Public Domain Movies
Black & White
Public domain feature.
Running Time: 60 mins Black & White
Starring: Theda Bara, Edward Jos?, Mabel Frenyear, Frank Powell, Creighton Hale.
The film that launched the "Vamp" genre. While away from his family on a foreign business cruise, a virtuous diplomat is seduced and controlled by a beautiful, heartless woman. Based on the poem "The Vampire" by Rudyard Kipling. Dir. Frank Powell.
Running Time: 60 mins Black & White
Starring: Mae Murray, Frank Borzage, Noah Beery, Hobart Bosworth, Richard Cummings.
Young woman & her family are saved from Indian attack by a Mormon community, but are forced into a world of bigamy, rape and suicide.
Running Time: 60 mins Black & White
Starring: Paul Wegener, Grete Berger, Lothar Koerner.
Early filming of the "Faust" legend, as a student sells his reflection to the Devil in order to get a beautiful girl. German titles. Dir. Paul Wegener.
Running Time: 61 mins Black & White
First feature version of tale.
Running Time: 58 mins Black & White
Starring: Carmel Myers, Rudolph Valentino, Charles Dorian
A married society couple (Dorian and Warren) persuade an unmarried pair (Valentino and Myers) to take their places at a party while they pretend to be the servants.
Running Time: 5 mins Black & White
Starring: Mary Pickford, William Scott
When an East Side working girl gets employment as a nightclub cigarette seller, she becomes involved with a wealthy young society fellow who takes a shine to her, until he realizes that her uncouth lower-class family is just not fit for his high-class circles.
Running Time: 44 mins Black & White
Starring: Francis Carpenter, Virginia Lee Corbin, Carmen De Rue.
To test his wife's fidelity, a wealthy man disappears after making his two children the chief beneficiaries of his will, and soon finds that his wife and brother are conspiring to kill the children for the money. Dir. Charles and Sidney Franklin.
Running Time: 70 mins Black & White
Starring: William S. Hart, J. Frank Burke, Clara Williams
After the bandit Jim Stokes robs the stage he is wounded fleeing. Recuperating at a ranch, he falls in love with and marries the daughter. Now wishing to go straight he tries to return the money but is recognized and captured. When the Sheriff then loses the recovered money at a crooked roulette table, he and Stokes strike a bargain.
Running Time: 70 mins Black & White
Starring: William S. Hart, J. Frank Burke, Clara Williams.
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.
Running Time: 62 mins Black & White
Starring: Old Badger, Bird Tail, Bear Claw
A feature about Native Americans with an all-Native American cast -- this was quite a concept in the silent era, when Caucasian actors played everything from African-Americans to Asians (and an often hired ethnic star, the Japanese Sessue Hayakawa, played everything from Latins to Indians). None of the actors are credited, but director John E. Maple (a Caucasian) is, as is the writer, W.E. Wing. The story is the kind of melodramatic fare that critics of the day referred to as "hokum," and about the only really interesting aspect of this romance is the cast. After purifying himself in a ceremony, Big Elk asks pretty Che-wee-na to be his bride. She accepts, but White Wolf, the son of the chief of a rival tribe, is determined to have the girl at any cost. Big Elk and White Wolf fight it out for Che-wee-na, and Big Elk wins. White Wolf gets revenge by kidnapping one of the squaws from Big Elk's tribe. In another raid, White Wolf and his men break into Big Elk's camp, kill some of the men and make off with Che-wee-na. The Indian maiden is about to be burned at the stake when Big Elk comes to her rescue. The couple are reunited and, presumably, live happily ever after.
Running Time: 60 mins Black & White
Starring: Hobart Bosworth, Grace Darmond, Lloyd Hughes
A widely respected deep-sea diver is approached by a ring of con artists who want him to be the front man for a phony scheme to recover gold from sunken ships. When he refuses, they send a sexy young woman to seduce his son, and then blackmail the father into going along with their scheme.
Running Time: 60 mins Black & White
Starring: Alice Brady, John Bowers
Betsy Griscome (Brady), against the wishes of her Quaker parents, keeps a tryst with a British officer, Clarence Vernon (Mayo), who promises to marry her upon his return. Clarissa (Cook), her sister, falls in love and marries Joseph Ashburn (Bowers), a trader. Suspecting Vernon of duplicity, Joseph and Vernon fight a duel and Vernon is struck down. A year later Betsy marries John Ross (Kennard), and upon his death she operates a little shop for a living. Here she shields her sister, who was driven from home when she could not produce her marriage certificate. Betsy is commissioned by General Washington (MacQuarrie) to make the first American flag and later is accused of harboring a spy - in reality, her sister's husband. The film ends happily when all relations are explained.
Black & White
Starring: Alice Brady, John Bowers
Black & White
Blacks' views on BIRTH OF A NATION. COLOR-TINTED.
Running Time: 67 mins Black & White
Starring: Sam DeGrasse, Francelia Billington, Erich von Stroheim, Jack Perrin.
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.
Running Time: 65 mins Black & White
Starring: William S. Hart, Robert McKim, Hart Hoxie.
Rugged lumberjack takes up residence at a hotel and immediately gets in trouble by beating the hotel owner at cards and stealing his girl. Dir. William S. Hart.
Running Time: 80 mins Black & White
Starring: Robert Frazer, Leslie Stowe, Jim Savage, Pinna Nesbit.
Social worker and soldier yearn for a society where all are equals. To cure his son of such idealistic views, the soldier's father sets up a commune on an island off the Florida coast to prove it could never work.
Running Time: 40 mins Black & White
Starring: Jack Fairbanks.
Early western with Jack riding the range and getting the girl.
