The love story of an abused English girl and a Chinese Buddhist in a time when London was a brutal and harsh place to live.
Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.
The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.
In Depression-era West Virginia, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.
When Letty Mason relocates to West Texas, she finds herself unsettled by the ever-present wind and sand. Arriving at her new home at the ranch of her cousin, Beverly, she receives a surprisingly cold welcome from his wife, Cora. Soon tensions in the family and unwanted attention from a trio of suitors leave Letty increasingly disturbed.
The neighbors of a frontier family turn on them when it is suspected that their beloved adopted daughter was stolen from the Kiowa tribe.
A naive country girl is tricked into a sham marriage by a wealthy womanizer, then must rebuild her life despite the taint of having borne a child out of wedlock.
Called "the first lady of the silent screen," Lillian Gish was the archetypal silent film heroine — the delicate damsel in distress, stranded on a swift-moving ice floe, cowering before a sadistic brute. The film showcases generous footage of her most memorable performances. In this Emmy-award winning documentary, the celebrated actress reflects on her life and work spanning the 20th century, particularly her years as D.W. Griffith's favorite leading lady and collaborator.
Beautiful half-breed Pearl Chavez becomes the ward of her dead father's first love and finds herself torn between her sons, one good and the other bad.
A mysterious girl inspires a struggling artist.
A grounded American fighter pilot is switched to espionage on a special job in which he must kill a small-time Paris lawyer suspected of double-crossing France by selling out radio operators to the Nazis.
There were more women directors before 1920 than at any other time in history. The first director to put a narrative story on celluloid was, Alice Guy Blaché in 1896. Few people know that Lillian Gish became a director in her own right in 1920. Ida Lupino directed over a hundred episodes of "Have Gun, Will Travel," "Thriller," "Gunsmoke," and many independent features.
Lem Siddons is part of a traveling band who has a dream of becoming a lawyer. Deciding to settle down, he finds a job as a stockboy in the general store of a small town. Trying to fit in, he volunteers to become scoutmaster of the newly formed Troop 1. Becoming more and more involved with the scout troop, he finds his plans to become a lawyer being put on the back burner, until he realizes that his life has been fulfilled helping the youth of the small town.
A parody of D. W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation", "I Am Not a Racist" rearranges the scenes of the classic movie and recreates its dialogues to criticize the racism in it and also in the world today. Freemenville is a little city somewhere in the USA. A city ashamed because of its past of slavery, but proud of being the first in the country to end it. There is an annual ball to celebrate this fact. And this year's ball may be the biggest ever, because of the possible presence of a big celebrity, who is coming to town to see the premiere of a play. However, the play happens to be D. W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation", a racist work that starts a series of events exposing the racism that still exists in the city, culminating in the recreation of the KKK.
Susie secretly loves her neighbor, William Jenkins, but neither, it seems, can confess their feelings for each other.
France, on the eve of the French Revolution. Henriette and Louise have been raised together as sisters. When the plague that takes their parents' lives causes Louise's blindness, they decide to travel to Paris in search of a cure, but they separate when a lustful aristocrat crosses their path.
A man recognizes the thief who had previously robbed him as one of the men involved in an unrelated mob shootout.
Muffin's wedding to Dino Corelli is to be a big affair. Except the ageing priest isn't too sure of the ceremony, only the families actually turn up as the Corelli Italian connection is suspect, security guards watch the gifts rather over-zealously, and Dino's grandma expires in bed just as the reception starts. Could be quite an occasion.
Michael Burgess is an academic who has written a scholarly book on the American Revolution which Hollywood has bought the film rights to. The arrival of the film crew seriously disrupts him as actors want to change their characters, directors want to re-stage battles, and he becomes infatuated with Faith who will play the female lead in the movie. At the same time, he is fighting with his crazy mother who thinks the Devil lives in her kitchen, and his girlfriend who is talking about commitment.
Two aged sisters reflect on life and the past during a late summer day in Maine.
Angela Chiaromonte is the daughter of a wealthy Italian prince who is killed in a fall from his horse. Though Angela stands to inherit half of a large estate, her older half-sister burns the will and thus inherits everything herself, throwing Angela into poverty. Fortunately, Angela is engaged to marry dashing Captain Giovanni Severi - but he soon is captured by Arabs while on an expedition to Africa. Believing him dead, Angela, dedicating her life to his memory, becomes a nun, unaware that her lover has escaped his captors and is returning to Italy. The dramatic climax takes place against a backdrop of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
In Renaissance Florence, a Florentine trader meets a shipwrecked stranger, who introduces himself as Tito Melema, a young Italianate-Greek scholar. Tito becomes acquainted with several other Florentines, including Nello the barber and a young girl named Tessa. He is also introduced to a blind scholar named Bardo de' Bardi, and his daughter Romola. As Tito becomes settled in Florence, assisting Bardo with classical studies, he falls in love with Romola.
