A drama about the contents of a last will and testament left behind by an African-American sharecropper who was lynched after being falsely accused of the murder of a white plantation owner.
Social & External
The people behind it
William Fountaine
Shingzie Howard
Jim, a robber, is in love with the chief’s bride Clara, who firmly rejects his many advances. In revenge, he snitches on the entire gang of robbers to the police, who immediately imprison the chief and his men. Clara kills the treacherous Jim and sets out to free her lover from prison. (Stumfilm.dk)
It is love at first sight when Armand Duval meets the courtisan Marguerite. They move in together and live happily until Armands father secretly pays Marguerite a visit to tell her that her questionable reputation has put Armand's entire family in disrepute. She sacrifices herself and leaves Armand, who – in the belief that she left of her own free will – embitters by grief and anger. But destiny wants them to meet again. (stumfilm.dk)
After wandering the world for fifteen years, Hiram Perkins returns home to find his wife running a small town newspaper to support their two daughters. With pity in her heart, Mrs. Perkins allows her husband to stay in the house providing that he not disclose his identity. Mrs. Perkins is waging a battle against the re-election of Joel Skinner for a seat in the assembly, and when she learns that Skinner has mistreated old Mrs. Miller, she is determined to expose his actions. Rome Preston, running in opposition to Skinner, requests that she stop the story, but Mrs. Perkins refuses and so Preston disables the press. With Hiram's help, Mrs. Perkins prints the story and Skinner is defeated. In revenge, Skinner's men burn the press and demand that Hiram be tarred and feathered. At this moment, Mrs. Perkins acknowledges that Hiram is her husband and all is forgiven as the Perkins family is reunited.
Café singer Florence Burgess, a café singer secretly supports her lame sister Frances, one day she catches the eye of theatrical manager Oscar Morse, who offers her an engagement. However, when they meet, he makes inappropriate advances, which Florence rejects. Out of work after her café closes, Florence tricks Morse by getting him drunk and having him sign a substitute contract, starring her in a show called "The Green Goddess." Now successful and using the stage name Flo Burke she takes a rest at a country hotel. She meets and falls in love with Fenton, a minister whose earlier efforts led to the closure of her old café. Unaware of her true identity, Fenton tells her about his missionary work. Florence keeps her identity secret, saying she is the sister of Flo Burke, and falls in love with him. After hearing Fenton preach, Florence decides to leave the stage, but Morse demands a large forfeit, effectively binding her to her theatrical contract.
German silent film
Two smugglers meet two customs officers at sea, and happen to kill them. The story continues fifteen years later when a son of one of the officers and a smuggler's daughter fall in love with each other.
In Russia shortly before the outbreak of the First World War, Princess Vorontsov (Ellen Richter) is in love with a high-ranking officer of the tsarist army. When he is murdered, she craves revenge. The leading suspect is a lawyer with ties to nihilist revolutionaries. On behalf of the secret police, she travels to Switzerland in order to gain his trust and facilitate his arrest. Too late she realizes that she has been toyed with all along. Her fiancé was not the man she thought she was.
Ben Trimble, a country boy visiting the city, becomes involved with a safecracker and finds himself sliding into a life of crime. But chance provides him with an opportunity to redeem himself.
The story is of Angelina Allende, who is left an orphan by the suicide of her father, a real-estate visionary who has beggared not only himself but his friends in a vain attempt to "boom" the deserted hamlet of Anne's Bridge. Receiving news of his death, Angelina returns home, where she is presently inveigled into a trip to New York by two men, one of whom wants the property and the other of whom wants Angelina.
Mollie Andrews is a little New England school teacher who goes out to Rawhide, Montana, to "teach the west" its manners. She is of romantic nature, and the picturesque statue and habits of Dan Clark impress her deeply. She marries him. Clark is a bad man at heart. He treats Mollie brutally after the first blush of honeymooning; then slays one of his own kind, and escapes across the border to Canada.
After the death of her sewing machine tycoon husband, a young woman is cold-shouldered by her grasping in-laws. She heads to New York City and meets a man, falls in love and gets married. Unknown to her, her new husband is after what he thinks to be her fortune, in revenge for the theft of his father's patents that made the sewing machine profits. Discovering that she is in fact penniless, they both reconcile.
Billie is the "little mother" of the family and cares for the two smaller children. Her father has fallen under the spell of drink. Billie has become hardened by her struggle against the drink demon in her father and treats him with scant consideration.
A man searches for a cursed emerald belonging to his ancestor. Lost film, minor fragments survive
Kent Johns learns that he must be married within a certain timeframe to collect a significant fortune left by his late grandfather. Kent originally plans to marry his girlfriend, "Dovie" Jansen, but she calls off their wedding to marry a European count instead. Needing a wife quickly, Kent proposes a business-like marriage to Vivian "Vi" Matthews (Greta Nissen), his next-door neighbor who has long harbored feelings for him. The contract stipulates that after one year, they will divorce, and Vi will receive a $100,000 settlement. Encouraged by her friend Pat, Vi accepts the offer. During their honeymoon in New York City, Vi undergoes a physical transformation—aided by her personal maid, Celeste—evolving from a plain "homely matron" into a sophisticated and beautiful woman. While Kent remains preoccupied with business and often neglects his new wife, his artist friend Philip Marlowe (James Kirkwood) becomes deeply attracted to the "new" Vi, creating a romantic rivalry.