Running Time: 74 mins Black & White
Starring: Egidio Candiani, Suzanne De Labroy, Mario Guaita-Ausonia
Running Time: 59 mins Black & White
Starring: Harry Carey, Fern Foster, Herbert Russell
A brutal, sadistic overseer runs a pearl-diving operation on a South Seas island and treats the natives terribly, torturing them and violating their women. A local native girl falls in love with him, despite his sadistic tendencies, and things come to a head when the locals can't put up with any more of his brutality and take matters into their own hands.
Running Time: 54 mins Black & White
Starring: Colleen Moore, Jack Gilbert, Charles Ray, Jay Morley.
Hick pitcher's quick rise in the baseball world turns him into a snob, and when he begins snubbing his home town friends, his pitching suffers and he gets sent back to the bush-leagues. Produced by Thomas Ince.
Running Time: 148 mins Black & White
Starring: Italia Almirante-Manzini, Lidia Quaranta, Bartolomeo Pagano
Three centuries before Christus. Young Cabiria is kidnapped by some pirates during one eruption of the Etna. She is sold as a slave in Carthage, and as she is just going to be sacrificed to god Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by both Fulvio Axilla, a Roman noble, and his giant slave Maciste. Maciste is captured just after having confided Cabiria to Sophinisbe's safe keeping, while Fulvio Axilla manages to escape from Carthage. Ten years went away with Punic wars before he is able to come back to Carthage...
Running Time: 59 mins Black & White
Starring: Fanny Ward
A venal, spoiled stockbroker's wife impulsively embezzles $10,000 from the charity she chairs and desperately turns to a Burmese ivory trader to replace the stolen money.
Running Time: 50 mins Black & White
Starring: Norma Talmadge, Alice Wilson, Jewel Carmen
Roy Somerville has turned out a rather interesting story that will hold the interest of the majority of audiences as produced by the Triangle-Fine Arts Company. It is a five-reel feature and was produced under the direction of C.M. and S.S. Franklin, with Norma Talmadge as the star. Cora (Norma Talmadge) is wedded to Arthur Vincent (Eugene Pallette) and there are two children. Vincent is the son of the president of a bank and is devoting the greater part of his time to Jane Courtenay, a cabaret dancer, who is willing to have him devote his time to her as long as he is a good provider. The wife, who has been sadly neglected, turns to her sister, who is wedded to Fred Brown, a young detective. His brother Charles, who works in the elder Vincent's bank as a cashier, lives with them. He was Cora's first love and has never quite recovered from the fact that she jilted him to wed Vincent because of his money. The cabaret dancer makes several demands on the young Vincent, who tries to borrow money from his father to meet them; failing to receive the loan he agrees to aid several friends of the cabaret charmer to rob his father's bank. After the robbery Charles Brown is accused of the crime and arrested. But the robbers are discovered in their hiding place, and in escaping all but one is killed. Cora is left a widow and the natural supposition is that she and Charles were happily married afterward. Just where the title comes in is hard to say, but the picture while not one of the best that has been produced at the Fine Arts, is one that will get by because it will particularly appeal to women.
Running Time: 69 mins Black & White
Starring: Alfonso Cassini, Giulia Cassini-Rizzotto, Signora Comastre
Running Time: 78 mins Black & White
Starring: Henry B. Walthall, Francis McDonald, William Clifford
A priest hears a murderer's confession but can't reveal the truth, even though his brother is being tried for the crime.
Black & White
Running Time: 55 mins Black & White
Starring: James O'Neill.
Classic tale of man who is torn away from his family and unjustly imprisoned for years before he can make his escape and realize his plans for revenge.
Black & White
Running Time: 50 mins Black & White
Produced by Thomas H. Ince. Sioux and Cheyenne tribes fight the white man.
Running Time: 53 mins Black & White
Starring: Alice Brady, Philip Hahn, Montague Love, Johnny Hines.
Russian court refuses to recognize a duke's marriage to a common ballerina, leaving her open to an assassination plot. She flees the country, giving her daughter to the matron of a Ballerina School to raise.
Running Time: 29 mins Black & White
Starring: Murdock MacQuarrie, Pauline Bush, Lon Chaney
Running Time: 63 mins Black & White
Starring: Orin Johnson, Dorothy Dalton, Walt Whitman, George Fisher.
Young D'Artagnan travels to France, befriends the Three Musketeers and must protect the monarchy from being discredited by the power hungry Cardinal Richelieu.
Running Time: 58 mins Black & White
Starring: Enid Bennett, Jack Holt, Donald MacDonald
Enid Bennett was given an excellent opportunity to show off her equestrian expertise in the lively western A Desert Wooing. When wealthy cattleman Bart Masters (Jack Holt) comes East, he falls in love with social butterfly Avice Bereton (Bennett). She marries Bart for his money, all the while promising to continue her romance with society doctor Van Fleet (Donald MacDonald). Bart knows what's going on behind his back, but he insists that Avice return with him to his ranch and at least make an effort to be a dutiful wife. At first completely useless (she can't even cook!), Avice comes to enjoy her new life, and by fadeout time she has forsaken Van Fleet -- who has turned out to be a louse anyway -- in favor of her roughhewn but essentially decent husband.
Running Time: 50 mins Black & White
Starring: Conrad Veidt, Leo Connard, Ilse von Tasso-Lind
Two male musicians fall in love, but blackmail and scandal makes the affair take a tragic turn.
Running Time: 33 mins Black & White
Starring: Charlie Chaplin
Charlie rescues a stray from other dogs, and together they meet Edna after finding a wallet full of cash.
Running Time: 63 mins Black & White
Starring: Pola Negri, Harry Liedtke, Emil Jannings
A girl is kidnapped and held captive in an ancient Egyptian temple. She is rescued and flees to England, but soon finds that her mysterious captor is still haunting her.
Running Time: 78 mins Black & White
Starring: Clara Kimaball Young, Gareth Hughes, Edmund Lowe, Rudolph Valentino.
Young woman gets help from an East Indian fortune teller as to which path she should take in life: to marry for money or for love, or to pursue a career in opera.
