocco, when the latter is discharged and incurs the foreman's enmity. The treacherous Brocco steals an empty six-pound shell, which Paolo treasures as a relic of the war, and makes a bomb, with which he wrecks the modler's factory. A piece of the bomb which bears Paola's name is found and on this evidence the innocent man is sent to prison for five years.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-05-07
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Honor Thy Father
1915-06-25
Honor Thy Father
Overview: Although it means the mortgaging of their home, Roger Dayton's parents send him to law school. Selfish and ungrateful, the boy forgets all about the old folks after his graduation.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1915-06-25
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The Railroad Raiders of '62
1915-03-20
The Railroad Raiders of '62
Overview: Lockwood, the old, one-armed flagman at Lone Point, tells Helen and a young soldier of his experiences during the Civil War, and how he lost his arm. The Civil War flashback sequences consist of archive footage from Kalem's Railroad Raiders of '62 (1911), rather than newly filmed footage.
Genres: Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1915-03-20
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The Black Hand
1906-03-29
The Black Hand
Overview: Two gang members send a threatening letter to a butcher, demanding money if he did not want his shop to be destroyed and his daughter Maria kidnapped. When he is unable to meet their request, they take Maria away. The Black Hand is the earliest surviving gangster film.
Genres: Drama Crime
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1906-03-29
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Railroad Raiders of '62
1911-06-15
Railroad Raiders of '62
Overview: Union raiders infiltrate Confederate territory by train. Early film version of the Civil War incident on which Buster Keaton's The General and Disney's The Great Locomotive Chase was based.
Genres: Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1911-06-15
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From the Manger to the Cross
1912-10-03
From the Manger to the Cross
Overview: The life of Jesus is played out in tableaux shot in the Holy Land.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1912-10-03
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The Lad from Old Ireland
1910-11-23
The Lad from Old Ireland
Overview: A young man leaves Ireland for America, but doesn't forget home.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1910-11-23
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The Colleen Bawn
1911-10-16
The Colleen Bawn
Overview: A young Irish boy has fallen in love with a poor girl and wants to marry her, but his mother will stop at nothing, including murder, to see that he marries his rich cousin.
Genres: Drama Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1911-10-16
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When Lovers Part
1910-12-23
When Lovers Part
Overview: A young couple’s love is forbidden by the girl’s father. He forces her to write a farewell letter. Three years later, the Civil War begins and the father dies. At the end of the war, her boyfriend comes to visit her and all the suffering is forgotten.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1910-12-23
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The Fiddler’s Requiem
1911-05-03
The Fiddler’s Requiem
Overview: The old musician playing his fiddle in his garret home dreams of his youth and his lost love. As the past unfolds itself he sees his sweetheart, Dolores, forced by her parents to sign a contract of marriage with Don Carlos, and he again reads over in memory her message of farewell: "My on Love, This is my marriage ever, the death day of my soul. I cannot go without one last farewell to you, whom I will never see again. Wait for ma by the lake until you hear the bells chime. Yours in spirit until death, Dolores." Meeting her at the lake as requested, she gives him her old violin, saying, "I have breathed my soul into this violin. Whene'er it plays, it is my soul that speaks."
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1911-05-03
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Rory O'More
1911-09-03
Rory O'More
Overview: Based on the story of the real-life 17th Century Irish rebel and the eighteen century ballad about him, this one-reeler is one of the Kalem pictures shot by Olcott and his company on their second trip to the Emerald Isle.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1911-09-03
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A Sawmill Hero
1911-03-22
A Sawmill Hero
Overview: Jim Hemminway went to college, but did not make good. He had a fine time, but flunked in his studies. His father, displeased with Jim's college experience, decided to send him to a lumber camp in order to develop the manhood he believed there was in him. Arriving at the camp Jim pulled off his coat and entered with spirit into the work, determined to prove to his father that he was a "chip off the old block." Shortly after arriving at the camp he had a falling out with big Tom Granger, one of the camp bosses, and the acknowledged bully of that section of the country.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1911-03-22
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Captured by Bedouins
1912-06-26
Captured by Bedouins
Overview: An American officer disguises himself as an Arab in order to rescue an American woman kidnapped by Arab tribesmen.
Genres: Adventure
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1912-06-26
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The Fight for Freedom
1908-07-17
The Fight for Freedom
Overview: In a saloon in a Mexican border town, a group of cowboys, including a Mexican named Pedro, play poker. One man is discovered cheating, and is shot dead by Pedro, who is wounded as he attempts to escape. Pedro is followed home by the local sheriff, who proves the next victim of Pedro's quick temper and pistol. Pedro's wife, Juanita, is thrown into jail, but he manages to break her out. They head for the border, unaware that a posse is waiting for them.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1908-07-17
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Tragedy of the Desert
1912-07-01
Tragedy of the Desert
Overview: An English doctor based in Egypt finds his wife in the arms of a local diplomat, and in a madness-induced frenzy departs for the desert. After being discovered by wandering Bedouins, Dr. Cochran embraces their practices and begins to fall in love with Zeinab, the daughter of a Sheik. Tragedy ensues when his forgotten wife visits the village and beckons him to take her back.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1912-07-01
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The Wives of Jamestown
1913-01-10
The Wives of Jamestown
Overview: The romance between Bryan O'Sullivan and Lady Geraldine is broken when he unjusily suspects that she is unfaithful. He sails for America, and, becoming a colonist at Jamestown, Virginia, takes the name of John Pierce. Lady Geraldine's castle is besieged by Cromwellians, and, after suffering many vicissitudes, she is sent with others to be sold as wives to the Jamestown colonists. Pierce proves of timely assistance to Geraldine in her hour of trial and both forget the unhappy past when lo e claims its own.
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-01-10
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Lady Peggy’s Escape
1913-02-08
Lady Peggy’s Escape
Overview: A group of English Soldiers take the Home of the Fitzgeralds from its rightful owners, and force the daughter Peggy to stay and entertain them. A resourceful girl she escapes but is pursued
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1913-02-08
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The O'Neill
1912-01-12
The O'Neill
Overview: An exiled patriot returns home, disgusted by the poverty of his countrymen he becomes a highway man
Genres: Drama Romance History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1912-01-12
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