Frances Marion
The first talkie was directed by Alice Guy, the first color film was produced by Lois Weber, who directed more than 300 films over 10 years. Frances Marion wrote screenplays for the Hollywood Star Mary Pickford and won two Oscars, Dorothy Arzner was the most powerful film director in Hollywood. And what do all of them have in common? They are all women and they have all been forgotten. Incredibly, it also took until 2010 for the first woman, Kathryn Bigelow, to win the Oscar for Best Director. Even if underrepresented women have always played a big part in Hollywood and it is this part of the film history left untold that this documentary sets out to uncover.
This documentary, first shown on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel, tells of the life and career of screenwriter Frances Marion. By the mid 1920s, she was the most respected and highest paid script writer in Hollywood. She also became the first person to win two Oscars for her work (for The Big House (1930) and The Champ (1931)).
Society matron Millicent Jordan arranges a dinner party to honor some visiting aristocrat oblivious to the health and financial problems of her husband.
The more you love, the harder you fight.The world looks at Billy Flynn and sees a has-been who seemingly never was, an ex-boxing champion slammed to the mat years ago by booze and gambling. But Billy's son TJ sees what the world doesn't. He knows his flawed but loving father is, was and always will be The Champ.
A vivacious actress needing work becomes a housekeeper for a crusty retired politician, and gives his life the shaking-up that it needs.
A group of adventurers head deep into South American jungle in search of an ancient Incan treasure.
Ann Harding plays a lovely but somewhat naive young woman who goes on a European vacation after winning a lottery. Swept off her feet by charming Basil Rathbone, Harding finds herself married before she is fully able to grasp the situation. Slowly but surely, Rathbone's loving veneer crumbles; when he casually asks Harding to sign a document turning her entire fortune over to him, she deduces that her days are numbered.
British agent working in Russia is forced to remain longer than planned once the revolution begins. After being released from prison in Siberia he posses as a Russian Commissar. Because of his position among the revolutionaries he is able to rescue a Russian countess from the Bolsheviks.
Life in 1847 Paris is as spirited as champagne and as unforgiving as the gray morning after. In gambling dens and lavish soirees, men of means exert their wills and women turned courtesans exult in pleasure. One such woman is Marguerite Gautier, who begins a sumptuous romance with Armand Duval.
An ex-sailor turned boxer finds romance and gets a shot at the heavyweight title.
In the 1860s, Mary Marlowe defies her father's wishes to marry a British lord and runs away with clerk John Carlton as he heads West to make his fortune. Mary and John endure the difficult journey and settle into a small cabin, then face the hostilities of a cattle rustling gang, as well as the tragic loss of their only son. With Mary's help, John defeats the gang, which propels him to political power that, over the years, gradually erodes the once-happy marriage.
An ambitious New York socialite plans an extravagant dinner party as her businessman husband, Oliver, contends with financial woes, causing a lot of tension between the couple. Meanwhile, their high-society friends and associates, including the gruff Dan Packard and his sultry spouse, Kitty, contend with their own entanglements, leading to revelations at the much-anticipated dinner.
New York City tenement dwelling neighbors Blondie and Lottie are longtime best friends. When Lottie makes the cast of the Follies and moves up in the world, she arranges for Blondie, as well, to join the cast and gain the advantages. But the friendship goes awry when Lottie's sweetheart, wealthy Larry Belmont, falls for Blondie and she for him.
When Fred Smith's wife dies in childbirth, Emma Thatcher, who has been nanny to the couple's three children, cares also for the family's new addition. Fred becomes rich and successful, then he and Emma marry. When Fred dies, his will becomes a source of trouble between the children and Emma.
French-language version of "The Big House" (MGM, 1930), with Charles Boyer in Chester Morris's role, filmed by MGM parallel to the English-speaking version, at a time when good subtitles weren't yet in use.
Bootlegger/cafe owner, Johnny Franks recruits crude working man Scorpio to join his gang, masterminded by crooked criminal defense lawyer Newton. Scorpio eventually takes over Frank's operation, beats a rival gang, becomes wealthy and dominates the city for several years until a secret group of 6 masked businessmen have him prosecuted and sent to the electric chair.