A documentary of Hollywood's first great Latin Lover, the contradictions in his personal life, and his premature death.
Patients and staff at a posh psychiatric clinic clash over who chooses the clinic’s new drapes – but drapes are the least of their problems.
Calumny is one of the most despicable crimes against our neighbor, and while the wife in this story acted conventionally, she nevertheless maligned the other woman simply because of her profession, an actress. While out on a shopping tour, the wife and her husband enter a store, leaving their little child in the auto in the care of the chauffeur. This gentleman pays but scant attention to the child, so the little one wanders off and strolls into the stage door of a theater during the matinee. The parents upon their return to the auto discover the child's absence and trace him to the theater stage, where they find him in the arms of one of the show girls. The mother matches the child from the girl's arms, scornfully exclaiming, "How dare you contaminate my child with your touch?" For this remark, together with the derisive laughter it occasions, the girl vows to be avenged.
In Puritan Boston, seamstress Hester Prynne and kindly Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale fall in love. After Dimmesdale must go away for a time to England, he returns to discover that Hester has given birth to their child and is the focus of local censure.
As the husband leaves for the lumber regions, his wife gives him a memory message to be opened after his arrival. Attracted by a maid, cherished by the love of two old brothers, he forgets it until sometime later. The message serves its purpose, however, for through it, after a thrilling experience, the maid learns the true value of the man's love, while he in his turn, goes back to his waiting wife and finds there, along with his shame and regeneration, his heart's desire.
Knocked down by an automobile, the intoxicated tramp is taken to the doctor's house, received and treated to a square meal. The husband of a patient has just died, calls on the doctor, intending to kill him. The grief-crazed man is foiled several times by the return of the tramp, whom the maid at last pushes out of the house. She hears the doctor struggling with his assailant and faints. The tramp hears the doctor's cry for help and enters by a rear window, despite the objections of a policeman, in time to save his benefactor.
The thief was clever and he forged around the girl's sweetheart a chain of circumstantial evidence that seemingly had no flaw. The girl's faith was great and in unraveling the mystery the detective she engaged used the scientific methods of today, making a brilliant detective story.
The brothers choose between love and gold. The three brothers sought the gold regions. The fourth chose to be a stay-at-home. He sought just love, and love was his reward: in the happiness of two old parents and the heart of a sweet girl. But those in the gold regions, each for himself, seeking just gold, found their ill rewards in the sordid earth of the Bad Lands.
Called away on a deal, the ranchero left the foreman in full charge of the round-up. That was the opportunity the stranger and his accomplice were seeking. The girl's determination to recover the money at all costs resulted in a daring rescue on the part of the young foreman, who registered another triumph at the final round-up.
It is house cleaning time. Mother-in-law leaves, but insists that husband must be put to work, but husband hires a man, while he goes fishing. Our hero substitutes himself for the cleaner and appears to rob the lady of her silver. He is kept too busy, and later proves a hero in spite of himself by rescuing the fair young housewife from the drunken cleaner, who walks in late.
The young wife only reflected her aspiring mother's teaching. Her one ambition seemed to be for display and to keep her reputation as a woman of fashion. The husband's first weakness in fearing to tell her that the source of her power had gone, resulted in a second, a near-theft, nevertheless incriminating. Through it came the lesson.
From the dungeon where the lean beasts prowled, Hassan Bey summoned from her young lover's arms the old rug maker's daughter. Still she was obdurate. In his madness, he had poisoned his other love with the deadly sting of a serpent. His fury spent, he fell from bey to man, and sought to atone according to his light.
"The Hunchback" earns a scanty living as a tinker, traveling from house to house, but on account of his deformity, there is no one who cares for him. Although a great lover of children, they flee at his approach. Taking pity on a little girl whose doll has been broken, he spends all his earnings to replace her plaything, and in consequence, the people with whom he boards, order him out. Tired and despairing, he gets, unobserved, into a freight car, and is carried to a western mining town. There the wanderer finds friends in a miner and his little girl. An accident renders the little girl fatherless, and the hunchback brings the child to womanhood. As the years pass the cripple grows to care for his ward, but when he tells her of his love, he finds that it is not returned. The girl falls in love with a young prospector, and the jealous hunchback seeks to take his life, and then weakens in his resolve. Later the prospector is in deadly danger and the hunchback decides to let him die.
Hounded by the press for shooting a doctor, an ousted Los Angeles policeman works his own case.
The physician's death orphans his two adolescent daughters. Their older brother is able to convert some of the doctor's small estate to cash. But it is late in the day, and with the banks closed he stores the money in his father's household safe. The slatternly housekeeper, aware of the money, enlists a criminal acquaintance to crack the safe. She attempts to get into the adjacent room where the sisters tremble in fear, but finds that the door is locked. The drunken housekeeper menaces them by brandishing a gun through a hole in the wall.
