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...
A female ape takes to mothering the orphaned boy (Tarzan) and raises him over the course of many years until a rescue mission is finally launched and the search party combs the jungle for the long-time missing Lord Greystoke. But then, one of the search members, Jane Porter, gets separated from the...
Professor Griggs, teaching at the college, doesn't get paid a living wage; his next door neighbor, successful shoemaker Olsen, has money and plentiful food, while the Griggses have hardly any. When the professor's rich student Phil West falls for beautiful Griggs daughter Amelia and also befriends...
The story of St. Gabriel, who was killed by an ignorant mob for making a nude statue representing Purity, who is also represented by a ghostly naked girl that flits through the film.
An isolated house is too remote for a lone servant, who leaves a note, quietly exits the back door, and puts the key under the mat. Left alone in the house is a mother and her infant. A tramp has watched the servant leave and begins to skulk. When the lady of the house sees him outside as he...
The prohibition is in full swing and Egypt Hagen, a new woman, is the constant subject of controversy in her religious small town. After a scandalous night of partying leaves her publicly shamed, she finds unlikely companionship in the town's new reverend. As their bond intensifies under the...
Babe Scott, a cabaret dancer who is constantly searching for sensational material to shock her customers, conceives of burlesquing a Salvation Army girl and attends mission meetings on the East Side for atmosphere. There she meets Jerry Wilson, an honest truckdriver and friend of the Army captain....
In this melodrama filmed on location in Hawaii, a sugar plantation manager finds himself falling in love with a native girl, but instead of committing to her, he marries a socially prominent young woman from San Francisco. The spoiled girl does not easily adapt to the rigors of plantation life and...
Walton, the District Attorney, yearns to have children. Soon after defending an author on trial for publishing indecent literature, Walton discovers a secret his wife and her socialite friends have been hiding from him.
Although he has been appointed to guard the fortune of young Thomas Creighton, the unscrupulous Lord John Needham decides to spend all of it after Tom runs away. Then, however, an announcement comes that Tom is returning and that he plans to claim his money. Fearful of punishment, both from Tom and...
A rich merchant, Antonio is depressed for no good reason, until his good friend Bassanio comes to tell him how he's in love with Portia. Portia's father has died and left a very strange will: only the man that picks the correct casket out of three (silver, gold, and lead) can marry her. Bassanio,...
After graduating from a convent school, Betty travels to New York to visit her relatives, the Hastings. She quickly catches the eye of Jim Denning, a wealthy neighbor who proposes to her, but Betty decides to experience city life before settling down and finds work as a salesclerk. When the...
According to this Lois Weber production, men don't really seem to know what they want at all -- first Frank (J. Frank Glendon) wants to be an inventor. Then he wants to marry his childhood sweetheart, Hallie (the lovely Claire Windsor). Then he wants children. Then, when his inventions bring him...
A poor shopgirl is offered a "good time" for a week by the son of her employer. She accepts, but the offer is misunderstood by her brother, who informs the girl's parents of her "fling."