Running Time: 65 mins Black & White
Starring: Henry B. Walthall, Lon Chaney, Mary Anderson, Milton Ross.
Lone Wolf is commissioned by the British to find a German master spy who has set up headquarters in America. Dir. Carol Reed.
Running Time: 48 mins Black & White
Starring: Marie Dressler, Johnny Hines
On the third floor of the apartment house at 003 Findlet Avenue lived Mr. and Mrs. Henry Tinkelpaw. The neighbors said it was a shame the way he neglected his poor wife, but Tillie's avoirdupois seemed to belie the rumor. Directly above lived the Pipkins. In this case, however, it was the young wife whose numerous clubs called her frequently from her fireside, affording gossip for the neighbors. However, unmindful of the discussion of their affairs, Tillie continued to cook dainty dishes for her unappreciative husband, while Luella Pipkin found fault with everything her meek husband did to please her. For several weeks it happened that Tinkelpaw and Luella would accidentally meet at the door, and naturally would walk down the street together. However, on one occasion where Mr. Tinkelpaw had been less appreciative than usual, and departed leaving Tillie in tears, she went to the window, hoping he might relent and throw her a kiss. At the same time Luella was out of sorts on account of having lost at bridge, and when she left, Pipkin also went to the window to see if she had really gone. What they saw affected them like a cold plunge. Both of them wrote to their faithless mates informing them that all was over; and on starting out into the world met in the hallway. Each recognized in the other a kindred soul; so linking arms, they set forth. On Luella's return she found the note, and frantically started in search of her husband. Tinkelpaw had also found a similar communication; so together they left in search of the truants. After following a devious trail they came upon them as they were attempting to use a photographer's automobile as an ocean liner. As the bedraggled Tillie is enfolded in her repentant husband's arms she winks slyly at Pipkin who is being fondled by a much chastened Luella.
Running Time: 60 mins Black & White
Starring: Alice Brady, John Bowers
Betsy Griscome (Brady), against the wishes of her Quaker parents, keeps a tryst with a British officer, Clarence Vernon (Mayo), who promises to marry her upon his return. Clarissa (Cook), her sister, falls in love and marries Joseph Ashburn (Bowers), a trader. Suspecting Vernon of duplicity, Joseph and Vernon fight a duel and Vernon is struck down. A year later Betsy marries John Ross (Kennard), and upon his death she operates a little shop for a living. Here she shields her sister, who was driven from home when she could not produce her marriage certificate. Betsy is commissioned by General Washington (MacQuarrie) to make the first American flag and later is accused of harboring a spy - in reality, her sister's husband. The film ends happily when all relations are explained.
Running Time: 55 mins Black & White
Starring: Norma Talmadge, Thomas Meighan, A.E. Warren.
Chinese girl secretly marries a visiting American official and lives happily for years, but in his absence, her father offers her to the emperor's harem. Dir. Sidney A. Franklin.
Running Time: 72 mins Black & White
Starring: Francesca Bertini, Gustavo Serena, Carlo Benetti
Assunta and Michele are in love but others come between them and there is much jealousy. They fight and Michele is sent to prison for two years for assault. Nevertheless, because Assunta still loves Michele she is vulnerable when Federigo offers to help Michele but only if Assunta becomes his mistress. Michele is released early from prison, finds Assunta and Federigo together and kills Federigo. When the police arrive, Assunta takes the blame for Michele's crime.
Running Time: 80 mins Black & White
Starring: Norman Kerry
Running Time: 65 mins Black & White
Starring: Marion Davies, Norman Kerry, Matt Moore
Getting Mary Married was tailor-made to the talents of perky Marion Davies. The stepchild (Davies) of a millionaire is required by the conditions of a will to live with the family of her step-uncle, who makes life hell for the poor girl. She can't even find solace in romance, since she'll lose her legacy should she ever marry. At last deciding that she cares less for money than for happiness, our heroine defiantly weds. The upshot: the girl ends up as rich as Croesus, while her wicked uncle finds himself broke at fadeout time. The legend that all of Marion Davies' films were fiascoes doesn't stand up to such evidence as Getting Mary Married, which in addition to the sprightly performance of the star, boasts an excellent script by Anita Loos and John Emerson, and topnotch direction by the ever-reliable Allan Dwan.
Running Time: 60 mins Black & White
Starring: Adolph Lestina, Carol Dempster, Frances Parks
Story of two brothers who go off to France to fight in World War I, the women who love them and an American expatriate living in France who rallies behind his former country.
Running Time: 66 mins Black & White
Starring: Robert Warwick
Farm girl falls in love with a movie star shooting a film near her farm.
Running Time: 55 mins Black & White
Starring: Norma Talmadge, Ralph Lewis, Eugene Pallette, Carmen De Rue.
Reformed husband-and-wife criminal team are now respected and affluent members of the community, until a former associate threatens to expose them unless they help him pull one more heist. COLOR TINTED.
Running Time: 69 mins Black & White
Starring: Alfonso Cassini, Giulia Cassini-Rizzotto, Signora Comastre
Running Time: 80 mins Black & White
Starring: Doris Kenyon, Paul Gordon, Thomas Holding
A husband, mistakenly believing his wife has cheated on him and that he is now the father of their newborn son, throws both her and her child out of the house. Frantic to the point of madness, she abandons her baby, and when she gains her sanity she flees to Alaska to start a new life. However, her husband finds out and follows her there.
Running Time: 57 mins Black & White
Starring: Wallace Reid, Lila Lee, Harrison Ford
Following a big gambling win, a young man traveling through Europe lands in a tiny country where he romances the deposed leader's daughter, while single-handedly holding back the impending revolution. Adapted from a Broadway stageplay starring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., this film resembles Fairbank's own screen comedies.