A young couple struggle to get ahead, the wife always assuaging the troubles of her melancholy husband. As he climbs the ladder of success, he abandons the homely values and begins an affair with a beautiful woman. His wife leaves him, returning to her mother's home where she bears a child. When the husband is abandoned by his lady friend, remorse drives him to find his wife.
Griffith adapts the story of the Apocryphal Book of Judith to the screen. During the siege of the Jewish city of Bethulia by the Assyrian tyrant Holofernes, a widow named Judith forms a plan to stop the war as her people suffer in starvation, nearly ready to surrender.
A gentle widower with a small daughter finds his peaceful small rural village suddenly invaded by Nazis and, enraged in short order by their atrocities, becomes the leader of an aggressive underground movement.
Seamen Enoch Arden returns home after a long absence marooned on a desert island. At home he finds his wife married to another, and though he loves her, he cannot bear to disrupt her current happiness.
Two young girls are sent away to live with their uncle, which sets off a chain of events resulting in an Indian attack on the town.
A group of starving artists try to survive in 1830s Paris, including a seamstress and the would-be playwright she loves.
In this handmade film, composed of more than four thousand collages, the actress Lillian Gish is seamlessly appropriated from silent-era cinema and plunged into a new and haunting role. NIGHT HUNTER evokes a disquieting dreamscape, drawn from allegory, myth, and archetype.
To fulfill a dying mother's bequest for her daughter, the town pastor purchases the daughter a stylish hat, and gossip spreads through the town.
An elderly woman searches for her lost dog. Director Roy Watts' 1984 drama stars Lillian Gish, Timothy Bottoms, Candy Clark, O. J. Simpson, Alan Hale Jr. and Jack Carter.
A two-reel comedy featuring Corliss Palmer, First Prize Winner of the 1920 Fame and Fortune Contest, and over 1000 other girls. Also showing the other winners, gold medalists, and Honor Roll girls of that memorable contest. Look them over and see if you think the judges acted wisely in selecting Corliss Palmer and Allene Ray as the best.
Based on the screenplay by Mel Dinelli, this story revolves around Helen Warren, a beautiful mute girl, who becomes the target of a mysterious killer who preys on young handicapped women.
A lonely young woman lives with her strict father who forbids her to wear make-up. One day at an ice cream social, she meets a young man you seems interested in her. However, unknown to her, he is a burglar who is only interested in breaking into her father's house. One night she is awakened by a noise.
Priam Farrel is a celebrated artist but a social recluse. When his valet dies of a sudden illness, a mix-up leads to the body being identified as Farrel's. The timid artist then assumes the identity of his former servant, but finds himself faced with constant dilemmas as a result.
John Logan leaves his parents and sweetheart in bucolic Happy Valley to make his fortune in the city. Those he left behind become miserable and beleaguered in his absence, but after several years he returns, a wealthy man. But his embittered father, not recognizing him for who he is, plans to murder the newly-arrived "stranger" for his money.
It's love at first sight for the Boy, but obstacles— namely shyness, and the temerity of other suitors— place themselves in the way of his love. Unknowingly, the Boy and the young woman of his fancy both stay at the home of mutual friends— But all is not well, as robbers lurk outside the house.
In this latter day Cain and Abel story, a jealous brother strikes down his sibling just as a young burglar is about to enter the house. The jealous brother summons police, who then charge the intruder with murder.
A princess is forced to choose between a charming tutor and a rakish prince.
John Howard Payne leaves home and begins a career in the theater. Despite encouragement from his mother and his sweetheart, Payne begins to lead a life of dissolute habits, and this soon leads to ruin and misery. In deep despair, he thinks of better days, and writes a song that later provides inspiration to several others in their own times of need.
A group of youngsters grow up and love in a peaceful French village. But war intrudes and peace is shattered. The German army invades and occupies village, bringing both destruction and torture. The young people of the village resist, some successfully, others tragically, until French troops retake the town.
Young Nellie Jarvis, daughter of a wandering couple, witnesses the murder of a woman by a man and his wife. Years later, "Little Miss Yes'm", as Nellie is known, returns to the area as an orphan. Locals Mr. and Mrs. Hilton, though poverty stricken, take her into their family. Fully integrated with the loving Hiltons, she wishes to relieve them of their financial strain. Nellie travels to a nearby farmhouse to gain employment from depraved Martin Cain and his paranoid wife.
The story of the famous battle between the Scots clans of Macdonald and Campbell, and the young woman who comes between them, Annie Laurie.
To the dismay of Allison Edwards, her bookworm, adoring neighbor, Mary Randolph, falls in love with and marries Jack Van Norman, a rich and handsome former football star. After a few months of marital contentment, Jack becomes infatuated with Rose, an exotic dancer.
