John Barrymore
A recut of the 1920 film “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” with a new soundtrack and additional scenes that go deeper into Jekyll’s psyche.
A look at actresses who starred in films with thought-provoking subjects made between 1930 and July 1934, before the Hollywood Production Code —the infamous Hays Code— was enforced.
An unprecedented anthology of never-before-told true stories by and about some of Hollywood's most interesting stars, legends, and wannabes, and takes readers inside Hollywood's inner sanctum to show how casting decisions are made, who makes them, and who has the final word.
Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
Ken Murray narrates his 16mm home movies shot over 35 years in Hollywood.
A compilation of early-day silent films that serves as a glimpse back to the formative days of the movie industry as a salute to Hollywood's Golden Year, so proclaimed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce as 1953.
Feature-length compilation of 1920s newsreel footage, with commentary about news, sports, lifestyles, and historical figures.
This short was released in connection with the 20th anniversary of Warner Brothers' first exhibition of the Vitaphone sound-on-film process on 6 August 1926. The film highlights Thomas A. Edison and Alexander Graham Bell's efforts that contributed to sound movies and acknowledges the work of Lee De Forest. Brief excerpts from the August 1926 exhibition follow. Clips are then shown from a number of Warner Brothers features, four from the 1920s, the remainder from 1946/47.
This short traces the history of sound in the movies, beginning with French scientist Leon Scott's experiments in 1857. Featured are snippets from early sound pictures.
The edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of edition #1, then a tribute to movie people who have died in those 25 years. Finally there are tributes to the Screen Snapshots series by Cecil De Mille, Walt Disney, Louella Parsons and Rosalind Russell.
Lulu Monahan, the press agent for John Barrymore, is attempting to get a sponsor for a radio program. To that end, she and the agent for bandleader Kay Kyser, plant a story that the great Shakespearean actor, over his heartfelt objections, will teach Kyser how to play Shakespeare, which isn't the same as playing Paducah, which soon becomes evident.
A movie-making publicity man screwball comedy about a movie producer who wants to create publicity for his latest project. He decides to have three men pose as spies, disrupting the opening, but things don't go quite as planned...there are actual spies also present!
An alcoholic film star attempts a comeback. Director Walter Lang's 1940 comedy stars John Barrymore, Mary Beth Hughes, Anne Baxter, John Payne, Lionel Atwill and Edward Brophy.
Kitty Carroll, an attractive store model, volunteers to become a test subject for a machine that will make her invisible so that she can use her invisibility to exact revenge on her ex-boss.
In 1923, Gregory Vance, a widower with two children, is a former scholar who has turned from book-to-bottle. He works, slightly, as a night-watchman and his children, who know him for what he is and what he isn't, are his only admirers. Then, it is discovered that he is the only registered voter in a key precinct and the politicians, from both parties, arrive in droves bearing inducements. What he does about this situation, and the relatives who want to take his children away from him make up the story.
In 1939, Orson Welles staged a version of "The Green Goddess" in New York, which was preceded by a short film prelude – this was two years before the release of his debut feature film, Citizen Kane. The footage is now believed lost.
This film tells the history of the United States from pre-Revolution through 1939.
Two Alaskan salmon fisherman find their friendship at risk when one aligns with Russian fish pirates and the other aligns with local vigilantes.
This short shows how Hollywood gets ready for the world premiere of an "important" movie. The film celebrated here is Marie Antoinette (1938), which had its premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre. We see the street leading to the theatre transformed to suggest a garden that might be seen in a French palace. This includes the placement of trees and other foliage, as well as large statues along the route. Grandstands are set up so fans can see their favorite stars as they arrive for the premiere. Finally, the proverbial "galaxy of stars" arrives in their limousines. Fanny Brice and Pete Smith make remarks at the microphone set up on the carpet outside the theatre.
An egotistical politician believes he can win votes by turning a small college's hapless football squad into a championship team. Comedy.
The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.
Drummond's wedding with Phyllis is interrupted when the inspector guarding their gifts is killed. He tries to trace the killers and uncovers the mystery of diamond counterfeiters.
A baritone aids a young servant in making her dream of singing professionally come true.
When Dr. Ernest Tindal's wife is murdered, evidence mounts to convict her lover, Frank Marian. But Frank knows he didn't do it.....