Running Time: 1428 mins Black & White
Starring: Helen Holmes, Helen Gibson, J.P. McGowan
Kalem's serial The Hazards of Helen has been the source of controversy over the years, though mainly such controversy has attended as to whether or not it is truly a serial. With 119 episodes averaging 15 minutes apiece and an implied total running time of nearly a day -- though not all episodes survive -- The Hazards of Helen would rightfully take its claim as the longest movie serial of the silent period, and possibly of all time. The complication is that "Helen" did not use the device of a cliff-hanger ending; rather each episode was a self- contained story, more in line of what is considered a film series rather than a serial. However, in just about every other way it conformed to the format: Helen was the telegraph operator at Lone Point, a remote railroad switching station at which she operated seemingly as its only employee. For some reason Helen seemed to have more of her share of runaway locomotives, out-of-control boxcars and desperate bandits in the course of a day's work. Although in a few instances Helen was rescued by a hero, most often it was due to her own courage and pluck that she was able to save the day, usually with a skeptical male somewhere along the way being forced to eat his words about the capabilities of women in emergency situations. The first episode debuted on November 7, 1914 and the last opened in theaters on February 24, 1917. The main reason for The Hazards of Helen's long run was its great popularity; although The Perils of Pauline ultimately became the regarded archetype as far as silent serials went, The Hazards of Helen was actually more popular in its time than "Pauline." It was typified by excellent stunt work, done by future Western stars Hoot Gibson, Jack Hoxie, and True Boardman among others, not to mention star Helen Holmes herself, who did most of her own stunts. For episodes 1-49, Holmes portrayed the title role with one exception -- Anna Q. Nilsson covered for episode 18 while Holmes was ill. Helen Holmes ultimately married director J. P. McGowan in 1915 and they both founded Signal Films, a company that produced the kinds of railroad adventures in which Holmes specialized; for a time, she appeared in both the Signal films and the Helen serial. At Episode 50, the title role in The Hazards of Helen was finally taken on by Helen Gibson -- Hoot Gibson's wife, whose real name was Rose; she agreed to take on the "Helen" name professionally when she assumed the role for the serial's last 69 installments. Ironically, interest in The Hazards of Helen began to pull away from The Perils of Pauline in the early twenty-first century, mainly due to the independence of its heroine and its focus on methods of transportation (not just trains; in some episodes, Helen pedals an early motorcycle around) and machine-age technology. Unfortunately, not a lot has survived of the serial -- of Holmes' episodes, only Nos. 1, 3, 9, 13, 16, 20-21, 26, 31, 33, 39, and a fragment of 47 are known to exist. Of Gibson there is considerably less -- episodes 63, 69, 76, 106, and 108 are the only ones still viewable of the 69 entries she made. Perhaps, for posterity's sake, it's good that the storyline for each episode was self-contained. The most frequently seen episode of "Helen" is No. 26, "The Wild Engine," which was included in the More Treasures from American Film Archives collection and wass also available as a download from the Internet Archive.
Running Time: 65 mins Black & White
Starring: Robert Warwick, Gail Kane, Alec B. Francis, Henry West.
Story of Nathan Hale, a revolutionary who quickly rises through the ranks of the American militia, eventually becoming a spy against the British.
Running Time: 56 mins Black & White
Starring: George Fawcett, Tom Mix, Bessie Eyton, Frank Campeau.
Straight-shooting, hard-riding cowpoke falls hard for the daughter of a rugged cattle baron, but learns she has been kidnapped by an evil Mexican bandit.
Running Time: 72 mins Black & White
Starring: Norma Talmadge, Fred Huntley, Thomas Meighan
After the half-breed daughter of a Comanche chief falls for a young engineer who deserts her, she turns to a white Indian agent who marries her.
Running Time: 57 mins Black & White
Starring: William S. Hart, Clara Williams, Robert Mckim, Jean Hersholt.
Weak-willed Reverend is killed trying to clean up the lawless town of Hell's Hinges, making bad guy Hart go straight to avenge the murder. Produced by Thomas H. Ince. Dir. Andrew L. Stone.
Running Time: 21 mins Black & White
Starring: Hale Hamilton, Charles Murray, Slim Summerville
A stage-struck young woman becomes an heiress, and hopes to use her new-found wealth to fulfill a fantasy.
Running Time: 110 mins Black & White
Starring: William Farnum, Tom Santchi
The first of many filmed adaptations of Rex Beach's adventure novel of the Alaskan gold-rush.
Running Time: 65 mins Black & White
Starring: Stanley Hunt, Sarah Constance Smith Hunt, Mrs. George Walkus
In 1911, as part of his massive undertaking, famed Northwest photographer Edward S. Curtis travelled to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, to visit the Kwakwaka'wakw. By the next year, needing money for his project and to add to his research and still photography work, Curtis decided that the best way to record the traditional way of life and ceremonies of the Kwakwaka'wakw was to make one of the first feature motion pictures. Curtis had already shot footage in 1906 of the Hopi Snake dance, which he had previously showed during his talks, but this was to be on a grander scale. It took three years of preparation for this one film including the weaving of the costumes; building of the war canoes, housefronts, poles; and the carving of masks. Assisting on the film was George Hunt, a Kwakwaka'wakw who had served as an interpreter for the famous anthropologist Franz Boas nearly twenty years before. Hunt helped contribute substantial portions of the film's story as well. Selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, this early Native American drama/documentary released in 1914 is an amazing film produced in collaboration with the tribe members. The story of love and revenge among the Kwakwaka'wakw of British Columbia, Motana, the son of a great chief, goes on a vigil journey. Through fasting and hardships he hopes to gain supernatural strength which will make him a chief as powerful as his father. Curtis showcases the Kwakwaka'wakw's magnifcent war canoes, totem poles, rituals, costumes and dancing.
Running Time: 78 mins Black & White
Starring: George Beban, Clara Williams, J. Frank Burke.
