Biography
From Wikipedia Edmund Breese (June 18, 1871 – April 6, 1936) was an American stage and film actor of the silent era. Long on the stage with a varied Broadway career before entering movies he appeared with James O'Neill in The Count of Monte Cristo (1893), The Lion and the Mouse (1906) with Richard Bennett, The Third Degree (1909) with Helen Ware, The Master Mind (1913) with Elliott Dexter, the popular World War I era play Why Marry? (1917) with Estelle Winwood & Nat C. Goodwin and So This Is Lo...
Known For
Complete Filmography

Broadway Bill
1934
as Presiding Judge
Tycoon J.L. Higgins controls his whole family, but one of his sons-in-law, Dan Brooks, and his daughter Alice are fed up with that. Brooks quits his j...

Lost in the Stratosphere
1934
as Col. Brooks
Two military pilots are close friends, and share in a lot of hazardous missions while engaging in a series of good-natured romantic rivalries. But whe...

Treasure Island
1934
as Pirate of the Spanish Main
In this early film adaptation of the classic novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, young Jim Hawkins is caught up with the pirate Long John Silver in searc...

Return of the Terror
1934
as Editor
"The Terror", a killer whose identity is unknown, occupies an English country house that has been converted into an inn.

Come On, Marines!
1934
as General Cabot
"Lucky" Davis, a ladies-man and a devil-may-care U. S. Marine Sergeant, is leading a Marine-squadron on an expedition through a Phillipine jungle wher...

Dancing Man
1934
as J.C. Trevor
A dancing gigolo gets involved with a wealthy lady and her young step-daughter, and murder is the result.

Beloved
1934
as Maj. Tarrant
Story about four generations in a family of musicians.

Above the Clouds
1933
as Crusty
Robert Armstrong stars as Scoop Adams, an ace newsreel cameraman whose love affair with the bottle all but destroys him professionally. Scoop manages ...

Duck Soup
1933
as Zander
Rufus T. Firefly is named president/dictator of bankrupt Freedonia and declares war on neighboring Sylvania over the love of wealthy Mrs. Teasdale.

Female
1933
as Board Member (Uncredited)
Alison Drake, the tough-minded executive of an automobile factory, succeeds in the man's world of business until she meets an independent design engin...

Only Yesterday
1933
as Investor (Uncredited)
On the back of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, a young business man is about to commit suicide. With the note to his wife scribbled down and a gun in h...

A Man of Sentiment
1933
as John Russell Sr.
A man and woman fall in love at first sight, but everyone in their universe tries to keep them apart except one old fool with a sentimental heart.
Trying Out Torchy
1933
as Mr. Ellins
The final entry in the Torchy short series starring Ray Cooke as things go wrong at a gathering.
How to Break 90 #6: Fine Points
1933
as Himself
The ultimate Bobby Jones golf series reaches its climactic conclusion on board a speeding train to oblivion.

Laughing at Life
1933
as Cabinet Officer
Easter, a soldier of fortune and gunrunner, leaves his family behind escaping from the authorities and an American detective named Mason. His globe ho...

Fighting With Kit Carson
1933
as Matt Fargo
In this Western, comprised of 12 chapters from a serial, Kit leads a group carrying a large gold shipment across the wild West. When the Mystery Rider...

International House
1933
as Doctor Wong
Foreign investors converge on a luxury hotel in China to bid on a new kind of radioscope. But, this is a hotel where Burns and Allen are the in-house ...
Torchy Turns Turtle
1933
as Mr. Ellins
One of those gangs of Arab spies who use to infest Wall Street in their colorful native costumes steals a super-secret bomb formula from Edmund Breese...

On Your Guard
1933
as Prison Warden
An ex-con makes for a backwoods town intending to rob the bank, and becomes involved in protecting three orphans from land swindlers instead.
Torchy's Kitty Coup
1933
as Edward (Hickory) Ellins
Dot Farley is throwing a benefit for cats but hasn't any. This means she calls up her husband, Edmund Breese, to bring some. He being busy with busine...

The Billion Dollar Scandal
1933
as Mr. Haddock
An ex-convict working for a wealthy oil baron uncovers trouble while his brother becomes involved with the boss's daughter.

The Match King
1932
as Olaf Christofsen
Unscrupulous Chicago janitor Paul Kroll uses deceit to fund a return trip to his homeland of Sweden. There, via ongoing continuing deceit and manipula...

Madame Butterfly
1932
as Cho-Cho's Grandfather
Pinkerton marries Cho-Cho San in Japan, whilst on shore leave. When he leaves, she keeps his Japanese home as he left it. He returns three years later...

