So Big

Footfalls

A blind cobbler is able, by dint of his extraordinary hearing, to recognize the identity of a murderer. His own son is accused of the killing, and the old man waits, knowing the murderer will return to prevent the blind man from revealing what he knows.

Kathleen Mavourneen

Kathleen, the daughter of a poor tenant farmer, dreams of her wedding with her beloved Terrence. The dream is interrupted when the Squire of the estate takes an interest in Kathleen and forces her father to allow him to marry her to forgive the father's debt.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

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.

The Valley of the Giants

Bryce Cardigan struggles to protect his Redwood inheritance from a railroad-owner, who is also the guardian of the woman Bryce loves.

Mismates

"Mismates" is the story of a wealthy youth who, against his mother's wishes, marries a poor girl and is disowned. At first determined to support himself and his wife, he soon craves the accustomed luxury and deserts his wife and child. On false information provided by the boy's mother and substantiated by himself the wife is sent to jail and the child kidnapped by the husband. This is where the drama kicks in.

While New York Sleeps

An anthology of three dramas over the course of one evening in New York, with separate characters in each story played in all three by Marc MacDermott and Estelle Taylor. In one, a woman who has married believing her first and wrothless husband has been killed finds him returning to her for blackmail. The second part is the life of a cabaret vamp and a detective tricking each other, while the third story recalls a man who realizes his son's wife is cheating upon him with the man who lives in the apartment above him.

The Washington Masquerade

An honest, talented and well respected attorney defeats a corrupt incumbent U.S. Senator. After a very good start he has to face the subtle temptations and innocent looking traps of Washington.

The Ship from Shanghai

On a yacht sailing from Shanghai to the United States, the sailors, led by the megalomaniac steward, revolt and take control.

An Unsullied Shield

While their degenerate descendant sleeps, ancestral portraits come alive and admonish him.

The Raven

After a brief view of Edgar Allan Poe's family background, his grandfather, David Poe, Sr., an Irish immigrant to America, and his father, David Poe, Jr., the poet's life is depicted from the death of his mother and his subsequent adoption by John Allan, to his own tortured death in 1849. Expelled from the University of Virginia for incurring too many debts, Poe nonetheless courts and marries Virginia Clemm but is disowned by his foster father. While residing in Fordham, New York, Poe tries to earn a living as a writer but meets with little financial success. Overwhelmed by their impoverished state, Virginia dies and Poe sinks into a profound depression. Always a victim of alcohol and subject to hallucinations, Poe first imagines that his neighbor, Helen Whitman, is Virginia, then plunges himself into an elaborate delusion in which his wife's spirit, various other spectres and a raven finally drive him to his own death.

Stage Mother

Kitty Lorraine has one purpose in life: turning her daughter Shirley into a star. Kitty controls every aspect of the girl's nascent career -- even blackmailing a stage manager so that Shirley can take a more prestigious gig. But Kitty goes too far when she breaks up her daughter's budding relationship with sweet artist Warren Foster. Heartbroken, Shirley sets off on a series of disastrous but profitable relationships.

The Beast of the City

Police Chief Jim Fitzpatrick is after gangster Sam Belmonte. He uses his police detective brother Ed to watch over Daisy who is associated with Belmonte but things don't go as planned.

The Mask of Fu Manchu

The villainous Dr. Fu Manchu races against a team of Englishmen to find the tomb of Ghengis Khan, because he wants to use the relics to cause an uprising in the East to wipe out the white race.

A Wicked Woman

A woman and her children escape severe poverty and abuse. She successfully betters her family's condition while living with the secret that she killed her abusive husband in order to protect her children from him.

New Morals for Old

Proper parents who treat their adult children as teenagers have a son who wants to go to Paris to study art, and a daughter in love with a married man.

The Secret of Madame Blanche

A murder trial reunites a former chorus girl and her son, a grandson of an English aristocrat.

Battleship Potemkin

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre.

The Passion of Joan of Arc

A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she'd spoken to God, Jeanne d'Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.

Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl

The love story of an abused English girl and a Chinese Buddhist in a time when London was a brutal and harsh place to live.

City Lights

A tramp falls in love with a beautiful blind flower girl. His on-and-off friendship with a wealthy man allows him to be the girl's benefactor and suitor.

The Gold Rush

A gold prospector in Alaska struggles to survive the elements and win the heart of a dance hall girl.

Pandora's Box

The rise and inevitable fall of an amoral but naive young woman whose insouciant eroticism inspires lust and violence in those around her.