The Fire Patrol

Broken Barriers

January 1919 •Yiddish

This 1919 silent is the first American film based on the same Sholem Aleichem stories as Fiddler on the Roof, but produced 50 years before the blockbuster musical. Unlike most adaptations of Aleichem’s work, Broken Barriers (Khavah) focuses not on Tevye the milkman, but on his daughter Khavah, who falls in love with the gentile boy Fedka and must navigate the reverberations from this with both her community and her family.

The Detective's Dog

February 1912 •English

When Kitty's family adopts a homeless dog they couldn't guess how much it would be of help in her fathers detective work.

The Passion of Joan of Arc

April 1928 •French

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

May 1919 •English

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

February 1931 •English

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.

Pandora's Box

January 1929 •German

Lulu is a young woman so beautiful and alluring that few can resist her siren charms. The men drawn into her web include respectable newspaper publisher Dr. Ludwig Schön, his musical producer son Alwa, circus performer Rodrigo Quast, and seedy old Schigolch. When Lulu's charms inevitably lead to tragedy, the downward spiral encompasses them all.

The Gold Rush

July 1925 •English

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

Jenny

January 1915 •Italian

A romance story about Jenny and the men that love her.

The Singing Fool

September 1928 •English

After years of hopeful struggle, waiter and aspiring singer-songwriter Al Stone is on his way. He gets his huge break on a magical night when his song wows big-time producer Louis Marcus and gold-digging showgirl Molly, whom Al fancies. Broadway success and marriage follow, but sure enough, hard times are on the way.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

February 1920 •German

Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.

People on Sunday

February 1930 •German

A semi-documentary experimental 1930 German silent film created by amateurs with a small budget. With authentic scenes of the metropolis city of Berlin, it's the first film from the later famous screenwriters/directors Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann.

The Birth of a Nation

March 1915 •English

Two families, abolitionist Northerners the Stonemans and Southern landowners the Camerons, intertwine. When Confederate colonel Ben Cameron is captured in battle, nurse Elsie Stoneman petitions for his pardon. In Reconstruction-era South Carolina, Cameron founds the Ku Klux Klan, battling Elsie's congressman father and his African-American protégé, Silas Lynch.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

November 1927 •English

A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.

Underground

July 1928 •English

A working-class love story set in and around the London Underground of the 1920s. Two men – gentle Bill and brash Bert – meet and are attracted to the same woman on the same day at the same Underground station. But the lady chooses Bill, and Bert isn't the type to take rejection lightly...

My Old Dutch

May 1926 •English

The story that inspired Albert Chevalier to write his immortal Costermonger song, 'My Old Dutch', is the story this picture tells of London's quaint and sturdy tradesmen - her humble vegetable peddlers

Station Content

June 1918 •English

A wayward wife abandons her husband but finds redemption by preventing a railway accident and finding her way back to him. The full 5-reel feature is believed lost; A 1926 abridgement of roughly 12 minutes survives.

A Woman's Business

June 1920 •English

Greed

December 1924 •English

A lottery win of $5,000 forever changes the lives of a miner turned dentist and his wife.

Waves of Passion

October 1930 •Estonian

About the booming of smuggling alcohol across the Baltic Sea between Estonia and the neighboring and alcohol prohibited Finland. Fiery love relationships are another theme of the film.

L'Âge d'or

November 1930 •French

The film consists of a series of tightly interlinked vignettes, the most sustained of which details the story of a man and a woman who are passionately in love. Their attempts to consummate their passion are constantly thwarted, by their families, by the Church and bourgeois society in general.