Women Won't Tell
1932
as Attorney for the Defense
A homeless woman living at the city dump hears of the death of a wealthy industrialist and puts in a claim on his estate for her daughter, who is actu...

The Golden West
1932
as Sam Lynch
Lovers David Lunch and Betty Summers are caught in the feud between their two families. When David kills the Summers son, he escapes to the West. He m...
Torchy Rolls His Own
1932
as Mr. Ellins
In the eighth of the series of short sound comedies, Ray Cooke as the office boy 'Torchy' is thought to be a whiz at polo -- don't ask; in these short...
Torchy's Busy Day
1932
as Hickory Ellins
Edmund Breese, Ray Cooke's boss, is trying to buy a sausage factory. However, the cash hasn't come through, so he sends an insulting telegram to the o...

The Cabin in the Cotton
1932
as Holmes Scott
Sharecropper's son Marvin tries to help his community overcome poverty and ignorance.
Two Lips and Juleps; or, Southern Love and Northern Exposure
1932
as Colonel Shelby
The story is set in the final days of the Civil War and spies from the North and the South. And, in the midst of this, a Yankee falls in love with Sou...

Drifting Souls
1932
as Brad Martin
A pretty young lawyer discovers that her father needs an expensive operation to save his life. She goes to a nearby city and takes out an ad offering ...

The Hurricane Express
1932
as The Secretary's Father
The Wrecker wrecks trains on the L & R Railroad. One of his victims is Larry Baker's father. Baker wants to find the evildoer, among a host of suspect...

Alias Mary Smith
1932
as Mr. Hayes
A young woman trying to obtain proof that a gangster committed a murder is befriended by a playboy who drinks just a bit too much.
Torchy's Two Toots
1932
as Hickory Ellins
When his boss goes out of town on a big deal and leaves important securities behind, it's up to office boy Ray Cooke to get them to him tout suite.

As You Desire Me
1932
as Friar
Bar entertainer Zara is a discontented alcoholic who is pursued by many men but lives with novelist Carl Salter. One day, Tony shows up on Salter's es...
Torchy Raises the Auntie
1932
as Mr. Ellins
Ray Cooke's employer needs to raise $100,000 to retain control of his company. He hopes to get them from his cousins. When the old ladies show up, the...

Young Bride
1932
as Mr. C. B. Chadwick the Broker
A newlywed discovers her husband is a cheating phony.
Torchy's Night Cap
1932
as Hickory Ellins
Ray Cooke is Torchy the Office boy, told to deliver a letter; through a series of accidents, he winds up with the letter torn and can't explain it to ...

Love Bound
1932
as J.B. 'Lucky' Morrison
A gold-digging woman wins a big settlement against an older married man, which threatens to destroy the man's family. His son, discovering that the wo...

Police Court
1932
as Judge Robert Webster
A once great stage and screen actor has fallen from fame because of his alcoholism; his young son is determined to see his father "make good" again.

The Reckoning
1932
as Doc
Two young lovers caught up in the underworld decide to get out and go straight, but a gang leader has other plans for them.

Cross-Examination
1932
as Dwight Simpson
Defense Atorney Gerald Waring uses great skill and ingenuity in his efforts to save the life of a young man charged with the murder of his father. Wit...
Torchy Turns the Trick
1932
as Hickory Ellins
When he bother can't take Dorothy Dix to a fancy dinner, office boy Ray Cooke escorts her. He also has a chance to win a contract for the business by ...

The Hatchet Man
1932
as Yu Chang
When he's forced to kill his best friend, a Chinese hit man adopts the man's daughter.

Mata Hari
1931
as Warden
A semi-fictionalized account of the life of Mata Hari, an exotic dancer who was accused of spying for Germany during World War I.
Torchy Passes the Buck
1931
as Mr. Ellins
Torchy (Ray Cooke) is an office boy....sort of like a secretary that does a variety of tasks for the boss. Well, when the boss is out one day, a frien...

Platinum Blonde
1931
as Conroy
Anne Schuyler is an upper-crust socialite who bullies her reporter husband into conforming to her highfalutin ways. The husband chafes at the confinem...

Morals for Women
1931
as Mr. Hutson
A desperate woman turns to prostitution but is saved by true love.

Chinatown After Dark
1931
as Le Fong
The female head of a criminal gang in Chinatown is after a valuable jewel, and lets nothing stand in her way of finding it.
Torchy
1931
as Hickory Ellins
Fired from his job as office boy, Torchy gets involved with a phony gold mine promoter.

The Public Defender
1931
as Frank Wells
A mysterious phantom who calls himself The Reckoner vows to expose the crooked bankers who embezzled their company's funds.