In this WW II musical, a young man suddenly finds himself in charge of his family when his father is called to war. To help the flagging spirits of local factory workers, the plucky lad, his siblings and his schoolmates put on a lively little show. With a little work, he even convinces Count Basie to come with his band.
A Duel for Love is a 1914 dramatic short.
This shows the regeneration of a gang leader, who remains true to his first sweetheart after his change of fortune.
A student nurse falls in love with a young intern in 1910 Baltimore, but tragedy ensues when he contracts a fatal disease.
American and British tourists get caught up in political unrest in Haiti.
Philip de Mornay, a courtier in the French royal court of the 18th century, falls in love with Daphne La Tour, the daughter of a nobleman. Knowing that her family would never approve of their marriage, he takes her and hides her in a brothel, but is soon captured by pirates. Soldiers looking for women to bring with them to a settlement across the ocean in Louisiana raid the brothel and take the girls, including Daphne. Later on the trip to the new world their ship is attacked by pirates--and she discovers that her lover Philip is on board the pirate ship.
Adventurous Huck Finn prefers rafting on the Mississippi River rather than being a part of civilization.
This special is the second "Night of 100 Stars" to benefit The Actors Fund of America. Edited from a seven-hour live entertainment marathon that was taped February 17, 1985, at New York's Radio City Music Hall, this sequel to the 1982 "Night of 100 Stars" special features 288 celebrities.
When Dorothy's Southern, aristocratic father Colonel Raleigh refuses to let her marry Forbes Stewart, a Northern gambler, the couple elopes. When Dorothy soon thereafter becomes pregnant, Forbes vows to reform, but authorities arrest him on a gambling charge, and he serves a year in prison. During that time, and just before the birth of the baby, a woman comes to Dorothy and claims to be Forbes' wife. Stunned, Dorothy returns to her father, but the colonel throws her out, and so, on her own, she has her baby, whom the community believes to be illegitimate. Convinced that she has sinned, Dorothy is about to kill herself when Forbes, just out of jail, finds her and explains that the other woman simply had been an ex-sweetheart trying to win him back.
Phillips Christy an amateur sociologist from a wealthy family, subscribes to the theory that people are shaped by their environment. When he falls in love with Diane, a showgirl from the follies, he sees a chance to prove his theory, but fate intervenes .......
Two sisters are separated when their parents divorce.
Evelyn Dare is a butterfly of fashion. David Westebrooke, her fiancé, is an altruist interested in sociology. He has made his home in the factory town of Oreville, where he works as factory manager. He takes her to their home in the factory town and there orders his housekeeper to take away her useless clothes and to supply those befitting the wife of a factory manager. Trouble lies ahead.....
Jim Young of Youngstown, Pennsylvania, reads of the German war atrocities and decides to enlist in the British army, thus becoming a forerunner of the American forces that are subsequently to leave for the battlefields of Europe. He begins active training at a camp outside London. While enjoying a few hours of leave, he meets Susie Broadplains , a young woman from Australia. She is flattered by his attentions and their friendship soon blossoms into love. However German plotters plan to destroy an arsenal at night and Sir Roger is inveigled into driving an automobile along a London road with its lights turned skyward to guide the Zeppelins. Jim, wounded and home on furlough, detects Sir Roger on the lonely road, follows and traps him in his cottage. Sir Roger turns his pistol on himself rather than be taken alive. Susie finds the "great love" in service for the cause of democracy and her country, with a greater love in sight.
A lost film. Leo Peret has a small quiet tobacco shop in Greenwich Village. Edward Livingston, a wealthy young clubman and man-about-town, comes in frequently ostensibly to buy cigarettes but in reality to talk to the daughter Jeannette, and he is soon in love with the little shop girl. Leo is homesick for his native France, but lacks the funds to make the passage. Edward, learning of their plight, sends $1,000 with a note saying that the money is payment for a good deed. Leo accepts the money and he and Jeannette embark at once.
Suspected of theft, the Indian was discharged on the ranch-hand's accusation, but the foreman's suspicions against the hand were confirmed in time to reinstate the Indian. In gratitude the Indian captured the thief with the ranchero's money and saved the girl as well.
The unwilling dupe of her step-father, she became the decoy of the wealthy young man, but at the crucial moment she saved both herself and the young man and thus ended the game of the badgers.
Carl Behrend, son of a wealthy businessman, marries Pauli Arndt, daughter of a pacifist professor. When World War I breaks out, Carl is drafted. Pauli and her family and friends are left behind to experience the suffering which befell civilians during the war. Her luck worsens when her father is dismissed from his professorship for teaching that war is evil. Her father argues violently with Carl's father, and degradation and despair descend on Pauli and her family as they await Carl's return from the front.
