Author Archive: Retro

A woman with a sordid past is redeemed by love in this silent melodrama from low-budget Sanford Productions. Margarita Darlow (Ligio Di Golconda) refuses a marriage proposal from David Orland (Gaston Glass), a young man about to leave for Paris. Earlier, Margarita had sought financial help from Edwin Ramsey (Wilfred Lucas), who had seduced her, put her up in his apartment as his “niece,” and “rented” her out to his equally unsavory friend Donald Gorham (Bryant Washburn). David forgives her, however, and Margarita follows him to Paris. Forced to work as a model, Margarita is confronted with her past by Ramsey, who blackmails her into returning with him to New York. On the verge of suicide, Margarita is rescued by Mary Cullen (Gladys Brockwell), Gorham’s tough but kindhearted moll. David, meanwhile, kills the nasty Ramsey in a duel.

Joe Laird (Carl Gantvoort) is a railroad clerk who works to support his lazy wife Gladys (Betty Brice) and their two young children. He gets a promotion as secretary to the company president and asks his mother May (Claire McDowell) to live with the family after she loses her home. May is a Christian Scientist faith healer who cures her grandson’s crippled limb. When his Joe’s boss’s daughter suffers back injuries from a fall, May is called on to pray for the girl’s health in this religious propaganda drama.

Outlaw is wounded on his last heist and is nursed back to health by a kindly miner and his pretty daughter. He tries to go straight, but his past catches up to him when two miners recognize him from a wanted poster.

Young woman waits anxiously for a letter from her missing lover. English titles.

Trainwreck near the Grand Canyon sends two couples three hundred years into the past. Dir. Cecil B. DeMille.

Chased by Detective Murray and the posse, a wounded Jim Drake heads across the border into Mexico where he recuperates with the Wolfe’s. When Murray arrives again, Jim heads into the desert. But in the night his guide sneaks off and leaves him without water or his horse.

Charles Murdock neglects his fat and lazy wife in favor of Juliet Raeburn but, when Juliet’s name is involved in murder, he marries Viola and takes her to Paris.

An American dancer on a tour of pre-Boleshevik Russia falls for a young army officer, and the feeling is mutual. However, the officer’s father is the Grand Duke of Russia, and he has designs on the girl himself–not letting a minor detail like his already being married bother him–and refuses to let his son marry her. Complications ensue.

During a vacation in the Alps, a famous surgeon’s neglected wife is wooed by an Austrian cavalry officer. Written by Erich von Stroheim. Dir. Erich von Stroheim.