Defenders of the Law
1931
as Capt. Bill Houston
A gang of racketeers, with the aid of a high-ranking city official has control of a big-city, and the police plant an undercover cop to gather evidenc...

The Good Bad Girl
1931
as J.P. Henderson
A woman's former association with a gangster threatens to destroy her marriage to an upstanding young man.

Young Sinners
1931
as Trent
The reckless son of a millionaire struggles to find a positive outlook on life, so he turns to a hard-nosed trainer for help.

The She-Wolf
1931
An unprincipled female financier tries to get even with a rival railroad buyer.

Millie
1931
as Defense Attorney
After a tumultuous first marriage, Millie Blake learns to love her newfound independence and drags her feet on the possibility of remarriage. The year...

The Painted Desert
1931
as Judge Matthews
Western pardners Jeff and Cash find a baby boy in an otherwise deserted emigrants' camp, and clash over which is to be "father." They are still bitter...

Chiselers of Hollywood
1930
Three sisters come to Hollywood to be movie stars. Complications arise when two of them fall in love with the same man.

Tol'able David
1930
as Hunter Kinemon
Tol'able David is a 1930 sound film directed by John G. Blystone and produced and released by Columbia Pictures. It is a remake of a famous 1921 silen...

Kismet
1930
as Jawan
Hajj, a rascally beggar on the periphery of the court of Baghdad, schemes to marry his daughter to royalty and to win the heart of the queen of the ca...

Playboy of Paris
1930
as General de Karodek
Yvonne, daughter of Philibert, a Paris cafe owner, is in love with dreamy, blundering Albert, a waiter, though he pays little attention to her. Philib...

Bright Lights
1930
as Franklin Harris
A successful Broadway star ready to retire from her wild career announces her engagement. But her tumultuous past isn't done with her yet.

Top Speed
1930
as Spencer Colgate
An order clerk poses as a millionaire.

The Sea Bat
1930
as Maddocks
The sister of a sponge diver killed by a stingray loves an escaped convict posing as a priest.

Rough Waters
1930
as Captain Thomas
A police dog helps to track down two payroll robbers.

The Czar of Broadway
1930
Mort Bradley, New York political boss and underworld czar, controls not only the city's most popular nightclub but also much of the press; however, th...

All Quiet on the Western Front
1930
as Herr Meyer
When a group of idealistic young men join the German Army during the Great War, they are assigned to the Western Front, where their patriotism is dest...

Hold Everything
1930
as Pop O'Keefe
A man is mistaken for a champion fighter.

In the Headlines
1929
as Eddy
A tough newspaper reporter and his pretty assistant are investigating a double murder, and soon find themselves the targets of the as yet unknown murd...

The Hottentot
1929
as Ollie
The Hottentot is a lost 1929 American pre-Code film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Edward Everett Horton and Patsy Ruth Miller. It is based on ...

Girl Overboard
1929
as Jim Keefe
A young man is sentenced to prison for a term of eight years, yet he's allowed out if he promises not to get married for those eight years, lest he be...

Sonny Boy
1929
as Thorpe
Sonny Boy's parents are in the midst of a bitter divorce when the boy's mother talks her sister into kidnapping him because she is terrified that her ...

Fancy Baggage
1929
as John Hardin
In order to get back some very important papers from her father's business rival, a young woman pretends to be the rival's new secretary. Complication...

Conquest
1928
as William Holden
Two pilots are in love with the same girl. On a flight over the Antarctic, the plane suddenly spins out of control and crashes into a snowbank. One of...

On Trial
1928
as Judge
A man is put on trial for the murder of his best friend. A young attorney wants to become successful and decides to defend him. However, he is very in...

The Haunted House
1928
as Uncle Herbert
Four heirs to a family fortune are summoned to appear at the family estate for the reading of the will, where they meet the estate's staff, which incl...

The Wright Idea
1928
as Mr. Filbert
A chipper young inventor seems to have a stroke of good luck when an eccentric millionaire gives him a yacht as a gift… but the “millionaire” is reall...

The Perfect Crime
1928
as Wilmot
A police inspector "solves" a crime that, in fact, may not have occurred at all.

Burning Daylight
1928
as John Dossett
Elam "Burning Daylight" Harnish is a prospector who makes a million dollars in the Dawson, Alaska gold rush and loses the million dollars in Dawson. H...

Finders Keepers
1928
as Hastings
Silent military comedy whose only print exists in the Library of Congress.

Back to Liberty
1927
as Tom Devon
Tom Devon, alias Reginald Briand, is the mastermind behind an organization of gentlemen thieves, including Jimmy Stevens and Rudolph Gambier. Jimmy fa...