This documentary traces the life and work of the legendary "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford, silent film star, movie pioneer and keen businesswoman. Pickford's life also parallels an even larger story, telling of the birth of the cinema itself.
The film's subject is a photograph of Jane Fonda visiting Hanoi during the Vietnam War. It asks what the position of the intellectual should be in the class struggle and points out the irony of Jane Fonda's participation in the photo shoot, which was staged.
Documentary portrait of Henri Langlois, co-founder of the Cinémathèque Française.
A poor Russian girl's beauty leads her unscrupulous uncle to bring her to the United States. There he is going to sell her into a marriage with a rich old man she has never met. But her lover, an returning immigrant visiting Russia from the U.S., sails on the same ship. When they arrive he learns, to his surprise, that the American police, unlike those of his native country, are not oppressors of the poor, but friends that will aid in securing the release of his beloved Marfa.
Two part biography of Greta Garbo - 1. The Temptress 2. The Clown. Reminiscences of her early life in Stockholm, with excerpts from her films. Narrated by Bibi Andersson.
Lillian Vale is the naïve and unworldly daughter of minister Josiah Vale. Swept off her feet by handsome Robert Powers, Lillian marries him, unaware that he is constitutionally incapable of fidelity. Led astray by vampish Hattie Lee, Powers follows his new paramour to the Big City -- the first of several bad decisions which culminate in disaster for the errant hero.
Intimate views of the movie stars of the Silent Era, at work and play; featuring Sessue Hayakawa, Lillian Gish and others.
Instead of buying bonds, Lillian buys new clothes. Then she has a dream that her home has been invaded by German soldiers, and her family has been taken away. Two officers enter her room and as she struggles to get away she wakes up. Her relief is so great that she puts all her money in Liberty Bonds.
Behind the scenes short documentary about the cast and crew during the filming of The Comedians.
Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala.
In the span of five years, pioneering director D.W. Griffith delivered some 450 films for the Biograph Company at a rate of two or three films per week. One and two reels in length, these works showed the filmmaker inventing, borrowing, and perfecting techniques he later used to memorable effect in "The Birth of a Nation," "Intolerance," "Way Down East" and "Orphans of the Storm." Including Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Mary Pickford, Mack Sennett, Lionel Barrymore, Henry Walthall, and Mae Marsh. Among the 22 titles included on this landmark release are such widely recognized masterworks as "The Musketeers of Pig Alley," "The Battle at Elderbush Gulch," "The New York Hat," and "A Corner in Wheat."
The supposition was that she was born a tease, for from her first teeth to the time she was almost grown, she vented her witcheries on her unsuspecting parents and the wild things of her mountain home. But that was before the man from the valley lost his way and later found it back again, bearing away the little tease to the valley. While she suffered the qualms of broken faith, her father passed through a like struggle, for he felt the precepts of the "beloved book" had failed him. He closed the door of his cabin upon the world and the light from his window, lighting the wayfarer over the mountain path, disappeared. The struggle over, it came hack in its place in time to beckon the little tease as she left the valley behind.
Short documentary about Charles Laughton's 1995 film "The Night of the Hunter," with interviews with the cast and crew.
A drama critic learns on his wedding day that his beloved maiden aunts are homicidal maniacs, and that insanity runs in his family.
The careers of D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin are chronicled culminating in the formation of United Artists and 1919.
Frank Andrews is a successful businessman. He has always found pride and joy in the company of his wife, son and daughter. He suddenly finds himself enthralled by the advances of a gay young woman siren, who lives in the same apartment house as he does. So marked an influence does she have over him as time progresses that at last he quite forgets his home ties, neglects his family, and goes the way of many other men who have forgotten the meaning of paternity and blood ties. The story is advanced through many scenes enacted with the accompanying notes of New York's night life, and the denouement comes when the faithful wife discovers her husband's infidelity. At this time the mother's mind nearly loses balance, while Jane, the beautiful daughter, crazed by the grief of her mother, determines to take part in the tragedy. With revolver in hand she steals up to the apartment of the woman, but her frail nature is overcome by the temperamental anger of the woman and her mission fails.
The story of Swedish silent film actress Sigrid Holmquist's life (1899-1970), by using the silent film medium. It consists of already existing film clips from the 1910s and 20s. Sigrid is played by eight different stars from her era, and she also plays herself. Sigrid Holmquist was born in Borås, Sweden and her stubborn spirit led her to become a movie star in Scandinavia and Hollywood before retiring from the movies in 1926. An experimental film project.
Daughter of the owner of a shoe store rebels against her father by marrying one of his employees.
