Monta Bell
2 credits on HibingeTV
American film director, producer, and screenwriter, born in 1891. He began as a journalist and actor before moving into directing at MGM, where he made a string of sophisticated silent comedies and dramas. His best-known films include Lights of Old Broadway (1925) with Marion Davies and the original The Awful Truth (1925). He was known for his polished, witty approach to romantic material.
Directed
Drama, Romance
Marion Davies plays twins separated at birth in this Monta Bell directed comedy-drama: one raised in a wealthy Dutch family, the other in the tenements, who grows up to be a musical-comedy star. The film uses the dual role to contrast old-money respectability with the rough energy of the immigrant streets, and the two worlds collide when the twins fall for the same man. Davies, a gifted comedienne whose talents were often overshadowed by her relationship with William Randolph Hearst, gets to show her range. The film includes early Technicolor and Handschiegl color sequences. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.
Drama · Romance · Comedy · Silent
Lights of Old Broadway
1925 - Drama
Drama, Romance
A 1926 American silent romantic drama directed by Monta Bell, and the first American film starring Swedish actress Greta Garbo. Based on the novel Entre Naranjos by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, the film follows Leonora (Garbo), a peasant girl who falls in love with Don Rafael Brull (Ricardo Cortez), the son of landed Spanish aristocrats. His mother disapproves and dispossesses Leonora's family. Leonora goes to Paris and becomes a famous opera singer, while Rafael stays home and becomes engaged to another woman. When Leonora returns, Rafael saves her life during a flash flood and their passion reawakens — but duty and family intervene. Produced by Irving Thalberg for Cosmopolitan Pictures, the film launched Garbo's legendary Hollywood career.
Drama · Romance
Torrent
1926 - Drama