Helen and Ken are a pretty strange couple. She is a pathological liar, and he is a scrupulously honest, and therefore unsuccessful lawyer. Helen starts a new job, and when her employer is found dead, all the circumstantial evidence points at her. She is put on trial for murder, and her husband defends her. He thinks she is lying again when she says she didn't do it, and insists she plead that she did, but in self defense. Charlie, a shady, odd character who may or may not know something about what really happened, hangs around the courtroom and jail making rude comments and noises. After Helen is acquitted, he tries to blackmail them.
Drummond's girlfriend is kidnapped by his enemies and he along with his friend Nielsen, an inspector from Scotland Yard, follow the trail and try to rescue her from the kidnappers.
Captain Drummond is travelling to Switzerland to marry his girlfriend. However, when a cargo containing dangerous explosives goes missing from its place, Drummond is forced to delay his plans.
Young love is poisoned by a generations long feud between two noble families.
Oscar Jaffe is a successful Broadway director, Lily Garland his biggest star. When she leaves his direction, his success goes with her. When he recognizes her aboard the Twentieth Century Limited, the train that both of them are riding, he tries to get her back for a new show. But accomplishing that feat isn't as simple as he had thought.
A long-absent father is reunited with his daughter, who still holds a grudge that he had deserted his family years earlier.
An exiled archduke (John Barrymore) tries to renew romance with a former lover (Diana Wynyard) now wed to a psychiatrist (Frank Morgan).
Successful attorney has his Jewish heritage and poverty-stricken background brought home to him when he learns his wife has been unfaithful.
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.
A 1933 screen test for a proposed, but never filmed, movie version of "Hamlet" in Technicolor, starring John Barrymore - this is the Ghost Scene.
Story of South American mail pilots, and the dangers they face flying at night.
The story of corrupt, power-hungry, manipulative Grigori Rasputin's influence on members of the Russian Imperial family and others, and what resulted.
Corrupt alcoholic attorney Tom Cardigan is one of the best lawyers around, commanding the courtroom like a stage and often winning his cases. Mobster Valentine Powers, who employs Cardigan and put him through school, asks him to represent a woman, June Perry, accused of prostitution. Cardigan agrees. But he never expected to fall for her, which is problematic since he's angling to become governor and will need the right kind of wife.
Hillary Fairfield returns home after fifteen years in an asylum with his sanity restored. But he is disturbed to find that everything has changed: his daughter grown and about to marry; his wife divorced and also about to marry.
A charming and very daring thief known as Arsene Lupin is terrorizing the wealthy of Paris, he even goes so far as to threaten the Mona Lisa. But the police, led by the great Guerchard, think they know Arsene Lupin's identity, and they have a secret weapon to catch him.
A crippled puppeteer rescues an abused young boy and turns the boy into a great ballet dancer. Complications ensue when, as a young man, the dancer falls in love with a young woman the puppeteer is also in love with.
The film takes place in the 18th century Austria and revolves around Prince Christian, commonly known as General Crack. His father had been a respectable member of the nobility but his mother was a gypsy. General Crack, as a soldier of fortune, spent his adult life selling his services to the highest bidder. He espouses the doubtful cause of Leopold II of Austria after demanding the sister of the emperor in marriage as well as half of gold of the Empire. Before he has finished his work, however, he meets a gypsy dancer and weds her. Complications arise when he takes his gypsy wife to the Austrian court and falls desperately in love with the emperor's sister.
When a nobleman loses his way in the fog and enters a house where there's a party going on, he's mistaken for a hired butler.
It's 1929. The studio gave the cinema its voice gave offered the audiences a chance to see their favorite actors and actresses from the silent screen era to see and for the first time can be heard in a gaudy, grandiose music comedy revue. But also appear actors and actresses from the first 'talkies', stars from Broadway and of course the German shepherd Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay is the host of the more than 70 well-known stars who show various acts.
In the Swiss Alps of the early 19th century, a couple forced into loveless marriages struggle to find happiness with one another.
In the final days of Czarist Russia, a peasant is raised from the ranks to Lieutenant. The other officers, aristocrats all, resent him, and make his life difficult. He falls in love with a princess, who spurns him. When he is caught in her room, he is stripped of his rank and thrown into prison. Then comes the Red Terror, and the tables are turned.
Footage from the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 film 'The Circus'.
A nobleman studying for the priesthood abandons his vocation in 18th Century France when he falls in love with a beautiful, but reluctant, courtesan.
François Villon, in his lifetime the most renowned poet in France, is also a prankster, an occasional criminal, and an ardent patriot.
Home movie travelogue of John Barrymore and Walter Mayo aboard the schooner 'The Mariner' setting sail out of Los Angeles to Guadalupe Island, 150 miles off the West coast of Mexico's Baja California peninsula.