A farmer has saved all his life to pay for his daughter's wedding, but when his brother is fired from his job on the oil rig, the wedding must be postponed and the money put to the more pressing need. The farmer, now himself destitute, is forced to put his house up for sale to repay his creditors. Meanwhile, a man from the oil syndicate discovers oil on the farmer's land. Moving quickly, the syndicate tries to buy the farm before the farmer knows what he is selling. -Harpodeon
Documentary about the life and legend of Sarah L. Winchester, heiress to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company who, after the death of her husband and only child moved to San Jose, California and constructed non-stop what came to be known as the Winchester Mystery House during the last 38 years of her life. The film traces Mrs. Winchester's life from her marriage into the wealthy Winchester family, whose family business supplied many of the repeating rifles sold to the United States Army during and after the Civil War and follows her eccentric life in California where, according to legend, she was advised by a mystic to provide shelter for spirits of the victims of her husband's rifles or follow him to an early grave. It provides point-of-view shots of the interior and exterior of the rambling Victorian mansion.
The first talkie was directed by Alice Guy, the first color film was produced by Lois Weber, who directed more than 300 films over 10 years. Frances Marion wrote screenplays for the Hollywood Star Mary Pickford and won two Oscars, Dorothy Arzner was the most powerful film director in Hollywood. And what do all of them have in common? They are all women and they have all been forgotten. Incredibly, it also took until 2010 for the first woman, Kathryn Bigelow, to win the Oscar for Best Director. Even if underrepresented women have always played a big part in Hollywood and it is this part of the film history left untold that this documentary sets out to uncover.
Ossie Davis narrates a history of "race films," films made before 1950 which catered to a primarily black audience.
A teacher falls in love with a student, and deals with the reactions of the people around her.
The question is, would the young tramp really have fallen in love with the groceryman's daughter if he had not caught her in the heart struggle? Be that as it may, she could not find it in her to drown the unwelcome visitor to the pantry, so she let it go and the silent little drama witnessed by the tramp greatly impressed him. Not so the strict aunt, she declared the whole thing to be in exact accordance with everything else in the family. Their hearts ran away with their heads. That was why they lost money on credit, could not pay off the mortgage and send the sick sister to a better climate. As for the tramp, they had no business to take him in. He could not pay for his keep. But the tramp surprised them all.
A nostalgic look at film clips from the Silent era.
A widower and his two daughters live in the wilds of the north woods. They form the acquaintance of two trappers, Bob Cole and Jim Watson, who hunt in the neighborhood. As fate will have it, both trappers love the same girl, the elder sister, but she loves Bob, while the younger girl is attracted by Jim. The elder girl, however, through a woman's whim, pays marked attention to Jim simply to arouse jealousy in Bob. He, in temper, cannot reason her motive and leaves, so through pique she accepts and marries Jim. Later Bob revisits the place, feeling that the girl loves him best, and tries to induce her to go away with him. He finally succeeds and, as you may imagine, fate brings about justice.
Everything he did seemed to be misconstrued, except by the little lady he loved. The town roisters made fun of her and his love. That made trouble and the chief vigilante believed him the cause of it all. So he was "in wrong" all around. The girl's father also sided with the opinion of the world, and sent both the boy and girl away. Mother was on a visit at the time, and therein the need of such a one at home was proved, for once back she sent the father out to bring them home again. The boy in the gold hills had been misunderstood again. Marauding merchants had left their victim on the mountain pass and the boy, coming on the scene, was again accused, but the lie in the end destroyed itself.
The bored clubman sought the excitement of the street. The husband, believing himself neglected for his child, left his home. There in the back saloon seeking shelter from the storm, the two met the demi-monde. The clubman displayed his enticing work of art, when to their surprise a picture of the Madonna and child confronted their view. The storm over, they went forth into the sunshine of the world.
Jim Miller lives in a cheap tenement with his wife and his sister. They had been in a better position in other days, but Jim has developed into a morose half-drunken character, suspicious and high-tempered. The sister leaves her own husband and comes to live with Jim. However, she is jealous of her sister-in-law and goes out of her way to be mean to her, and to poison Jim's mind against the weak, pretty thing who is his wife. One day Jim gets out of a job and while he is out looking for work and the sister is away at her work in the factory, Mary, the wife, steals out determined to add to the common share, while her husband is in hard luck. She finds work painting clay figures, an art for which she shows some talent. But she is afraid of Jim's wildness and as soon as she collects money she secrets it for a rainy day. One day after she has worked hard and hoarded some money, the sister comes in unexpectedly upon her, and when Mary goes out of the room finds the money in an old vase.
Captain Lanning and Lieutenant Osborne are stationed at an army post in the Philippines. Lanning conceives a deadly hatred toward Osborne when the latter wins Gladys, General Fields' daughter.
Kitty, the pretty young wife of a Texas businessman, feels neglected and unwanted as her husband pays more attention to his business interests than he does to her and spends more and more time away from home. A handsome young neighbor notices her emotional state and decides to try to take advantage of it. In her confused and lonely condition, Kitty finds herself attracted to the man and begins to think about running away with him.