Italian immigrant in the slums of early 1900s New York is beaten and robbed while getting medicine for his unhealthy baby. He is arrested for defending himself against his attackers, and swears revenge when his baby dies while he is in prison. Written and Produced by Thomas H. Ince. Dir. Reginald Barker.
Running Time: 138 mins Black & White
Starring: Geraldine Farrar, Raymond Hatton, Hobart Bosworth
A WWI English officer is inspired the night before a dangerous mission by a vision of Joan of Arc, whose story he relives.
Running Time: 45 mins Black & White
Starring: Rene Navarre.
Action serial about a mysterious black-hooded villain called Fantomas and Juve, the police inspector who relentlessly pursues him. English titles.
Running Time: 11 mins Black & White
Starring: Charles Chaplin, Henry Lehrman, Gordon Griffith
The Tramp wanders into and disrupts the filming of a go-kart race.
Running Time: 88 mins Black & White
Starring: Fernanda Negri Pouget, Eugenia Tettoni Fior, Ubaldo Stefani
Two love triangles intersect in ancient Pompei.
Running Time: 70 mins Black & White
Starring: Robert Alexander, George G. McMurtry, Charles W. Whittlesey
A battalion of the U.S. Army's 77th Division penetrates deep into the Argonne Forest of France during the First World War. The battalion becomes surrounded and holds out for six long days, awaiting reinforcement and rescue.
Running Time: 79 mins Black & White
In ancient Egypt, an evil priest drove a pure maiden to suicide. In today's reincarnation, to free himself the priest must find and help the maiden...now a young American singing student, Sunya Ashling, who is torn between pursuing a career in European opera, going to South America with fianc?e Paul, or saving her father from financial ruin by marrying wealthy Robert Goring. The ancient priest, reincarnated as a gypsy vagabond, grants her visions of her future life if she should follow each of the three roads. Does each have a fatal drawback?
Running Time: 86 mins Black & White
Starring: Brian Rix, Cecil Parker, William Hartnell.
Two identical Englishmen exchange places during WWII so that new German bombs being tested in France can be investigated.
Running Time: 110 mins Black & White
Starring: Thomas Meighan, Theodore Roberts, Gloria Swanson, Raymond Hatton, Lila Lee, Bebe Daniels.
Educated butler secretly loves his lord's daughter, while a scullery maid loves the butler, and shipwreck on a remote island further confuses the situation. Written by Jeanie Macpherson.
Running Time: 40 mins Black & White
Starring: Tom Mix, Bessie Eylon.
Mix is on the trail of his murdering brother-in-law in this compilation of early Mix shorts. COLOR TINTED. Dir. Joseph Kane.
Running Time: 48 mins Black & White
Starring: Victor Sjöström, August Falck, Edith Erastoff
Terje Vigen, a sailor, suffers the loss of his family through the cruelty of another man. Years later, when his enemy's family finds itself dependent on Terje's beneficence, Terje must decide whether to avenge himself.
Running Time: 71 mins Black & White
Starring: Vera Sisson, Rudolph Valentino, Frank Newburg
An already engaged young woman is blackmailed into marrying a count in order to save her father from imprisonment.
Running Time: 71 mins Black & White
Starring: Sam De Grasse, Allan Sears, Walter Long
The story of the defense of the mission-turned-fortress by 185 Texans against an overwhelming Mexican army in 1836.
Running Time: 93 mins Black & White
Starring: Mabel Normand, George Nichols, Wheeler Oakman, Minta Durfee, Lew Cody, Minnie Ha Ha.
Young orphan girl is brought up by her father's gold mining partner and is invited to stay with a rich aunt, but when the mine is proved to be worthless, the aunt forces the girl to become a servant. Watch for Edgar Kennedy as a bookie and William Colvin as the butler. Produced by Mack Sennett.
Running Time: 59 mins Black & White
Starring: Marguerite Clark, Mary Carr, Vivia Ogden
Mrs. Wiggs, a loving mother whose husband has abandoned her, supports her many children and lives in hope of her husband's return.
Running Time: 105 mins Black & White
Starring: Halbert Brown, Willard Dashiell, Louis Dean, Earl Schenk, Ann Dearing.
Propaganda film based on the autobiography of James W. Gerard, the U.S Ambassador to Germany from 1913-1917. Gerard assisted Nigh in direction, and reportedly had a clause in his contract which stated that the film could not be changed without his consent. Edited by William Nigh, who also has a bit part as a socialist. Dir. Elliot Nugent.
Running Time: 56 mins Black & White
Starring: William S. Hart, Sylvia Breamer, Milton Ross, Bob Kortman.
Tough cowboy with a troubled past hopes a good woman can save him, but he finds out she is being victimized by her uncle. Written by William S. Hart. Produced by Thomas H. Ince. Dir. William S. Hart, Lambert Hillyer
Running Time: 35 mins Black & White
Starring: Dorothy Gish, Wallace Reid, Erich von Stroheim, Raymond Wells.
Karl Heinrich, Germany's young, bored and lonely heir apparent, is sent to the University of Heidelberg where he becomes enamored with an innkeeper's daughter, but is forced to choose between love and duty. Written by John Emerson. Supervised by D.W. Griffith. Dir. Marcel Varnel
Running Time: 60 mins Black & White
Starring: Elliott Dexter, Florence Vidor, Sylvia Ashton
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.
Running Time: 62 mins Black & White
Starring: William S. Hart, Rhea Mitchell, Robert Edeson
A stagecoach robber falls in love with a saloon girl. However, she falls for a pastor, who converts her; she marries him. The robber is so impressed by this that he decides to turn over a new leaf. However, a shady gambler sets his sights on the former saloon girl, and the robber has to protect her from his advances.
