Alias Jimmy Valentine
| Alias Jimmy Valentine | |
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Publicity still of William Haines released for the film
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| Directed by | Jack Conway |
| Written by | Sarah Y. Mason A. P. Younger (adaptation) Joseph Farnham (intertitles) |
| Based on | "A Retrieved Reformation" by O. Henry Alias Jimmy Valentine by Paul Armstrong |
| Starring |
Lionel Barrymore William Haines |
| Music by | William Axt |
| Cinematography | Merritt Gerstad |
| Edited by | Sam Zimbalist |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Loew's Inc. |
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Release date
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Running time
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88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language |
Silent English dialogue (part-talkie version) |
Alias Jimmy Valentine was a 1928 American crime drama film directed by Jack Conway, and starring William Haines, Leila Hyams, Lionel Barrymore, and Karl Dane. The film is based on the O. Henry story "A Retrieved Reformation", which was turned into the 1910 play Alias Jimmy Valentine by Paul Armstrong. The play toured in travelling production companies making it extremely popular. It was revived on Broadway in 1921.
Released on November 15, 1928, the film was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's first partially talking film. It was completed as a silent film before Irving Thalberg sent back Lionel Barrymore and William Haines to repeat their performances for the last two reels with sound.
Two previous film versions were made in 1915 and in 1920 at the old Metro Studios with Bert Lytell. This film is now considered lost, with parts of the soundtrack surviving on Vitaphone disks.
Jimmy Valentine is the alias of an infamous safe cracker who has just been sentenced to prison for four years for his crimes. He does not stay locked up for long, though, as he is released after ten months. When he is released, he packs his state of the art, custom robbery tools and commits several more robberies. Ben Price, the detective who put him away the first time is called to the case, but although he knows it is Jimmy (because of the style the crimes were committed with) he cannot find him. Jimmy has actually fled and he is currently in the small town of Elmore, Arkansas, with plans to rob the local bank there.
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