After Gasper La Sage and his cohort, Blink Blunk, are released from prison, they make plans for another robbery. The scheme, which requires La Sage to pose as a gentleman, fails. Blunk is arrested, but La Sage goes free. Some time later, La Sage goes to England where he blackmails Lt. Hugh Butterworth, an officer who misappropriated money intended for the widow of a fellow officer, and who owes La Sage money for gambling debts. As payment, La Sage wants Hugh to arrange for him to marry Eleanor, Hugh's sister. Hugh tells his friend Lord Chumley about La Sage, however, and Chumley is able to learn about La Sage's past when he overhears Blunk, now out of jail, threaten his former friend. After La Sage intensifies his suit for Eleanor, Chumley is finally able to discredit him by tearing open his shirt and revealing the mark of the prison. With La Sage out of the way, Chumley and Eleanor announce their engagement as do Hugh and his faithful sweetheart, Jessie.
Nettie is beloved by all the boys in the mining camp. Magoon, a big, jovial miner, loves her most of all, however, and asks her to become his wife. Nettie is in love with Colter, a young Easterner, and though it pains her to do so, tells Magoon of the fact. Magoon leaves town to become sheriff of the adjoining county. A murder is committed in the mining camp, and Colter is unjustly accused. Nettie rescues him from jail and sends him to Magoon. The sheriff with admirable self-sacrifice hides his rival, and, when the posse arrives, points out what Nettie has done for the boys of the mining camp. Colter is released, and all the boys escort him back to Nettie.
Set in London (but filmed in New Jersey), the story endeavors to prove that man's greatest enemy is liquor. When elderly tosspot John Warriner is shot for trespassing, Warriner's son holds property owner Sir Arthur Stanton. Thus begins a bitter and deadly feud between the Warriner and Stanton clans, fueled by rotgut booze.
The Tear That Burned is a silent movie drama.
A picture from the short story of Ellen Farley in "The Cavalier," and screened by John O'Brian. The story is of a girl who tries to be an author and has the usual fate of such. The new interest comes when she enters the home of the publisher because the policemen won't let her sit on the park benches and she wants to hide out of sight of them. She is starving and there is fruit on the table which she eats, but when the "burglar" comes she feels in duty bound to protect the place from him; it is the publisher, and from this meeting the two young people fall in, it always happens in fiction, why say it? But even with this ending the offering has much to commend it. Able direction and good acting give it atmosphere and it will go all right.
May and her younger sister, Carol, live in a small town. May is the more lovely of the two, but Carol is wooed by Frank, a country boy. George, a city man, comes to town on a visit, falls in love with Carol and wins her away from Frank. Carol is pleased with his attentions and poor Frank is brokenhearted. Calling one day to see Carol, George meets May and falls madly in love with her, and finally runs away with her and they are married. Carol, in despair, turns back to Frank and they are married, and a year later a baby is born.
Before his niece and ward, Dosia Dale, comes of age, her uncle, who has spent her entire fortune, must think of a way to account for his actions. He proposes marriage, and when Dosia indignantly refuses him, he conspires with his evil friend, Dr. Protheroe, to do away with her. Declaring Dosia insane, the two men lock her up in the doctor's insane asylum, but she manages to drop a note from the window. Her plea for help is found by a reporter named Ford, who feigns insanity in order to gain admittance to the asylum. Dr. Protheroe becomes suspicious of Ford and locks him up with Dosia, whereupon Ford, knowing that his friend Cuthbert will notify the police if he and Dosia do not emerge safely by twelve, barricades the door and waits. In a furious battle with the police and the militia, Dosia's uncle and Dr. Protheroe are killed and the house set ablaze, but Ford and Dosia escape, leaping from the roof into a fire net below. All danger passed, Ford and Dosia become engaged.
Royal Macklin, a cadet at WEst Point, is discharged for a misdemeanor, and the father of Beatrice, Macklin's sweetheart, order her to break the engagement. Macklin goes to Honduras, in the midst of a revolution, and joins the Patriot army of General LaGuerre in the fight against Alvarez and his rebels. Macklin proves his valor in battle and saves the life of General Laguerre. But Beatrice and her father, having found that Macklin was innocent of the charge that caused his dismissal, are in Honduras and have been captured by Alvarez.
A girl tends a garden planted with symbolic flowers: red roses for lust and white roses for love. Daddy Wisdom encourages the girl to cultivate the white roses instead of the red.
A woman has to live with a daughter in law who hates her and a son who does not dare take her side. While the unhappy family lives in a Houston apartment, Carrie Watts dreams of returning to Bountiful, where she was raised.
Identical twin brothers who own a detective agency hatch a plan to expose a phony group of psychics, but soon find themselves involved in a murder.
