Drama
A widow and her housekeeper go into business together but almost lose their daughters.
Little Women is a “coming of age” drama tracing the lives of four sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy. During the American Civil War, the girls father is away serving as a minister to the troops. The family, headed by thier beloved Marmee, must struggle to make ends meet, with the help of their kind and wealthy neighbor, Mr. Laurence, and his high spirited grandson Laurie.
British nurse Catherine Barkley (Helen Hayes) and American Lieutenant Frederic Henry (Gary Cooper) fall in love during the First World War in Italy. Eventually separated by Frederic’s transfer, tremendous challenges and difficult decisions face each, as the war rages on. Academy Awards winner for Best Cinematography and for Best Sound, Recording. Nominated for Best Picture and for Best Art Direction.
A circus’ beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.
Guests at a posh Berlin hotel struggle through scandal and heartache.
In the waning days of WWI, a U.S. “Mystery Ship,” sets sail for the coast of Spain towing a submarine. Their mission is to find and sink a U-boat that has been especially effective in attacking Allied shipping. Posing as a harmless schooner, the mystery ship is in fact fitted with a formidable gun capable of sinking a U-boat. Stopping in the Canary Islands to refuel, the crew interacts with locals involved with Germans, and with Germans themselves, including the sister of the U-Boat commander, who is lurking offshore waiting for the coming battle.
A man and woman, skeptical about romance, nonetheless fall in love and are wed, but their lack of confidence in the opposite sex haunts their marriage.
James Cagney star’s as Tom Powers, a trouble-ridden individual who rises from the position of cheap thug to that of a powerful Prohibition gangster. When his best friend is murdered, Powers self-destructively seeks deadly retaliation.
City Lights is the first silent film that Charlie Chaplin directed after he established himself with sound accompanied films. The film is about a penniless man who falls in love with a flower girl. The film was a great success and today is deemed a cult classic.
The youngsters Matahi and Reri are in love with each other. The old warrior Hitu announces that Reri is to be the new chosen virgin for the gods. This means she must stay untouched, otherwise she and her lover will be killed. But Matahi abducts and escapes with her to an island ruled by the white man, where their gods would be harmless and powerless. Tabu is the last film from director F.W. Murnau; he died before the film’s premiere in a car accident.
In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert’s heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.
Silent film master D.W. Griffith’s first talkie works as a companion piece to his classic BIRTH OF A NATION, providing a detailed biographical sketch of the 16th president. We see his birth in a log cabin, the tragic death of his first love, Ann Rutledge (Una Merkel), his debates with Douglas, his accepting of the presidency, the terrible toll of the Civil War, and finally the tragic assassination at Ford’s Theater. Griffith shows his usual meticulous attention to period detail, and the framing of the various vignettes has the feel of historical photographs come to life. Walter Huston is excellent in the title role, with a portrayal that subtly evolves from laconic, wizened rascal to noble elder statesman. This is a fascinating, worthy film, and an interesting historical document in and of itself.
Lem goes to Chicago to sell the wheat his family has grown on their farm in Minnesota. There he meets the waitress Kate. They fall in love and get married before going back to the farm. Kate is accepted by Lem’s mother and kid sister but is rejected by his father, who believes she married for the money. (And the fact that Lem didn’t get a fair price for the wheat is her fault too). The reapers arrive and quickly they make things even more complicated by making their move on Kate. Lem misunderstands the situation and believes Kate is actually interested. In despair Kate leaves the farm and Lem goes looking for her.
A young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I. Together with several other young German soldiers, he experiences the horrors of war, such evil of which he had not conceived of when signing up to fight. They eventually become sad, tormented, and confused of their purpose.
Jerry and Ted are young, in love, and part of the New York ‘in-crowd’. Jerry’s decision to marry Ted crushes a yearning Paul. Distraught Paul gets drunk and wrecks his car, disfiguring young Dorothy’s face in the process. Out of pity, Paul marries Dorothy. Years later, the apparent perfect marriage of Ted and Jerry falls apart from infidelity on both sides. Inwardly unhappy, popular Jerry lives a party life while Ted sinks into a life of alcoholism. Jerry then runs into Paul, who still loves her. After spending time together with Jerry, Paul plans to divorce Dorothy. When Jerry sees Dorothy again, she has second thoughts about where her life is heading.
The husband and wife acting team of Mae Feather and Julian Gordon is torn apart when he discovers she is having an affair with the screen comedian Andy Wilks.
