Excuse My Dust (Silent)

Legendary race-car driver "Toodles" Walden has won three world championships and set the record driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco, but with a wife and young son he's traded his racing goggles for a desk job at his father-in-law's company. His restlessness is compounded when he suspects sabotage from within the organization. A family emergency forces Toodles to get behind the wheel again for the same drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco, but this time it's not a matter of winning or losing but, life or death.

Wallace Reid was one of Hollywood's first screen superstars, starring in such blockbusters as D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). Excuse My Dust is actually a sequel to The Roaring Road (1919), and the role of the infant Toodles Walden Jr. is played by his real-life son, Wallace Reid Jr.

During the filming of The Valley of the Giants (1919), Reid was badly injured and given morphine so that he could continue working. His mounting dependency on narcotics, combined with heavy drinking, proved too much for the screen heartthrob and he died at the age of 31. Despite being awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, his story is the quintessential show-biz tragedy.

Excuse My Dust was one of the first films directed by legendary Sam Wood (1883-1949), who later made A Night at the Opera (1935) and A Day at the Races (1937) with the Marx Brothers, Our Town (1940), and Pride of the Yankees (1942). He received Oscar nominations for directing Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), Kitty Foyle (1940) and Kings Row (1942) and is widely reported to have done some second-unit work on Gone With the Wind (1939). In 1960, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

BONUS: Includes the 1913 silent film Speed Kings starring Mabel Normand, Ford Sterling, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle.

• silent