Running Time: 29 mins Black & White
Starring: Murdock MacQuarrie, Pauline Bush, Lon Chaney
Running Time: 72 mins Black & White
Starring: Victor Sjöström, Edith Erastoff, John Ekman
A stranger comes to work at widow Halla's farm. Halla and the stranger fall in love, but when he is revealed as Eyvind, an escaped thief forced into crime by his family's starvation, they flee and become two of the many outlaws of Iceland's mountains.
Running Time: 60 mins Black & White
Starring: Constance Talmadge, Harrison Ford, Wanda Hawley
A Pair of Silk Stockings is a 1918 American silent marital comedy film starring Constance Talmadge and Harrison Ford. It was directed by Walter Edwards and produced and distributed by Select Pictures Corporation. The film is based on a 1914 Broadway play of the same name.
Running Time: 105 mins Black & White
Starring: Emil Jannings, Pola Negri.
French country girl uses love affairs to climb the social ladder, until she becomes a courtesan to King Louis XV. English titles.
Running Time: 56 mins Black & White
Starring: Frank Moore, Pierre Couderc, Fred Woodward, Violet MacMillan, Vivian Reed, Mildred Harris.
The Liquid of Petrification has been spilled, and Nunkie, Margolotte, and Dr. Pipt's daughter have been turned to stone! It's up to The Patchwork Girl and the Munchkins to find the ingredients for the antidote: a six-leafed clover, three hairs from a Woozy's tail and gill water from The Dark Well. Written and Produced by L. Frank Baum. Dir. J. Farrell MacDonald.
Black & White
Starring: Pearl White
Young Pauline is left a lot of money when her wealthy uncle dies. However, her uncle's secretary has been named as her guardian until she marries, at which time she will officially take possession of her inheritance. Meanwhile, her "guardian" and his confederates constantly come up with schemes to get rid of Pauline so that he can get his hands on the money himself
Running Time: 80 mins Black & White
Starring: Mae Marsh, Vernon Steele, Harry La Pearl
When circus aerialist Polly Fisher is injured, she is taken to the nearby home of minister John Hartley. The two fall in love and marry secretly. But when the news leaks out, the minister loses his pastorate over disdain by the parishioners for Polly's background as a performer. Polly must decide whether to stay with the man she loves or leave him for the good of his calling.
Running Time: 45 mins Black & White
Starring: Alan Hale, Lionel Barrymore.
A man falsely imprisoned through the testimony of the real criminal, and must be exhonerated by "the power of the press", a reporter who learns of his innocence.
Running Time: 45 mins Black & White
Starring: Sarah Bernhardt, Lou Tellegen.
Story of love, adultery and vengeance in the court of the Queen.
Running Time: 55 mins Black & White
Starring: John Barrymore, Frederick Perry, Nigel Bruce, Frank Morgan, Evelyn Brent.
Exploits of a thief and his run-ins with Scotland Yard, as well as with the wealthy citizens of London. Dir. Otto Brower and Breezy Eason.
Running Time: 50 mins Black & White
Starring: Henry B. Walthall, Warda Howard, Ernest Maupain, Eleanor Thompson, Frank Hamilton.
Psuedo-biographical tale of tortured poet Edgar Allan Poe, from the death of his Irish immigrant mother, to his descent into alcoholism and hallucinations.
Running Time: 72 mins Black & White
Starring: Tom Forman
"Regeneration" (72 min.) is a powerful slum melodrama produced in 1915 on location in the lower east side of New York City, with a gaggle of authentic low-life types performing alongside professional actors.
Running Time: 50 mins Black & White
Starring: William S. Hart, Margery Wilson, Robert McKim
Outlaw leader "Draw" Egan, believed dead, turns up in the town of Yellow Dog. The townsfolk believe him to be William Blake, a strong and law-abiding man. They appoint him sheriff to rid the town of the hoodlums who have nearly taken over. He does so with dispatch, becoming a genuinely lawful and respected member of the town's society. But then Arizona Joe, one of Egan's old gang, shows up in Yellow Dog, threatening to expose Egan if he doesn't help his old comrade take over the town.
Running Time: 55 mins Black & White
Starring: Robert Gemp, Frederick Warde, Albert Gardner
Richard of Gloucester uses manipulation and murder to gain the English throne.
Running Time: 57 mins Black & White
Starring: Wallace Reid, Ann Little, Theodore Roberts, Guy Oliver.
Car salesman continually fights with his boss to let him drive in a big race, and marry his daughter. Dir. James Cruze.
Running Time: 50 mins Black & White
Recently discovered tinted print of this famous tale. Dir. Joseph Kane.
Running Time: 76 mins Black & White
Starring: Lydia Yeamans Titus, Robert Harron, Kate Bruce
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.
Running Time: 74 mins Black & White
Starring: Egidio Candiani, Suzanne De Labroy, Mario Guaita-Ausonia
Running Time: 50 mins Black & White
Starring: Franklyn Farnum, Al Filson, Lon Chaney, Edith Johnson.
Town idler must find the bank embezzlers who murdered a small-town bank teller, who happens to be his girlfriend's father.
Black & White
Beautiful German spy Florence Vidor, caught between clueless Jack Holt and wily Sessue Hayakawa. The men are trying to protect information about a convoy in the Pacific where a new German force is rampaging -- remember, this is World War One, and the Japanese were on our side -- and Vidor is trying to find out about it, while fighting her feelings as Jack Holt keeps proposing to her. Well composed shots and skilled actors keep this one moving along. Charles Ogle is a bit over the top of Vidor's ruthless doctor/spymaster, but in a movie like this, some one has to be.
Running Time: 73 mins Black & White
Starring: George M. Cohan, Anna Q. Nilsson, Elda Furry, Joseph Smiley, Warren Cook.
Writer checks into the Baldpate Inn, and makes a bet with the owner that he can begin a novel at midnight and finish it before midnight of the next day. Written by Hugh Ford.
Running Time: 20 mins Black & White
Starring: James Cruze.
