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...
Why Be Good?: Sexuality & Censorship in Early Cinema
2.42007HD
Before the G, PG and R ratings system there was the Production Code, and before that there was, well, nothing. This eye-opening documentary examines the rampant sexuality of early Hollywood through movie clips and reminiscences by stars of the era. Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Marlene Dietrich...
After graduating from a fashionable finishing school and touring Europe with her father, Selina Peake returns to the United States, where her father is accidentally killed after losing his fortune in a gambling den. Selina is reduced to teaching in a high school in the Dutch community at High...
A young American has her ship torpedoed by a German U-boat but makes it back to her ancestral home in France, where she witnesses German brutality firsthand.
In France during World War I, a charming farm girl keeps a squadron of English pilots in good spirits as best as she can. She falls for a handsome newcomer who is already engaged.
Irene, a feisty Irish girl in Philadelphia, clashes with her family and walks out, heading to New York City to seek fame and fortune. She gets a job as a dressmaker's model and becomes involved with Donald, the scion of a wealthy family. Donald's mother doesn't approve of Irene and sets out to...
The WAMPAS Baby Stars was a promotional campaign sponsored by the United States Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers, which honored 13 (15 in 1932) young actresses each year whom they believed to be on the threshold of movie stardom. 1922 was the first.
In this feature comedy, silent film star Colleen Moore plays a woman who owns a small lunch wagon and falls for a duke’s son, played by Larry Kent, who is pretending to be his own chauffeur. With her savings, she pursues him to a resort hotel, only to be mistaken for a duchess. Preserved by the...
Assistant to freight express agent Dave Haskell in the town of Pitt's Junction, Jim Kelly develops strong biceps lifting egg crates onto the daily train. Jim soon falls in love with Dave's lovely daughter Kitty, who, he worries, is interested in city slicker Perry Woods. When Woods steals $2,000...
Shane O'Mealia leaves Ireland, promising to send for his sweetheart, Moyna. In the mean time the son of the old lady she lives with, takes them back to America without telling Shane, who then must explain a girl he's been seeing in New York.
Set in New York City, flapper Pink Watson works a telephone operator at a cement factory who dreams of marrying rich. Her constant daydreaming of wealth annoys her fellow workers, and ruins the heart of one of her worshiping colleagues.
Arthur Moore, a missionary preacher, attempts to fit into the cowboy community so he can set up a church in the local saloon. Gwen, daughter of the "Old Timer," is injured in a stampede and loses her ability to walk. Though rejected by the townsfolk, the preacher's wisdom and love are needed if the...
Sally works at a cafe resort in Paris. After dancing at the cafe, Otis, an American theatrical agent, convinces her to pose as a Russian dancer. After being unmasked, she is offered a contract on Broadway. A lost film.
When Wade Cameron, chairman of the Better Plays Society, stops the production of actress Gilda Lamont's first stage success, she attempts to revenge herself by affecting another personality and earning his confidence. He assigns her a role in an improvised production of a new play as an unknown...
Poor Ella Cinders is much abused by her evil step-mother and step-sisters. When she wins a local beauty contest she jumps at the chance to get out of her dead-end life and go to Hollywood, where she is promised a job in the movies. When she arrives in Hollywood, she discovers that the contest was a...
A mining camp girl attempts to reform a young derelict addicted to drink. Colleen Moore broke her neck in a fall from a moving handcar during the making of this rousing sagebrush melodrama. The pert Moore, an idol of her generation, quickly regained her mobility but was reportedly forced to sleep...
Among the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips from such lost films as Cleopatra (1917), starring...
