Andrea Habay

Expert mountain-guide Maciste lives in the Dolomites. He dotes on his young nephew Hans, the illegitimate son of his sister, who died of a broken heart for the dishonour of being seduced and abandoned. Maciste’s bitter rival is the sinister Schultz, a smuggler in search of easy money who teams up with two adventurers: Müller and the mysterious Vanna Dardos. Schultz’s plan is to steal the design for a revolutionary aviation project that engineer Riccardo Ewert is finishing in the peace and quiet of his mountain chalet. Thanks to Maciste the plan is thwarted and Müller and Schultz die overwhelmed by an avalanche while escaping through the mountains.

Thea is a sculptor who is diagnosed with tuberculosis before she marries Filippo. After abandoning him, her health begins to decline. She organizes a final party, inviting along her estranged husband. The film is considered to be lost, with only a fragment surviving in the film archive of the Cineteca Italiana.

A Faustian tale about an old woman who makes a pact with Mephisto to regain her youth, but in return she must stay away from love. After making the deal, she meets two brothers who fall in love with her.

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 taken from her, and the Princess then falls into the clutches of Wilson. In order to pay his gambling debts, Wilson forces her to humiliate herself by appearing in a play. The Princess sends a note to the Prince of Monte Cabello saying that after the first performance she will not compromise his name again.

"The Roman Banquet, the golden glories, the unrivaled luxuries, the wine, the dance, the song, the beautiful women, the sumptuous splendors that taxed a barbaric world for a night of feasting and revel-- Re-created for your entertainment in the most colossal drama produced", reads an ad in the Daily Argus of New York. Unione Cinematografica Italiana's lavish production of the oft-told tale stars Emil Jannings as Nero.

Bartolomeo Pagano as Maciste in Maciste in the Lions' Den. A Italian silent from 1926.