Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's...
Raymonde (Bertini) has had a passionate affair with Giacomo (Giorgio Bonaiti) and has a son with him. Life has taken a different turn, however, and Giacomo has married Elena (Mary Fleuron).
In this mesmerizing collage of silent Italian melodrama, found-footage filmmaker Peter Delpeut (Lyrical Nitrate) affectionately captures the spirit of the World War One-era cinema diva. In all-but-lost gems such as La donna nuda (1914), and Tigre reale (1916), superstars such as Lyda Borelli and...
Assunta and Michele are in love, but others come between them and jealousy arises. Assunta Spina stands out as an early landmark of naturalistic acting and a blueprint for the Italian Neorealist films to come.
Ivonne is a vulgar, loose, promiscuous and a passionate danseuse at the tavern. Countess Edith is an angelic creature, exquisitely elegant, a finite and aristocratic heiress. Two sides of a woman with a split personality.
The Princess of Monte Cabello is divorced and is granted custody of her beloved daughter. Her ex-husband's mistress hires private detectives who take seemingly incriminating photographs of the Princess with the actor Jacques Wilson. The Princess is devastated when these cause her daughter to be...
A example of female fantasy is L'Histoire d'un Pierrot (1913), based on a musical pantomime by Mario Costa with Francesca Bertini in the role of Pierrot and Leda Gys as Louisette. The young and naive Pierrot is led astray by the evil wine merchant Pochinet (Emilio Ghione). He hopes to distract...
With a friend desperate for money, a merchant takes out a loan from a ruthless money-lender. Confident that his ships will soon be bringing him great wealth, the merchant willingly agrees to conditions of the loan that put him at great personal risk.
A lieutenant of the French navy, ready to kill himself in despair, renounces his project after spending a night with a beautiful stranger, the Princess of Lystrie.
The dramatic events of the composer Mario Sirchi, falsely accused of murder, and his girlfriend Adonella who is revealed to have a secret sister, Nayda.