"Mary Pickford produced and stars in this absorbing melodrama, as Mama Molly, tomboy guardian to a tribe of abused orphans on a "baby farm" in a Gothic southern swamp. "The Devil's share in the world's creation," the swamp is a truly frightening place, with bottomless bog holes that suck up anything thrown into them in a matter of moments. The baby farm's proprietor, Grimes (Gustave von Seyffertitz), is the embodiment of evil, so mean he ..."
"Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's poem. A classic American horror film that combines elements of the traditional ghost story, Poe and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." "The Bells" (1926, 68 min.) follows an ambitious innkeeper (Lionel Barrymore) on a downward trajectory into insanity after murdering a wealthy traveler to settle his debts. Though he is not suspected of the crime, the innkeeper is haunted by a hypnotist in a traveling carnival ( ..."
"Douglas Fairbanks was 44 when he made The Gaucho, one of his most thoughtful and visually rich adventures. As the lusty, live-for-today leader of a South American outlaw band preying upon small villages, he drives out a corrupt garrison from a holy mountain village (which seems to literally hang off the edge of a cliff by the grace of God) and takes over the town like a benevolent dictator. When a plague victim infects a wound of his, t ..."
"An American ambassador arrives in a small country that is being convulsed by political intrigue and civil unrest. He befriends the young boy who is to be the country's king, to ensure that the boy is prepared to take on the role and also to see that he lives long enough to assume the crown."
"Ernst Lubitsch brought his famous touch to this sentimental romantic drama, a famous operetta about a young prince who falls in love with a commoner. A kindly tutor (Jean Hersholt) effectively raises the boy in a splendorous kingdom of rolling hills and vast forests while his distant father rules in the cold, tradition-bound palace. When he turns 18, Prince Karl Heinrich (Ramon Novarro) is sent to Heidelberg for an education, in more wa ..."