Earliest version of the classic Haggard fantasy about a lost race and the beautiful, immortal queen, "She Who Must Be Obeyed". Dir. Roger Corman.
Running Time: 61 mins Black & White
Starring: William S. Hart, Vola Vale, Robert McKim
A gold prospector strikes it rich, but the crooks who run a frontier town take it away from him. He determines to get it back and clean up the town.
Running Time: 52 mins Black & White
Starring: Norma Talmadge, Kate Lester, Helen Weir
Norma Talmadge plays a pretty young secretary who must dress dowdily to avoid the licentious overtures of her male employers. She takes a job as the social secretary to a wealthy woman, whose daughter is about to marry a nasty foreign count. Talmadgepulls a few strings to set the daughter on the right course. Out of gratitude, Talmadge's employer grants permission for the girl to marry her handsome son. A straightforward, unadorned comedy-drama, The Social Secretary is of interest today for the presence of Erich von Stroheim, cast as one of Talmadge's predatory former bosses (he should have played the count).
Running Time: 68 mins Black & White
Starring: G.M. Bronco Billy Anderson, Joy Lewis, Fred Church.
Unpredictable cowboy with a deadly aim is banished from country for disturbing the peace. Produced and Written by G.M. Anderson and Jesse J. Robbins. Dir. Victor Schertizinger.
Running Time: 65 mins Black & White
Starring: Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson, Joy Lewis, Fred Church
A young man is lured into a cardgame by a crooked dealer. He is about to lose all the money that was given to him to get medicine for his mother when a local cowboy comes to his rescue.
Running Time: 81 mins Black & White
Starring: Frank Hurley
In August of 1914, dogged Australian photographer Frank Hurley joined Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated Trans-Antarctic expedition. Shackleton had hoped to make an historic first crossing of the icy continent while recording valuable scientific data, but when the men reached the bottom of the world, things didn't go exactly according to plan. The ship Endurance, which had been slated to explore the treacherous coastline after ferrying Shackleton and company to the Weddell Sea, became frozen in place between two gigantic ice floes. This silent film, first released in 1919 and then restored in 2000, is the stunning photographic record of the long months these men spent fighting for survival -- learning to ski, hunting seals and penguins, and warding off madness and despair. Hurley filmed everything, right up to the moment when their beloved ship disappeared beneath the ice -- he even photographed wildlife on the island of South Georgia, where the explorers were eventually taken to recover from their ordeal. This is a moving, artistic portrait of true adventure and human courage that brings you as close to the action as the men who lived it.
Black & White
Starring: William Farnum, Tom Santchi
Running Time: 50 mins Black & White
Starring: William S. Hart, Mary McIvor, Joseph J. Dowling
A gambler decides to play one last game before he turns over a new leaf. However, during the game one of the players accuses him of cheating. Suddenly the lights go out, shots are fired and when the lights come back on, one of the players is dead. The gambler is accused of the killing. He didn't do it, but has to find out who did, and why he was framed for it.
Running Time: 22 mins Black & White
Starring: Roscoe Arbuckle,Buster Keaton,Al St. John,Alice Lake,Glen Cavender
Fatty is the head chef at the "Bull Pup" restaurant where Keaton serves as the head waiter. One evening while service is in full flow Keaton and Fatty entertain the crowd with their dancing (despite breaking most of the plates and bottles in the restaurant in the process). The fun is soon spoiled when a vagrant (St. John), referred to as "Holdup Man" in the film's credits, comes in and begins ruining everyone's good time and dancing with the waitress (Alice Lake) against her will. Fatty, Keaton and the manager are no match for Holdup Man but he is subsequently scared off by Luke, Fatty's dog. Later, Fatty and Keaton join a pair of gentlemen in the restaurant for a big plate of spaghetti, not being able to replicate the correct way of eating it they resort to their own methods of eating one string at a time and cutting the pasta with scissors to make it shorter. The next day Fatty plans a fishing trip with Luke while Keaton simultaneously takes the waitress on a date to the amusement park. Fatty takes a shortcut through the park and knocks several people out with his exceptionally long fishing rod before arriving on the beach. The waitress gets separated from Keaton and is chased around the park by Holdup Man and ends up falling off the top of a roller coaster, falling into the sea. Holdup man is chased off by Luke yet again and Fatty and Keaton attempt to rescue the waitress but find that the key to a flotation device is "in a courthouse one mile east". Acting fast, they grab a rope to throw to the waitress but Keaton falls off the pier still holding the rope and drags Fatty in with him
Running Time: 60 mins Black & White
Starring: Elliott Dexter, Ann Little, Katherine MacDonald
Captain Wynnegate leaves England, accepting the blame for embezzling charity funds though knowing that his cousin Sir Henry is guilty. Out West he and the Indian girl Nat-U-Rich save each other from the evil cattle rustler Cash Hawkins and marry. Lady Diana shows up to announce Sir Henry's death. After Nat-U-Rich's suicide Wynnegate takes his half-breed son and Lady Diana back to England as the new Earl of Kerhill.
Running Time: 59 mins Black & White
Starring: Tyrone Power Sr., Kathlyn Williams, Edith Johnson
Before darkly handsome leading man Tyrone Power, there was his father, stage star Tyrone Power, Sr.. Power, Sr. had been a force in the theater for many years before silent films came along, and in 1915 (the year after his son was born) he was contracted to star in two pictures -- this one was the first. The boss of iron worker Roanoke Brooks (Power), is having an affair with his wife (Kathlyn Williams). Eventually she commits suicide and her lover dies in an accident. Roanoke lavishes all his love and attention on his daughter (Edith Johnson). As a young woman she goes to the West where she meets the son of the man who broke up her father's marriage. They fall in love and marry.
Running Time: 63 mins Black & White
Starring: Elmo Lincoln, Enid Markey, Gordon Griffith, Kathleen Kirkham.