If there was one thing that Don Juan de Marana learned from his father Don Jose, it was that women gave you three things - life, disillusionment and death. In his father's case it was his wife, Donna Isobel, and Donna Elvira who supplied the latter. Don Juan settled in Rome after attending the University of Pisa. Rome was run by the tyrannical Borgia family consisting of Caesar, Lucrezia and the Count Donati. Juan has his way with and was pursued by many women, but it is the one that he could not have that haunts him. It will be for her that he suffers the wrath of Borgia for ignoring Lucrezia and then killing Count Donati in a duel. For Adriana, they will both be condemned to death in the prison on the river Tigre.
Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala.
George Bryan Brummel, a British military officer, loves Lady Margery, the betrothed of Lord Alvanley. Despite her own desperate love for Brummel, she submits to family pressure and marries Lord Alvanley. Brummel, broken-hearted, embarks upon a life of revelry.
Sherlock Holmes is a master at solving the most impenetrable mysteries, but he has his work cut out for him on his latest case. Prince Alexis is accused of a theft that he insists he didn't commit. The evidence is stacked against him, but Holmes' trusted friend, Dr. Watson, vouches for the prince. As the famed detective investigates, he's brought face to face with his most devious adversary yet -- Professor Moriarty.
A doctor's research into the roots of evil turns him into a hideous depraved fiend.
A young man with little means wants to marry a rich girl, and thinks up a scheme to get rich.
After serving a term in prison for a crime he did not commit, a man exacts revenge upon the two people who framed him.
Young couple gets married in secret because her family objects to the match. To escape the family the couple goes into hiding.
AJ Raffles, a handsome jewel thief masquerades as a gentleman of society fitting in with well-to-do people. He dons a mask and waits for an opportune moment to steal belongings, usually some jewelry and to take advantage of unsuspecting women whether at an estate or aboard a passenger ship. Raffles knows secret passageways to aid his escape from capture such as disappearing into a large grandfather clock that is really a secret doorway. He even eludes capture by jumping off a ship and swimming to shore while women passengers fire pistols at him.
A crown prince doesn't want to marry a foreign princess, so he asks an actor to take his place.
Suffering from aphasia after being conked on the head, a man is coerced into robbing his fiancée's home.
An American corset manufacturer by the name of Cicero Hannibal Butts travels to Russia, where he has comic adventures involving a famous opera star and political intrigue.
On the lam from the New York Police because of a false murder charge, playboy Brooke Travers escapes to a Central American banana republic.
A rich contractor sends his son to supervise the building of a new dam. His clothes are stolen by a tramp and dressed in the tramp's clothes he's mistaken for a laborer.
A young man gets arrested after a drunken night. Sentenced to 30 days in jail, he tells his wife he has to go to Mexico for a month.
Helen Ross spends her time reading novels. She has made up her mind to marry only a young man whom she can save from something or other, or one who can rescue her in some romantic way.
Little Albert Mills, eight years old, reads in the paper the accounts of the abduction of children and holding them for ransom. He conceives the idea of playing the game on his little sister, Henrietta. He writes a note reading, "I have your children. Put four thousand dollars under the stone on front porch and I will bring them back. They are now hanging by the hair. Blue Beard." He then tells Henrietta to look the other way, and he takes her dolls out of the doll buggy and hides them in the garden. Then he places the note in the rural delivery mailbox at the front gate. A little later a young fellow brings an auto up to the gate and the children plead for a ride. After a little hesitancy he consents and the children are carried away to the park. Mrs. Mills misses the children and finds the note in the mail box. She takes the matter seriously, and gathering a lot of neighbors and a policeman, gives chase to the auto.
The manager calls in the director to give him one in a hurry. The director shows him several scripts, but they do not suit; so the director is compelled to call the scenario writer to have a play written in an hour. The director summons his company and reads the play to them; then tells them to make up, while he gives his plots to the stage manager. Being weary, he falls asleep in a chair in the center of the stage and dreams the following: A young girl, employed in an office, falls in love with the head clerk. The boss is a black mustached villain, who is also in love with the girl.
Spoony Sam is a veritable pest at Si Hawkins' farm, and the girls treat him as a huge joke. In a city cigarette factory there is a peach of a young girl, Fannie Fatima. She writes a note on one of the leaves of a book of cigarette papers, declaring she will wed the man who finds it.
Mrs. Casey, a pretty young widow is sought by O'Brien and Sullivan, who are rivals.