Assuming the worst Geoffrey Challoner impulsively storms out of the house when he sees his new wife Robin reading old love letters. In his absence, Norman Craig, planning with his wife to lease an upstairs apartment owned by Judge Corcoran, wanders into the Challoners' apartment. Robin, mistaking him for a burglar, shoots him and then runs for a doctor. Returning, Geoffrey again rashly makes assumptions and immediately files for divorce. Mrs. Craig and Norman, who had merely fainted, are invited to Judge Corcoran's weekend home along with the Challoners, whom the judge hopes to reunite. Following a bewildering series of misadventures, including an attempted robbery by the maid and the chauffeur, Geoffrey learns that the love letters were his own, and the young couple are reconciled.
Rosemary van Voort lives in the countryside with her elderly Dutch parents. The wooden dolls she carves so beautifully catch the eye of a group of artists who are having a picnic in the area. Among them is aspiring opera singer Ricardo Fitzmaurice. Rosemary is convinced to move to New York City where she becomes wildly successful, but when the temperamental Madame Fedoreska, who is in love with Ricardo, becomes insanely jealous of his growing affection for Rosemary she threatens to kill her. When Madame turns up shot to death, the police look at Rosemary as a suspect--and even worse, she has no alibi.
The interconnected lives of the residents living in a bungalow court. As the neighbors interact, their personal dramas, secrets, and romantic entanglements heavily intertwine. The central conflict of the story revolves around the residents' collective struggle against the court's mean, nasty, and spiteful landlord, whose overbearing presence and malicious actions disrupt their lives and force them into unexpected alliances.
A mountain girl with an army-hating father, meets a handsome army captain, who teaches her how to love her country.
In their small-minded New England village Liz and her alcoholic father are rejected by the townspeople. When the new minister, Henry Penfield, comes to town he is attracted to Liz. Also arriving on the same train is young artist Arnold Brice. He takes a fancy to the prettiest girl in town, Mildred Holcombe who is the daughter of a deacon of the church. Mildred and Arnold fall in love, but her brother Arthur threatens to kill the artist if he finds them together. Heedless of Arthur's threats, Mildred goes to Arnold's studio, however Liz sees Arthur following and runs to the studio to warn them. Upon Arthur arrival Liz makes it seem it was she having an affair with Arnold. The deacons plan to banish Liz but Henry discovers the truth, resigns and announces his engagement to Liz.
When her cotton crop is burned, Barbara Pelham, a beautiful southern girl, comes to New York to find work as a fashion designer, staying with Mrs. Kemp, a woman she meets on the northbound train. In Mrs. Kemp's house, Barbara encounters Peter Heffner, a wealthy stockbroker, and discovers from him that she has taken up residence in a whorehouse. There is a police raid, but Barbara escapes arrest and returns home. Heffner's son, Neil, goes south to inspect some family property and there meets Barbara, with whom he falls in love. They decide to be married, and she accompanies him to New York, where she meets the elder Heffner for a second time. He denounces her as a whore, but Barbara goes to Mrs. Kemp, who explains the misunderstanding to everyone's satisfaction.
After returning home to his long-estranged mother upon a request from her deathbed, a man raised by his parents in an orphanage has to confront the childhood memories that have long haunted him.
On a whim, a greedy tycoon decides to corner the world market in wheat. This doubles the price of bread, forcing grain producers into charity lines and others further into poverty. The film contrasts the differences between the lives of those who work to grow the wheat and the life of the man who dabbles in its sale for profit.
Young teen girl Xiu Xiu is sent away to a remote corner of the Sichuan steppes for manual labor in 1975 (sending young people to there was a part of Cultural Revolution in China). A year later, she agrees to go to even more remote spot with a Tibetan saddle tramp Lao Jin to learn horse herding.
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
Jamie Fitzpatrick and Nona Alberts are two women from opposites sides of the social and economic track, but they have one thing in common: a mission to fix their community's broken school and ensure a bright future for their children. The two women refuse to let any obstacles stand in their way as they battle a bureaucracy that's hopelessly mired in traditional thinking, and they seek to re-energize a faculty that has lost its passion for teaching.
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
A young man with a bright future suffers a near-fatal accident and recreates his new life with the help of an unlikely animal friend.
Nola grew up living in a van with her father, Clint—two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past, and her new destination.
The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.
Agnes and her two sisters struggle through a day in a home overrun by gamblers, thieves, and johns.
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
A poor, struggling South Carolinian mother and daughter face painful choices with their resolve and pride. Bone, the eldest daughter, and Anney her tired mother, grow both closer and farther apart: Anney sees Glen as her last chance.
While Native American Wolf is being pursued by the FBI for having taken the law into his own hands, when his mother was raped and killed on their reservation he crosses paths with Cash, a down and out musician who is coping with the end of his marriage. An unlikely friendship develops, as they ride together towards the Teton mountain range, where Wolf will spread his mothers ashes.
Based on the true story of a black girl who was born to two white Afrikaner parents in South Africa during the apartheid era.
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Years after her son's suicide, a woman longs to confront both the past and a friend of his who took his business idea.
Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.
Romulus, a misunderstood musician turned recluse hiding from personal demons in a New York City cave, finds the frozen body of a young drifter in a tree. The authorities, including his police officer daughter, claim the death is accidental. Romulus is convinced the man was murdered by a prominent art photographer but how can he prove he's right when everyone thinks he's insane?