A massive 5 1/2 hour biopic of Napoleon, tracing his career from his schooldays (where a snowball fight is staged like a military campaign), his flight from Corsica, through the French Revolution (where a real storm is intercut with a political storm) and the Terror, culminating in his triumphant invasion of Italy in 1797 (the film stops there because it was intended to be part one of six, but director Abel Gance never raised the money to make the other five). The film’s legendary reputation is due to the astonishing range of techniques that Gance uses to tell his story, culminating in the final twenty-minute triptych sequence, which alternates widescreen panoramas with complex multiple- image montages projected simultaneously on three screens.
Public schoolboy Roddy Berwick is expelled from school when he takes the blame for a friend’s theft and his life falls apart in a series of misadventures.
Two young men, one rich, one middle class, both in love with the same woman (Jobyna Ralston), become US Air Corps fighter pilots and, eventually, heroic flying aces during World War I. Devoted best friends, their mutual love of the girl eventually threatens their bond. Meanwhile, a hometown girl (Clara Bow) who’s the love struck lifelong next door neighbor of one of them, pines away.
A young Jewish man is torn between tradition and individuality when his old-fashioned family objects to his career as a jazz singer. This is the first full length feature film to use synchronized sound, and is the original film musical.
Evil Mr.Grimes keeps a rag-tag bunch orphans on his farm deep in a swamp in the US South. He forces them to work in his garden and treats them like slaves. They are watched over by the eldest, Molly. A gang in league with Mr. Grimes kidnaps Doris, the beautiful little daughter of a rich man, and hides her out on Grimes’ farm, awaiting ransom. When the police close in, and Mr. Grimes threatens to throw Doris into the bottomless mire, Molly must lead her little flock out through the alligator-infested swamp.
During America’s Civil War Union spies steal engineer Johnnie Gray’s (Buster Keaton’s) beloved locomotive The General and he single-handedly must do all in his power to get it back. Released throughout most of the world in 1927, this Silent comedy-action film flopped when originally released, but now is regarded as one of the great American motion pictures. The story is based on actual historic events.
The story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army’s Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.
Actor / writer / director Erich von Stroheim stars as a fraudulent count, living high on the hog in Monte Carlo. He supports himself by extorting huge sums of money from silly married ladies who are dumb enough to fall for his romantic charms. Von Stroheim’s partners in crime, phony princesses Mae Busch and Maud George, live in a state of perpetual depravity with the count in a huge mansion. Their latest victim, played by an actress who insisted upon being billed as Miss DuPont, is the wife of an American financier. Von Stroheim’s attempted seduction of this particular foolish wife is thwarted at every turn, and the count ultimately gets his comeuppance.
Considered one of Charlie Chaplin’s best films, The Kid also made a star of little Jackie Coogan, who plays a boy cared for by The Tramp when he’s abandoned by his mother, Edna. Later, Edna has a change of heart and aches to be reunited with her son. When she finds him and wrests him from The Tramp, it makes for what turns out be one of the most heart-wrenching scenes ever included in a comedy.
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.
The Birth of A Nation is a silent film from 1915 and the highest grossing silent film in film history. The film tells a romance story during the American civil war. D.W. Griffith invested heavily in its high production values, pioneering many new camera effects. The Birth of a Nation was strongly protested for its negative portrayal of newly freed slaves (mostly white actors in blackface), which went on to create and propagate negative images of blacks of the early 20th century in the United States. The film was used as a recruiting propaganda by the KKK until the 1940s.
A holiday fable that tells the story of an elderly man discovering love for the first time.
On a live music radio show, a letter arrives from the 23 years in the past. Through the letter, the first love and friendships of five friends are revealed.
The life story of one of Britain’s most notorious bare-knuckle fighters, Lenny McLean, also known as “the Guv’nor.”
A rock singer makes a deal with a mysterious doctor who promises to return his voice with horrifying consequences.
Upon his return home, a U.S. Marine must face up to the consequences of a shameful tragedy that has defined his past before he runs out of time.
A British Corporal in France finds himself responsible for the lives of his men when their officer is killed. He has to get them back to Britain somehow. Meanwhile, British civilians are being dragged into the war with Operation Dynamo, the scheme to get the French and British forces back from the Dunkirk beaches. Some come forward to help, others were less willing.
A U.S. sailor (Scott Brady) docks in London and in three days tries to save his brother from the gallows.
