Chadwick Pictures

The earliest sound adaptation of Charles Dickens's novel, made on a shoestring by Poverty Row studio Monogram. Young Dickie Moore plays the workhouse orphan who falls in with Fagin's gang of boy pickpockets, with Irving Pichel as Fagin and William "Stage" Boyd as the brutal Bill Sikes. Stripped to the bare bones of the story by its tight budget, the film nevertheless preserves the novel's core scenes and was the only talking-picture Oliver Twist for more than a decade. The film is in the public domain.

Drama

A silent crime-horror film directed by James Young, based on the 1867 French play Le Juif Polonais by Erckmann-Chatrian. Lionel Barrymore stars as Mathias, an innkeeper who murders a wealthy Jewish merchant for his gold on New Year's Eve, then is haunted by the sound of sleigh bells and ghostly visions. Boris Karloff appears in an early role as a sinister mesmerist who arrives to torment Mathias with supernatural visions of hell. The film blends murder melodrama with Gothic horror, and Karloff's menacing presence, years before Frankenstein made him a star, hints at the iconic monster roles to come. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Crime · Silent

A silent-era, very loose adaptation of L. Frank Baum's Oz books, written, directed by, and starring Larry Semon as the Scarecrow. The plot barely resembles the familiar 1939 film: a tyrannical wizard rules Oz, a farmhand disguised as a scarecrow helps a deposed princess, and Oliver Hardy (before his partnership with Stan Laurel) plays the Tin Woodsman. Semon stuffs the film with his trademark gag-heavy, slapstick style, and the result is a curious artifact more than a classic, but it is the earliest surviving feature-length Oz adaptation. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Fantasy · Comedy · Adventure · Silent

A silent-era, very loose adaptation of L. Frank Baum's Oz books, written, directed by, and starring Larry Semon as the Scarecrow. The plot barely resembles the familiar 1939 film: a tyrannical wizard rules Oz, a farmhand disguised as a scarecrow helps a deposed princess, and Oliver Hardy (before his partnership with Stan Laurel) plays the Tin Woodsman. Semon stuffs the film with his trademark gag-heavy, slapstick style, and the result is a curious artifact more than a classic, but it is the earliest surviving feature-length Oz adaptation. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Fantasy · Comedy · Adventure · Silent