A young woman reunites with the father she's not seen since early childhood, also falls in love with a sailor who wishes to marry her, and eventually is forced to reveal to each man about her dark past. (NOTE: This is the German language version.)
Old sailor Chris Christofferson eagerly awaits the arrival of his grown daughter Anna, whom he sent at five years old to live with relatives in Minnesota. He has not seen her since, but believes her to be a decent and respectably employed young woman. When Anna arrives, however, it is clear that she has lived a hard life in the dregs of society, and that much of spirit has been extinguished. She falls in love with a young sailor rescued at sea by her father, but dreads to reveal to him the truth of her past. Both father and young man are deluded about her background, yet Anna cannot quite bring herself to allow them to remain deluded.
Min, the owner of a dockside hotel, is forced to make difficult decisions about the future of Nancy, the young woman she took in as an infant.
Convicted of manslaughter for a drunken driving accident, Kent Marlowe is sent to prison, where he meets vicious incarcerated figures who are planning an escape from the brutal conditions.
In czarist Russia, a princess falls for a dashing bandit leader, but their romance proves a stormy one.
Dowdy housewife Kitty dotes on her self-centered husband but divorces him when his mistress shows up at their home one day to break up their marriage. Bob had become bored with her lackluster appearance, their children and himself. Kitty re-invents herself and becomes a Continental favorite, dressing like a fashion model and behaving gaily. Three years after their divorce, Bob is at the home of a wealthy matron romancing her soon-to-be-married granddaughter, when the matron invites Kitty to a weekend party to steal Bob away from the granddaughter. When Kitty and Bob see each other, neither lets on they have a past, and the party continues as Bob pursues his ex-wife and new conquest equally.
Lally is a rich girl whose father writes books and plays polo. After 23 years of marriage her father decides to divorce Lally's mother and remarry to soon-to-be-divorced Beth Cheever. This sours Lally on all men. While on vacation with her mother she meets Jack, who succeeds in stealing her heart. Then Lally discovers that Jack is the son of Beth Cheever, the woman who is to marry her father.
THE AWAKENING was nominated by the Academy for its Art Direction in the first transitional year of the talkies. A vast number of films from this year are lost and this is no exception. No print or negative materials are known to exist at this time. William Cameron Menzies received his third nomination for this film, having received two the prior year and winning for both.
Baron Reiner, a charming though unscrupulous Viennese aristocrat, becomes infatuated with Virginia, an innocent schoolgirl who is engaged to his best friend, Manfred. In order to seduce the girl, Reiner finances an oceanographic expedition for Manfred that takes him away for months (TCM).
When Letty Mason relocates to West Texas, she finds herself unsettled by the ever-present wind and sand. Arriving at her new home at the ranch of her cousin, Beverly, she receives a surprisingly cold welcome from his wife, Cora. Soon tensions in the family and unwanted attention from a trio of suitors, including neighbor Lige Hightower, leave Letty increasingly disturbed, resulting in tragedy.
In Puritan Boston, seamstress Hester Prynne and kindly Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale fall in love. After Dimmesdale must go away for a time to England, he returns to discover that Hester has given birth to their child and is the focus of local censure.
A servant girl plays matchmaker for the local burgomaster's daughter while setting her own sights on a visiting Irishman.
This silent south-of-the-border romantic cowboy western was written by star Fred Thomson's wife, Frances Marion under the pseudo name Frank M. Clifton. Following the "no good deed goes unpunished" idiom, when after rescuing a group of settlers, hero Don Miguel Arguella (Thomson) is double-crossed by the group leader who files a claim on his land and makes a move towards his girlfriend. Sadly, this is a lost film.
The French king's mistress frees her jailed lover and makes him her bodyguard.
Cattle rancher John Drake sends his son, Ted, to the Mexican border to stop the smuggling that is using Drake's land as the crossing point. Ted meets Ysabel Castro, the daughter of the rancher just across the border-river, when he saves her from a mad-bull.
One of the films that Borzage shot under contract for Fox before he began his run of box-office hits. This is a comedy built up around the disastrous dinner that a couple of newlyweds organise for an important financial partner of the husband's.
