A Woman's Business

The Face on the Barroom Floor

January 1923 •English

As a derelict paints the face of a girl on a barroom floor, the plot is developed in a series of flashbacks: Robert Stevens, an artist engaged to marry Marion, a society girl, becomes charmed with a fisherman's daughter who poses for him. The society girl's brother brings dishonor upon the fisherman's daughter, and when she commits suicide the artist shields the brother. Stevens is blamed by his fiancée, who terminates their engagement. The artist becomes a derelict and is wrongfully imprisoned. Eventually Stevens is exonerated and reunited with Marion.

Modern Times

February 1936 •English

A bumbling tramp desires to build a home with a young woman, yet is thwarted time and time again by his lack of experience and habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time..

Caravan of Death

November 1920 •German

Caravan of Death (German: Die Todeskarawane) is a 1920 silent German film, it was an adaptation of the latter half of the Karl May novel From Baghdad to Stamboul, and is now considered to be lost. The film featured Bela Lugosi playing an Arab Sheik pitted against European travellers in an adventure story set in the Sahara. It was the second of three films released by Ustad based on desert adventure novels by Karl May. Although Karl May’s widow praised the film, critics were unimpressed and it was a commercial failure.

Sklaven fremden Willens

January 1920 •German

When doctors fail to cure the young and beautiful Claire Raven, who for inexplicable reasons seems to have fallen under a spell, Professor Mors, an expert in the field of hypnosis, is called in to help.

Two Memories

May 1909 •English

Henry and Marion have a lover's quarrel and part in anger. They do not reconcile, and ten years pass without contact. Marion becomes a society girl and spends her time at parties with her friends. Henry has become very ill and wishes to see Marion one more time. He writes asking her to visit. When she recieves the note, she laughs and tosses it on the floor, but, later, on a whim, decides to take all her drunken friends with her to visit him. When they arrive, Marion finds Henry dead, clutching her portrait in his hand. She sends her friends away and falls to her knees in remorse. Mary Pickford's debut!

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...

Souls from the Coast

September 1923 •Spanish

The plot revolves around a love triangle: Nela, the lead character, falls in love with Jorge, who in turn is seduced by Clarisa, the daughter of a doctor who treats Nela's tuberculosis.

Battleship Potemkin

December 1925 •Russian

A dramatized account of a great Russian naval mutiny and a resultant public demonstration, showing support, which brought on a police massacre. The film had an incredible impact on the development of cinema and is a masterful example of montage editing.

Nanook of the North

June 1922 •English

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

October (Ten Days that Shook the World)

May 1928 •Russian

Sergei M. Eisenstein's docu-drama about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. Made ten years after the events and edited in Eisenstein's 'Soviet Montage' style, it re-enacts in celebratory terms several key scenes from the revolution.

Bookkeeper Kremke

September 1930 •German

In this realistic, unsentimental portrait of Germany’s dire economic situation, a middle-aged payroll clerk loses his job due to technological advances and, unable to find another, descends into despair. The film’s director, Marie Harder, was one of only a few women directors of the time and was also the head of the German Social Democratic Film Office. She made only two known films before her accidental death in exile in Mexico in 1936.

Greed

December 1924 •English

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

The Block Signal

September 1926 •English

Joe Ryan, a veteran train engineer, is demoted to a flagman position after a disastrous crash-- one caused by his cowardly and opportunistic partner. Though Ryan's failing eyesight is named as the cause of the crash, he's undeterred as he designs an automatic braking invention.

Tarnish

August 1924 •English

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.

Finders Keepers

January 1921 •English

Amy Lindel, a church choir singer, goes to the city to pursue a singing career, but finds herself only able to get cabaret gigs. She then becomes entangled in a situation involving stolen diamonds, and is saved by the "good guy" whom she later marries.

The Gamblers

June 1929 •English

A father-and-son team of cons gamble their firm’s assets. The son is caught investing money that doesn't belong to him and is indicted on a swindling charge. The plot gets spicy when the District Attorney handling the case is his former sweetheart's husband. This situation gives the DA an opportunity to prosecute his romantic rival.

Cabiria

June 1914 •Italian

Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, and Fulvius sent away to fight for Rome, is there any hope of our heroes reuniting?

Some Good in All

December 1911 •English

John Lane is a prosperous businessman, a widower, who lives in a large house with his seven-year-old daughter Betty. Lane has an enemy, one Ben Hartley, who, by the aid of some forged papers, threatens to expose Lane and put him in prison. The night of the story opens with Lane receiving a letter from Hartley, who demands $10,000, to be paid at midnight, that night. Lane has not that much ready money in the house, and no way to get it. He thinks it all out and decides to commit suicide. He stands before a mirror and is about to pull the trigger, when Bill, the burglar, steps into the room, stopping him.

For the Honor of the Family

January 1912 •English

On account of his extravagance and dissipation, Col. Ryder disowns his son and casts him off. Guy, resolved to redeem himself, joins an Indian regiment as a private, and leaves England.