Paradise for Two
1927
as Uncle Howard
Steve Porter, a young American bachelor and fully intending to remain as such, inherits a fortune but must get married in order to claim it.

Stepping Along
1926
as Prince Ferdinand Darowitsky
Johnny Rooney is a fast-stepping young politician and Molly Taylor is an even faster-stepping showgirl in "George White's Scandals" in a tale of New Y...

The Brown Derby
1926
as John J. Caldwell
Tommy Burke, a good-natured young plumber who refers to his monkey wrench as his pipe organ, is unaware of his inferiority complex. One day he learns ...
The Highbinders
1926
as Mike Harrigan
Author David Marshall is sandbagged by holdup men and loses his memory. He finds his way to a bookshop run by his friend Ladd, who takes him in with t...

Womanhandled
1925
as Uncle Lester
Bill Dana, a New York City playboy, can't resist the flaming flappers and red-hot mamas along the Great White Way, so he decides to head out west to h...
The Live Wire
1925
as Sawdust Sam
The Great Maranelli, a stunting circus clown, falls instantly in love when he sees Dorothy Langdon, who does not think too much of him and lets him kn...
The Early Bird
1925
as The Great La Tour
An idealistic milkman, Jimmy Burke, organizes the independents to combat the milk trust. Jimmy discovers that George Fairchild is conspiring to poison...

Those Who Judge
1924
as Henry Dawson

The Speed Spook
1924
as Chuck Brady
An auto racer driving through a small town finds himself tangled up in a local political controversy, an election and a mystery that surrounds a suppo...

The Sixth Commandment
1924
as Col. Saunders
John Brant, a devoted minister, is in love with Marian Calhoun, but must keep it a secret because she is engaged to Robert Fields. However is playing ...

Damaged Hearts
1924
as Innkeeper
Orphaned as children, David and his sister are sent to live with separate families, where both are abused, and his sister dies. Filled with hostility,...
Restless Wives
1924
as Hobart Richards
1924 picture directed by Gregory La Cava.

Three O'Clock in the Morning
1923
as Mr. Winthrop
Impulsive flapper Elizabeth Winthrop, rebels against her parents and moves to New York after breaking with her fiance, Clayton Webster. Hugo Von Stroh...

Bright Lights of Broadway
1923
as Reverend Graham Drake
An innocent country girl who happens to have a lovely singing voice falls under the influence of a ruthless Broadway producer. At first she's dazzled ...

Jacqueline, or Blazing Barriers
1923
as Edmund MacDonald
Jacqueline Roland, the daughter of a backwoodsman, meets Henri Dubois during a visit to the city, but is unresponsive to his attentions. Henri later t...

Luck
1923
as Alan Crosby
A young man is bet $100,000 that his famous luck can hold out and he can make that sum in one year's time, literally starting with nothing. He proceed...

Sure-Fire Flint
1922
as Johnny Jetts
Sure-Fire Flint, an energetic chap just returned from wartime military service, meets June De Lanni, the girl of his dreams, while working as a cabdri...

Beyond the Rainbow
1922
as Insp. Richardson
Marion Taylor is secretary to Edward Mallory, a wealth Wall Street businessman. She supports her invalid brother Tommy, who has been told by his docto...

A Man's Home
1921
Theatre Play
Frederick Osborn is too busy to tend to his family duties and his wife Frances feels neglected. But Frederick's attention is caught when his wife take...

Burn 'Em Up Barnes
1921
as King Cole
Car racer Burn 'em Up Barnes, son of a wealthy manufacturer, leaves home to make his own way in the world. After being robbed by hoodlums, Barnes join...

Chains of Evidence
1920
as Judge Frank Sturgis
Edith Sturgis, the daughter of a judge, returns from studies abroad to find her widowed father remarried. The new Mrs. Sturgis does not reveal that sh...

Someone Must Pay
1919
as Charles Bryant
Broker Henry Taylor is furious at the attention his wife Regina receives from Charles Bryant, an elderly bachelor. When he comes home one night and fi...
An Honorable Cad
1919

The Master Crook
1918

The Weakness of Strength
1916
as Daniel Gaynor
Through a real estate purchase Daniel Gaynor acquires all rights in the waterway leading from Moose River to the mill. The original owner has never ma...

The Spell of the Yukon
1916
as Jim Carson
Having forced Jim Carson to leave town in order to avoid a trumped-up embezzling charge, now Albert Temple is rid of his only serious rival for Helen,...

The Lure of Heart's Desire
1916
as Jim Carew
Socialite Ethel Wyndham turns down Jim Carew’s marriage proposal because of his working-class status causing him to go prospecting in the Yukon. He st...

The Song of the Wage Slave
1915