In a Paris boarding house, a mysterious stranger seems to somehow solve the problems and conflicts of the residents, all the while hiding a secret of his own.
While building an irrigation system for a Southwestern desert community, an engineer vies with a local cowboy for the affections of a rancher's daughter.
Goldwyn produced a 1923 film adaptation of Potash and Perlmutter, and a 1924 sequel called In Hollywood with Potash and Perlmutter. In Partners Again the two are in the automobile industry -- This is a lost Film.
Ahmed, son of Diana and Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan, falls in love with Yasmin, a dancing girl who fronts her father's gang of mountebanks. She and Ahmed meet secretly until one night when her father and the gang capture the son of the sheik, torture him, and hold him for ransom.
Years of failure and bad luck have made Maurice Blake a beachcomber on an island in the Samoas, earning a precarious living by diving for pearls with Philip Jardine, the disinherited son of a San Francisco millionaire. When Philip is killed by a shark, his half caste common-law wife, Rosa, informs Maurice that Philip had been forgiven by his father, and she persuades him to assume Philip's identity and return to the States - The film is now considered a lost film.
Through the Dark is a 1924 silent mystery drama produced by Cosmopolitan Productions and distributed through Goldwyn Pictures. It is based on a short story "The Daughter of Mother McGinn" by Jack Boyle
An eccentric lower class woman struggles to gain respect in high society after marrying a wealthy man, and the problem gets worse when their daughter starts growing up.
1920's cowboy superstar Fred Thomson stars in this western comedy adventure.
Mamie, an orphan girl who was abused in the orphanage, is taken in by Mrs. Caldwell, a kindly woman with a young son named Alexander. Mamie hits it off with the lad, and nicknames him "Zander". When Mrs. Caldwell dies, the authorities decree that the boy must be placed in the same orphanage where Mamie was mistreated. Horrified, Mamie determines to see to it that the boy will be spared the same treatment that she had to suffer.
Alan Trent (Ronald Colman), his cousin Gerald Shannon (Wyndham Standing) and neighbor Kitty Vane (Vilma Bánky) have grown up together, as close playmates When World War I starts, both Alan and Gerald enlist in the British Army as officiers, and Kitty sees them off to war. Many months later, Alan and Gerald come back to Kitty, on a short furlow. Alan and Kitty reveal their love for each other. Gerald (who's in love with Kitty, too) congratulates his friends. But before Kitty and Alan can arrange to be married the next day, the furlow is cut short and both men head back to the front lines. Weeks later, Gerald will not give Alan leave to marry Kitty. Still arguing, both men volunteer for a reconiscience raid into enemy lines, where a grenade goes off near Alan and appears to kill him. Gerald and Kitty mourn Alan's death. After the war ends, Gerald and Kitty become engaged to be married.
A young woman marries the wastrel son of a British aristocrat. Her husband, who has been disinherited by his father, loses what little money he has left gambling in casinos and then dies, leaving her penniless and with an infant son. When her former father-in-law tries to get custody of the child, she leaves him with a couple she trusts, but when she later goes to reclaim her son, she can't find the people she left him with.
Young Kenneth Jamieson's millionaire father, fed up with his son's wild escapades, sends him to stay on a chicken farm in the small village of Dedham. On the day he arrives there pretty Diane Lee, the niece of local Rev. David Lee, arrives from Paris. A few days later Kenneth, reverting back to his wild ways, gets drunk and makes a spectacle of himself, but rather than reproving him, Rev. Lee gives him a heart-to-heart talk and gets Kenneth to turn his life around. Meanwhile, the reverend--barely able to get by on the pittance the local vestrymen pay him--asks for a raise but is denied it, being told that he must send Diane away before they'll even consider giving him any extra money. Soon afterward Kenneth falls gravely ill. His father, hearing of Kenneth's condition and of his infatuation with Diane, arrives at the village to see his son and isn't ready for what he finds.
Lee Randon, weary of business duties and a conventional home life, acquires a long-lost sense of excitement and romance with young flapper Claire Morris. When he meets her married aunt, Savina Grove, she appears to be the woman he imagines whenever he gazes at a doll he has christened Cytherea, goddess of love -----Cytherea features two dream sequences filmed in an early version of the Technicolor color film process.