FIRST filming of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel about Lord and Lady Greystoke, who are shipwrecked in a remote jungle, and their offspring who becomes The Lord of the Apes. Written by Scott Sidney.
Running Time: 35 mins Black & White
Starring: Wallace Reid.
Orphan girl is adopted by family which has three brothers each of whom are in love with her.
Running Time: 50 mins Black & White
Starring: Norma Talmadge, Ralph Lewis, Ninon Fovieri
A man and his wife both have criminal pasts, but have quit crime and are now respectable citizens. One day a member of their old gang shows up and threatens to expose them if they don't help him pull a heist.
Running Time: 73 mins Black & White
Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Marie Dressler, Mabel Normand, Charles Bennett, Mack Swain, Edgar Kennedy, Charley Chase, Slim Summerville, Al Fuzzy St. John, Keystone Kops.
Slick gigalo Chaplin convinces a naive rich girl to steal money from her father and join him in the big city. Hailed as the first American feature-length film, it also marks Chaplin's feature film debut. Produced by Mack Sennett. Dir. Mack Sennett
Running Time: 50 mins Black & White
Starring: Sessue Hayakawa, Helen Jerome Eddy, Marc Roberts
An opium smuggler is marked for murder in this story of the Chinese Mafia.
Running Time: 55 mins Black & White
Starring: Emmy Linn.
Psychological triangle wherein a doctor's neglected wife looks for love in the form of her husband's best friend. English titles. Dir. Abel Gance.
Running Time: 50 mins Black & White
Starring: Jane Gail, Ethel Grandin, Matt Moore, Irene Wallace.
Two sisters are hired by a renowned philanthropist who is actually the leader of a group of white slavers, and they must use their wits to free the enslaved women. Written by George Loane Tucker. Dir. George Loane Tucker.
Running Time: 59 mins Black & White
Starring: Wilton Lackaye, Clara Kimball Young, Paul McAllister
A hypnotic Svengali controls the singing voice of a young starlet, but he cannot control her heart.
Running Time: 80 mins Black & White
Starring: Marguerite Courtot, Raymond McKee, Erich von Stroheim
A wealthy young American, bred to class distinction and racial intolerance, enters the Marines during the First World War. In the course of his training and his experiences in the trenches fighting, being wounded by, and being hospitalized with Germans, he comes to a recognition of the equality and brotherhood of men.
Running Time: 60 mins Black & White
Starring: Sam Lucas, Hattie Delero, Irving Cummings.
Two versions of the classic Harriet Beecher Stowe tale of slavery. Latter version features Sam Lucas, the first black man to get the lead role in a movie, and also stars Hattie Delero, Irving Cummings.(1903 & 1914) Dir. Robert Daly.
Running Time: 62 mins Black & White
Starring: Jack Holt, Seena Owen, Wallace Beery
Axel Heyst, an uncommitted wanderer, has settled on an island in the South Seas. He takes pity on a troubled young woman, Lena, and gives her refuge on her island. But the piratical Mr. Jones, who believes Heyst has treasure buried on his island, leads his cohorts in an invasion of Heyst's haven.
Running Time: 55 mins Black & White
Starring: Dustin Farnum, J.W. Johnston, Billy Elmer, H.B. Carpenter, Tex Driscoll.
Happy-go-lucky cowboy must go after his best friend when the latter joins an outlaw gang. Based on the novel and play by Owen Wister.
Running Time: 55 mins Black & White
Starring: Alma Hanlon, June Elvidge, Irving Cummings, Warren Cook.
Devious bookie has a plan to ruin his rival for the affections of a judge's daughter. "The Whip" is an uncontrollable but fleet-footed racehorse around which the story revolves. Dir. Maurice Tourneur.
Running Time: 86 mins Black & White
Starring: Raymond Hatton, Kathlyn Williams, Edythe Chapman
John Trimble has embezzled and obtains another identity by having a mutilated body buried in his place. He is later arrested for murdering himself. During the trial his mother, before dying from shock, asks him to keep his identity secret since his wife is now married to the Governor and expecting a child.
Running Time: 50 mins Black & White
Starring: Vivian Martin, Alec B. Francis, Chester Barnett, John Hines.
Carousing son of an Earl is disowned "until he can earn half a crown". The son takes a job as a gardener and falls in love with a poor minister's daughter, who makes friends with the Earl in order to bring the family together. Would make an interesting double-feature with John Wayne's "His Private Secretary". Written by Maurice Tourneur. Dir. Maurice Tourneur.
Black & White
Movie Trailer for feature film.
Running Time: 58 mins Black & White
Starring: Bothwell Browne, Ford Sterling, Malcolm St. Clair
Behind enemy lines, Captain Bob White disguises himself as a woman in order to fool members of the German High Command, including the Kaiser himself.
Running Time: 59 mins Black & White
Starring: Edith Taliaferro, Florence Dagmar, Tom Forman
Nellie Nolan works at the notions counter of a big department store, and Tom Clancy is in the hardware department of the same establishment. But both of their souls are filled with ambitions and aspirations not to be governed by even the routine of such existence. Nellie has saved a whole hundred dollars and, in a fit of June madness, decides to spend it all for one week of glorious pretense at a Maine summer resort, assuming the role of a lady of fashion and tasting for once the joys of wealth. Tom is impressed with the same newspaper story which has caught Nellie's eye, and he goes to the same resort, posing as a rich young man from Newport. The two young people meet each other, each believing the other belongs to an entirely different sphere of life, and the succeeding events make it possible for Tom to become a hero in the eyes of the girl by rescuing her from a desolate island. They fall in love, but an understanding is impossible because they both are unwilling to confess that they are not what they seem. They both return to the store, and that very day Tom is transferred to the counter directly opposite where Nellie deals in notions. Thus they meet for the first time in their rightful surroundings and Cupid wins.