1920s

Russian stage star Ivan Mosjoukine plays the title role in this far-from-accurate biopic of legendary Italian lover Casanova. The main plot concerns itself with political intrigue, as Casanova travels from Venice to Russia and back again on a variety of “secret missions.” This doesn’t prevent the amorous hero from enjoying the favors of several delectable females. Even Russia’s Catherine the Great (Suzanne Bianchetti) briefly falls under Casanova’s spell. But when all is said and done, it is the lovely Therese (Jenny Jugo) who captures the protagonist’s heart. Highlights include the spectacular Carnival of Venice sequence and the splendiferous scenes within the palace walls of Czarina Catherine. Casanova was truly an international production: It was filmed in France but financed and written by Germans, while its star and director were Russians. The film ran into some curious censorship troubles in the U.S., and as result it was retitled Prince of Adventurers, with the main character rechristened as “Roberto Ferrara”! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideRead More »

Rågens rike is a Romeo and Juliet-esque romantic drama, set in the rural landscapes of Helsingland in northern Sweden. It is the debut feature of Ivar Johansson, who was inspired by the Soviet montage cinema when he made it. In 2007 it was selected by Ingmar Bergman as one of his all-time favorite Swedish movies.Read More »

A Bavarian mother loses three sons in World War I and goes to America to join the fourth.Read More »

In a role that established him as one of the most dynamically terrifying performers of the silent screen, Lon Chaney stars in THE PENALTY, a grotesque thriller from director Wallace Worsley (The Hunchback of Notre Dame).

When an incompetent doctor amputates the legs of a young boy, he has no idea that the youth will grow up to be the immoral and embittered Blizzard, a criminal mastermind who orchestrates a bizarre and heinous plot to avenge himself upon his malefactor. THE PENALTY teems with irony and sexual menace as Blizzard befriends the surgeon’s daughter and serves as an artist’s model for her sculptural rendition of Satan, waiting for his moment to show the depth of his demonic desires.Read More »

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Brilliant farce propels two ineffectual Christmas tree salesmen (played by Laurel and Hardy) into a prolonged bout of savage destruction directed against a customer who refuses to buy. Mutual insults, tie snipping, and small violence escalate from controlled disturbance to surrealist cataclysm, in which the American Home is levelled once and for all.Read More »

A newly wedded couple attempts to build a house with a prefabricated kit, unaware that a rival sabotaged the kit’s component numbering.Read More »

Synopsis
A soldier inaccurately reported as dead returns home to his Spanish family’s estate in California, only to find his father deceased and his ancestral land in the hands of strangers.Read More »

Synopsis:
After killing her treacherous step-father, a girl tries to escape the country with a young vagabond. She dresses as a boy, they hop freight trains, quarrel with a group of hobos, and steal a car in their attempt to escape the police, and reach Canada.Read More »

Synopsis:
The Ushant archipelago is a group of small islands situated off the coast of Brittany at the northwest extremity of France. Each year, four fishermen from the most populated island Ushant set up camp for three months on the uninhabited islet of Bannec to gather and process seaweed, producing a valuable soda-rich resource for factories along the coast. JeanMarie and Ambroise, the two youngest members of the four, fall out when the latter drops his friend’s last bottle of wine. Ambroise finds himself ostracised when Jean-Marie accuses him of stealing his pocket knife and then develops a fever when infection sets in on a hand wound. Read More »