An old woman's memories are rekindled as she rereads her diary. She recalls her youth in England when she married a suitor over the objections of her parents and moved with him to the Wyoming frontier. They live a hardscrabble life there and suffered deprivation, hunger, Indian attacks, and the death of her baby. Although they eventually make a go of it, her husband becomes involved with another woman. Now that he is on his deathbed, will she forgive her husband after 40 years.
A sequel of sorts, the Jewish ethnic comedy characters of Potash and Perlmutter return from their 1923 debut film, also produced by Goldwyn, but with a different actor for Potash.
A biographical film featuring the presidency and assassination of Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. Only an incomplete abridged copy survives.
The Song of Love is a silent film of 1923 directed by Chester M. Franklin and Frances Marion. The film was produced and starred Norma Talmadge.
When Mary Turner is sent to prison for a crime she did not commit, she vows upon her release to take vengeance on those who wronged her, always staying however within the letter of the law.
A silent film drama based on the Broadway play of the same name by James Forbes..
Though The Nth Commandment survives incomplete, enough exists of director Frank Borzage’s last film while under contract with William Randolph Hearst’s Cosmopolitan Pictures for scholar Hervé Dumont to declare “it the first truly Borzagian work.” Colleen Moore stars as a department store clerk whose decision to marry a withdrawing colleague with tuberculosis, over another dashing, ambitious suitor, leads to a life of hardship and struggle.
The film is based on an ethnic Jewish comedy with characters created by Montague Glass and Charles Klein.
She'd wink till hearts went on the blink. And staid professors couldn't think. And everywhere they'd stop to stare. And say "Some Chink!" when Ming Toy winked.
An American sailor marries then deserts the Chinese beauty who had saved his life.
This 1922 Frank Borzage film is a masterwork waiting to be rediscovered. Hester Bevins is a simple country girl who yearns for adventure. Though she has a handsome young man, Jerry, who is devoted to her, she leaves her village and goes to New York in search of a grander life. There she becomes the lover of a wealthy and unscrupulous businessman. But when Jerry returns blinded and dying from the war, Hester must choose between her new life and the man whose loyalty to her has never failed.
A young woman attempts to find a good man to marry so that her mother may die in peace.
Angela maintains a coastal lighthouse in Italy, where she awaits the return of her brothers from the war. She learns they are casualties and takes solace in the arms of an American sailor washed ashore. However, the sailor turns out to be a German spy, and she is torn between her love for him and her realization that he is part of the enemy force that has destroyed her family.
When Pollyanna is orphaned, she's sent to live with her crotchety Aunt Polly. Pollyanna discovers that many of the people in her aunt's New England hometown are as ill-tempered as her aunt. But Pollyanna's incurable optimism - exemplified by her "glad game", in which she looks for the bright side of every situation - brings a change to the staid old community.
A Southern teen at a ritzy boarding school gets into mischief while acting the sophisticated grownup to impress a suave gentleman and match wits with a pair of jewel thieves.
A love triangle drama, based on a novel by Robert W. Chambers, who is better-known for weird fiction (which is not noticeable in this story.)
Young Leon Kanter dreams of being a great violinist. His parents scrape up the money for a violin and for lessons, and Leon rewards them by becoming a great player. But as an adult, Leon finds that people want more from him than just music.
The Misleading Widow is a 1919 silent film comedy starring Billie Burke as Betty Taradine. It was based on the 1917 stage play Billeted by F. Tennyson Jesse and H.M. Harwood. The film was produced by Famous Players-Lasky and distributed through Paramount Pictures. It appears to be a lost film.
An old man wills a map to his grandson, with instructions showing a buried treasure, but it is accidentally sold to a book store. The owner and her granddaughter Mary discover it. Mary and her boyfriend an aspiring author, meet the desperate grandson and agree to share the treasure.
Anne Shirley, an orphan, is taken into the lives of a generous farmer and his sister. She grows from an adventuresome young lass into a charming and much sought-after young lady.
Stella Maris is a beautiful, crippled girl, who is cared for by a rich family. They shield her from the harsh realities of the world, so that she has no idea of the cruel things that some people do. Unity Blake is a poor orphan all too familiar with the harsh realities of the real world. These two young women both fall in love with John, love which is complicated by the fact that he is still married to (though separated from) a bad wife.
