In 1914 a girl of the streets is befriended by two dashing young officers, an Austrian and a Russian. Both fall in love with her, but she picks the Austrian. When the war begins, Her town is overrun by Russians, lead by the once charming, now vengeful officer, who takes her prisoner and threatens death if she won’t marry him.
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Tag Archives: 1920s
Go West (1925) Buster Keaton, Howard Truesdale, Kathleen Myers, Comedy, Western
A young man who doesn’t find a job in his small hometown, tries his luck in New York, but is overwelmed by the life of the city, so decides to try his luck somewhere else after a only a few minutes in New York. He falls off a train near a ranch, where he tries his luck as a cowbowy, being in his own way very sucessful. But he shows what he can do when the farm has to bring a 100 head of cattle to the slaughterhouses of Los Angeles to avoid going bankrupt, against the will of his neighbour who wants a better price. After a shoot-out with the neighbour’s men he’s the only person on a Los Angeles bound train with 1000 cows….
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Mockery (1927) Benjamin Christensen, Lon Chaney, Barbara Bedford, Ricardo Cortez, Drama, Romance
One of the rare American films directed by Danish auteur Benjamin Christensen, Mockery stars Lon Chaney Sr. as a half-witted Russian peasant. On the verge of starvation, Chaney is hired to guide a beautiful countess (Barbara Bedford) through the treacherous Siberian wastes. Once he arrives at the countess’ home territory, Chaney is swept up by the Bolshevik movement. He comes to despise the aristocracy in general and the countess in particular, but the young woman’s kindness towards him weakens his revolutionary resolve. Long thought lost, Mockery was rediscovered and preserved in the mid-1970s; the film was based on a story by Stig Esbern.
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Our Dancing Daughters (1928) Harry Beaumont, Joan Crawford, Johnny Mack Brown, Nils Asther, Drama
Diana is outwardly the hit of the party but inwardly virtuous and idealistic. Her friend Ann is thoroughly selfish and amoral. Both are attracted to Ben Black, soon-to-be millionaire. He takes Diana’s flirtations with other boys as a sign of disinterest in him and marries Ann. Big mistake.
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The Single Standard (1929) John S. Robertson, Greta Garbo, Nils Asther, Johnny Mack Brown, Drama, Romance
The wealthy Arden Stuart is bored in a party; after refusing the wedding proposal of Tommy Hewlett, she drives her car with her driver to a lonely place. She has one night stand with him and returns to the party; then she witnesses the driver being fired by a relative and committing suicide. In a rainy day, Arden goes to an exposition and meets the painter and aspirant boxer Packy Cannon. They sail to the South Seas together in his sailboat and Arden falls in love for him. However, a couple of months later, Packy dumps her and brings her back to her city, traveling to China alone. The heartbroken Arden is proposed again by Tommy and gets married with him. Three years later, Arden meets Packy by chance and becomes divided between her unconditional love for Packy and the love for her son.
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The Thirteenth Chair (1929) Tod Browning, Conrad Nagel, Leila Hyams, Margaret Wycherly, Drama, Mystery
Although his murdered friend was by all accounts a scoundrel a true “bounder” Edward Wales is determined to trap his killer by staging a seance using a famous medium. Many of the 13 seance participants had a reason and a means to kill, and one of them uses the cover of darkness to kill again. When someone close to the medium is suspected she turns detective, in the hope of uncovering the true murderer.
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Thunderbolt (1929) Josef von Sternberg, George Bancroft, Fay Wray, Richard Arlen, Crime, Drama
A criminal known as Thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution. Into the next cell is placed Bob Morgan, an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with Thunderbolt’s girl, without knowing of their relationship. Thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young Morgan for romancing his girl.
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The Trespasser (1929) Edmund Goulding, Gloria Swanson, Robert Ames, Purnell Pratt, Drama
A stenographer who works for a lawyer falls in love with and marries a wealthy young man. His family has the marraige annulled, after which she gives birth to a child. Her former boss helps her out to ensure the child’s welfare, which starts gossip that she is a “kept woman.”
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