Michael Vavitch

The Swan (1925) is a silent film produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on Melville Baker's 1923 Broadway play adaptation, The Swan, of Ferenc Molnar's play A Hattyu Vigjatek Harom Felvonasbarn. This film was directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki, a recent Russian immigrant working for Famous Players-Lasky. Buchowetzki had directed pictures in Russia, Sweden, and Germany. The story of this film was remade in 1930 as One Romantic Night, an early talkie for Lillian Gish, and in Technicolor as a 1956 vehicle for Grace Kelly.

In 1840, Sam Lash heads west for adventure. He meets up with some Mountain Men, and they head for the Rockies to trap beavers and cats. In Taos he meets Lola, a beautiful Mexican girl from a proud and rich family. They fall in love and he persuades her to elope with him. After they get married, Sam is torn between his love for Lola and his yearn for traveling.

During World War I, an American soldier is captured and taken prisoner by the Germans. However, instead of being placed in a prisoner-of-war camp, he is assigned to the small farm of a young woman and her son to help raise crops to help feed the German army and people.

Vitaphone production reels #2471-2478; third Warner Bros. feature film - the first being The Jazz Singer and the second Tenderloin - to include talking sequences, along with the by now usual Vitaphone musical score and sound effects. A copy of this film survives at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., but the sound disks are lost.

During World War I, two American soldiers fight to escape the Germans while squabbling over a beautiful harem girl. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with University of Nevada, Las Vegas Foundation in 2016.

Soldier of fortune Maxton is stranded in a Central American country. He and Tom, the nephew of the country's richest man, try to end Morloff's banditry but just barely escape a firing squad. They become rivals for Rosita.

A girl is saved by a miracle after she falls from a cliff in the Argentine Andes, and is blessed with healing powers. A shrine is built on the site, and a whole city grows around it, rich with gold from the grateful worshipers. Ruiz, an evil and sadistic general, captures the city, confiscates the gold, and closes the shrine. But the Gaucho, the charismatic leader of a band of outlaws, comes to the rescue.

An adventuress in love with an Austrian agrees to become the mistress of a Russian officer in exchange for the release of Austrian hostages.

Lady Hamilton's love affair with Admiral Horatio Nelson rocks the British Empire.

During World War I, an Austrian officer is trapped behind the Russian lines. He tries to sneak through to his own lines, but is forced to take refuge in a small hotel, where he is hidden by the establishment's chambermaid. The two fall in love, but a Russian general makes the hotel his headquarters and sets his sights on the maid. In addition, the Austrian must find out the identity of a spy who is feeding the Russians military information that could lead to the destruction of the Austrian army.

Women from various backgrounds volunteer as nurses in France at the outbreak of World War I.

An English explorer disturbed by the practices of an isolated tribe attempts to rescue a native girl he has become fascinated with. THE DEVIL DANCER was highly praised at time of release for its exquisite cinematography, especially in the use of light and shadow. The film received an Academy Award nomination in this category. Sadly, it is among the lost. No prints or negatives are known to survive.

A student nun falls in love with a Mexican singer starring in a cafe next door to her convent. Spanish version of MGM's Call of the Flesh.

Ernest, a young drifter, joins a troupe of mystics led by a Professor Xeno in a carnival. Ernest learns that his colleagues are burgling homes in districts they pass through. Ernest sets about to expose Xeno and his cohorts.

This first cinematic version of the classic book is a part-talkie, although the only surviving print is silent (housed in the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY). It is a straight-forward telling of the intermingled lives of a group of strangers doomed to die in a collapsing bridge accident. The Art Direction, paltry and unremarkable, surprisingly won an Oscar over the far more remarkable work nominated in THE IRON MASK. The special effect scene of the lovers plummeting with the bridge into the chasm is unforgettable and remarkably done.

A glittering drama of Imperial Russia in the days before the Revolution and the reckless life of the aristocracy in the days of the Czar, featuring gorgeous gowns, beautiful women and spectacular settings.

Norma Talmadge plays a Mexican saloon singer, known as 'The Dove.' She is romanced by a young caballero and menaced by a Villa-like brute of a dictator, played by Noah Beery.

Alicia, a circus artist, deserts her husband and child to elope with Underwood, her handsome lover. Fifteen years later, Annie Martin, Alicia's deserted daughter, is a trapeze performer in a sideshow at Coney Island, operated by Mr. and Mrs. Chubb, and has married Howard Jeffries in spite of opposition by his wealthy parents. Jeffries, Sr., hires a man (Underwood) to separate the young couple. Underwood convinces the newlyweds that each is being unfaithful to the other, and consequently, he is threatened by Howard. Driven to fury by Underwood's uncontrollable demands, Alicia shoots him in a quarrel and makes her escape just as Howard enters; despite his innocence, Howard confesses to the crime when subjected to the third degree. Annie, realizing her mother's guilt, claims to be guilty, but Alicia then confesses. Annie is saved from suicide by Howard, and they are united by love.

"Felipe, a sailor falls madly in love with Valencia, a Spanish dancing girl, who is sought after by Don Fernando, the governor. When Felipe deserts his ship, the Don throws him in prison, but Valencia obtains his release and shares his disgrace and exile." Moving Picture World, 8 Jan 1927, p. 144.

An American falls for the princess of the Kingdom of Graustark, and decides to her marriage to a dastardly prince.

Olga Kriga, a New York boarding house maid, is loved by John Knight, an automobile salesman, asks her to wed him. One day in a delicatessen, she is seen by a foreigner, who immediately hails her as "Queen." He tells her the faithful cabinet is waiting nearby. The foreigner is a servant of the former prime minister and he insists that she is the long lost ruler of Sylvania, a small European country. Olga decides to pose as that lost queen of Sylvania, and travels to that Balkan country accompanied by Knight. Count Mirko, knowing her return will cause usurper troubles, plans to make it appear beneficial to be rid of Olga. However, the people of the country acclaim her as queen and, after a revolt, put her on the throne. Happiness has been restored to Sylvania, but Olga decides that she no longer to pose as a royal and returns to New York with Knight. A lost film.

A slick caper movie about a petty thief falls for a wealthy American artist.