Behind the Front (Silent)

Pickpocket "Shorty" Ray swipes a watch from slow-witted cop "Riff" Swenson, who tails him into a sumptuous mansion. Inside socialite Betty Bartlett-Cooper is conducting a drive for recruits for the army. Betty is anxious to join the war effort overseas herself, but her father will only let her go if she can enlist 25 men in one day. She's currently at 23, so she uses her feminine wiles to hornswoggle Shorty and Riff into joining up. The pair are shipped off to France, where their bumbling antics almost cost the Allies the war. But when newly-minted Nurse Betty shows up on the front looking to provide first aid to wounded soldiers, Shorty and Riff wind up competing to see who can get injured first and end up in Betty's arms.

Behind the Front was the first of a series of highly successful wartime comedies that paired Wallace Beery and Raymond Hatton. The subsequent entries were We're in the Navy Now (1926) and Now We're in the Air (1927). By the last film, Beery and Hatton were so identified with their characters that they were referred to simply as "Wally" and "Ray" in the intertitles. Wallace Beery was already one of the biggest stars of the Silent Age, having appeared in major pictures like The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1920) and The Lost World (1925). His fame would only grow after sound was introduced, with unforgettable roles in Min and Bill (1930), The Champ (1931), and Treasure Island (1934). Hatton, for his part, was not as successful in the sound era, winding up in countless low-budget "B" westerns, most notably as Rusty Joslin in the "Three Mesquiteers" series. Cute as a button Mary Brian began her career as Wendy in 1924's version of Peter Pan just two years previous, and later starred opposite Gary Cooper in The Virginian (1929). Director Edward Sutherland made many movies during both the silent and sound eras, though he is perhaps best remembered today for his short-lived marriage to the iconic Louise Brooks.