A young girl, stifling on her father's backwoods farm, is reinvigorated by the arrival of an army regiment, come to train in the area.
Amarilly comes from a large family in a working-class neighborhood. She is happy with her family and her boyfriend Terry, a bartender in a cafe. But one day she meets Gordon, a sculptor who comes from a rich family, and she begins to be drawn into the world of the upper class.
Jerry Martin quits his dull job as a bank clerk and falls in with a band of hobos. He takes on the guise of Bachelor, the "king of the market," and finds himself pursued by dangerous men who are after the real Bachelor. *Only fragments are known to exist.
Gwen's family is rich, but her parents ignore her and most of the servants push her around, so she is lonely and unhappy. Her father is concerned only with making money, and her mother cares only about her social position. But one day a servant's irresponsibility creates a crisis that causes everyone to rethink what is important to them.
Tillie and her neighbor Mr. Pipkins are both distraught over their respective marriages. One day, they sneak off to have a lively time at Coney Island. They flee the park together just as their spouses come to find them. After a chase, each is rescued from the ocean and reconcile with their respective spouses.
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917) is a silent film directed by Marshall Neilan based upon the novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin. This version is notable for having been adapted by famed female screenwriter Frances Marion. The film was made by the "Mary Pickford Company" and was an acclaimed box office smash.
A restless young girl yearns to leave her rural environment and "get away from it all". One day she stumbles upon a film crew shooting a western near her home. She makes friends with the film's leading man, who encourages her to try her luck as an actress. So she leaves her small town and goes to the big city to break into the picture business. However, things don't turn out quite the way she planned.
Carlyle Blackwell stars as an American in Germany at the outbreak of World War I. A mysterious stranger bursts into his room and proclaims him her husband. What's a gentleman to do? He poses as her husband to deliver "papers" to French headquarters. Adventure follows.
Little Sara Crewe is placed in a boarding school by her father when he goes off to war, but he does not understand that the headmistress is a cruel, spiteful woman who makes life miserable for Sara.
Three sisters, all raised as boys, have trouble fitting into male-dominated society. A lost film.
In The Gilded Cage, Alice Brady plays Princess Honore, who falls in love with a handsome prince who doesn't know her true identity (nor does she know his).
Rich artist David King sends his infant daughter Molly to an orphanage, then years later regrets it and tries to find her. She's sent to slave at a boarding house,and the mistress of the orphanage passes her niece off as Molly.
Compelled to keep house for her father and her younger sister and brother, Martha is deprived of all the pleasures of youth. Ned, who loves her, begs her to elope with him. Martha yields, but while on the way to the minister, decides that her duty lies back home with her father. Heart-broken, Ned leaves for the city.
Camille is a courtesan in Paris. She falls deeply in love with a young man of promise, Armand Duval. When Armand's father begs her not to ruin his hopes of a career and position by marrying Armand, she acquiesces and leaves her lover. However, when poverty and terminal illness overwhelm her, Camille discovers that Armand has not lost his love for her.
Mary Pickford plays "Rags," a pretty but wild girl who defends her alcoholic father a disgraced bank cashier, no matter how he mistreats her. Enter a handsome engineer whose family had once fired Rag's father for theft. Rags falls in love but realizes that marriage is a hopeless proposition considering her lowly place in society. But when she learns that her father plans to rob the newcomer, Rags betrays him to the sheriff, and he is shot in the ensuing battle.
A young wild girl Fanchon ( Mary Pickford ) lives in a forest with her eccentric grandmother who is suspected by the villagers of being a witch. The unkempt Fanchon suffers from her grandmother's sorceress reputation. One day the girl rescues a boy from drowning and they fall in love, but Fanchon won't agree to marry him unless his father asks her. A year later the boy has fallen very ill and it is only the presence of the enchanting Fanchon that helps to restore his health.
A lost film. A girl with old-fashioned values becomes a modern sophisticate.
To fulfill a dying mother's bequest for her daughter, the town pastor purchases the daughter a stylish hat, and gossip spreads through the town.
