page_title: Emilie Johnson
section_title: 1928
hierarchical_section_title: Emilie Johnson / Hollywood decade / 1928
caption_attribution_description: English: Lobby card for the film The Shield of Honor (1927).
context_page_description: Emilie Johnson was a Swedish-American author, scenarioist and movie producer. She was the mother of American actor, director, producer, and writer Emory Johnson. In 1912 he dropped out of college and embarked upon his new career in the movie business. Emory started working for Essanay Studios as an assistant camera operator.
  In 1913, Emilie and her husband moved from San Francisco, California to Essanay company bungalows in Niles, California to support her son. In 1915, she started writing stories for the screen.
  In the 1920s, Emilie Johnson and her son became famous as the only mother-son directing/writing team in Hollywood. She wrote all of the stories and screenplays her son used for his successful career in directing melodramas. The Johnson team continued producing melodramas until the late twenties. By the early thirties, their string of successes had ended. Emilie died in Los Angeles, California in 1941. She was living with her son at the time of her death.
context_section_description: In February, Universal released The Shield of Honor. Emilie wrote the story. This film starts out when veteran policeman Dan MacDowell and his son Jack are honored at an event celebrating the addition of an airplane to the police force. Jack will become the plane's first pilot. Gwen, the daughter of a wealthy jeweler, christens a plane. Jack and Gwen immediately fall in love. Her father asks Jack to help him solve the jewel robberies of his customers. Jack investigates and narrows the search to Gwen's father's business partner. Another robbery is committed, and Jack knows who did it. Jack and his father jump into the police plane, pursue the criminals and fight a night air battle. The jewel thieves are captured. Jack and Gwen live happily ever after.
  After completing three fairly successful movies for Universal, the Johnson team jumped ship, reneged on their eight-picture contract and signed with another company. Emory and his mother negotiated a new contract with Poverty Row studio Tiffany-Stahl Productions.
  Major chunks of 1929 were spent with Emory trying to reunite with Ella Hall and repair their marriage. Because they had lost Alfred Bernard in 1926, Emory and Ella decided to have one last child. Emilie's granddaughter Diana Marie (Dinie) was born in October 1929.
caption: Lobby poster
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