A potentially violent patient in an insane asylum is calmed when he hears a nurse playing the piano. But shortly afterwards he breaks free, eludes his pursuers, and acquires a gun. He soon comes to a house where a young wife is home alone, and there is a tense confrontation.
It was Christmas Eve in the south, but the spirit of peace and love did not pervade the northern girl's heart. The gallantry of the young southern swains, however, was more than manifest, when a drunken band of Unionists entered the house, among them her sweetheart. From him was protection needed most. His rival, a Confederate soldier, showed her that character is far above political principle, and true love came into its own.
The young lover leaving home at the opening of the war to join the Confederate Army, tells his brother to take care of his fatherless sweetheart during the perilous times which are to follow. But the brother weakens and fails to be true to his trust. He permits her to believe that her lover is dead. Caught in the neighborhood, however, between the lines of the enemy, the brother appears before them at the crucial moment. In retaliation the false brother turns informer. Both forces are aroused to arms and during the attack upon the girl defending her wounded lover and family alone in the negro's cabin retribution comes in the form of a stray bullet.
Roy Norris, a young author, proposes to pretty Mary Ford and is accepted. The first year or more of their married life is one of bliss, made all the sweeter by the arrival of their first-born. The little trio, father, mother, baby, are bound together by love, until unreasonable jealousy possesses the young couple. While at work in his studio, the young author is visited by his wife just as he is complimenting his stenographer on her valuable aid, and from this the wife sees grounds tor suspicion. On the other hand, the young husband, seeing his wife talking to a stranger, becomes suspicious.
When the double wedding takes two daughters away from the old man at once, the youngest, now the only one left, in outraged spirit promises never to leave her father, but soon she too is departing for a new home. Then comes a cold hard fact of life. The son-in-law claims his right to make a home alone for his wife. In his bitterness and anger, the father denies them both the house. Several years later the lonely old man meets at the gate a babe in arms. When he learns whose baby it is, heart hunger craves another sight, and sought, brings with it the only natural result.
A stage dancer (Sweet) and a serious-type homebody (Walthall) discover, after marriage, that their individual styles don't mesh. The movie includes elaborate dance sequences.
Just before she dies, an elderly married woman stashes the horde of money she's secretly accumulated beneath the false bottom of an old shipping trunk. After her death, her husband, believing himself penniless, has to leave their old home and move in with his son's family, where he's treated with no respect or consideration. Also on the scene is a newly-hired kindly young housekeeper. She and the old gentleman become close friends and eventually run away together (taking the old shipping trunk with them).
The Stolen Bride is a 1913 short drama.
An abusive father and husband attends a play one night and sees that the "villain" in the piece does to his family exactly what he is doing to his own family.
The buoyant energy of a modern woman who bobs her hair and dances to jazz is too often objectified and repressed by a figure like that of Robert Mitchum from Night of the Hunter.
New York, summer 1983. Jeanne Moreau goes to meet Lillian Gish to film a portrait of her. The star of American silent films invites her to her apartment and discusses her career from its beginnings on film in 1912. She remembers the conditions on stage when she was a child, the first Hollywood blockbuster, D. W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation (1915), and her passion for cinema guided by an inexhaustible curiosity.
The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The event, for which ticket-buyers paid up to $1,000 a seat (tax-deductible as a contribution to the Actors' Fund) was billed as "The Night of 100 Stars" but, actually, around 230 stars took part. And most of the audience of 5,800 had no idea in advance that they were paying to see a TV taping, complete with long waits for set and costume changes, tape rewinding, and the like. Executive producer Alexander Cohen estimated that the 5,800 Radio City Music Hall seats sold out at prices ranging from $25 to $1,000. The show itself cost about $4 million to produce and was expected to yield around $2 million for the new addition to the Actors Fund retirement home in Englewood, N. J. ABC is reputed to have paid more than $5 million for the television rights.
A rollicking compendium of the greatest hits of silent-cinema chase sequences
A TV special on the 100th anniversary of the birth of film.
"Lionpower from MGM" (1967) is an exciting 60's promotional short subject, which showcases MGM's releases for the 1967-68 film season under a "five seasons" theme--fall, winter, spring, summer--plus a "fabulous fifth season". The main music is set to the rousing theme from "The Magnificent Yankee" composed by David Raksin in 1950. The promo is narrated by some of the best voice-over actors of the time, and is an excellent time capsule of a by-gone era.
A short documentary about the making of D. W. Griffith's controversial 'The Birth of a Nation'.
This short features clips from silent films (mostly unidentified) of the 1910's, accompanied by humorous commentary. Highlighted are early appearances of stars still recognized today (e.g., Lionel Barrymore, Norma Shearer), as well as stars whose careers did not extend to the sound era (e.g., John Bunny, Edith Storey).