Inspiration Pictures

Henry King's adaptation of George Eliot's novel was filmed on location in Florence, giving this tale of Renaissance intrigue an authenticity Hollywood couldn't build on a backlot. Lillian Gish plays Romola, the scholar's daughter whose world collapses when she discovers her charming husband Tito (a young William Powell in an early villainous role) has betrayed her father, secretly wed the trusting Tessa (Dorothy Gish), and sold his loyalty to Savonarola's enemies. Ronald Colman co-stars as the principled Carlo Bucellini. The climactic bonfire of the vanities — with the real Piazza della Signoria standing in for itself — makes the film a lavish time capsule of 1920s prestige filmmaking. Published in 1924, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Silent

Richard Barthelmess plays "Bilge" Smith, a hard-fisted merchant sailor who puts into a sleepy New England port and falls for Connie Martin (Dorothy Mackaill), the town dressmaker, in this silent adaptation of Hubert Osborne's 1922 Broadway play. Directed by John S. Robertson for Barthelmess's own Inspiration Pictures, it mixes roughhouse comedy — including a memorably chaotic shipboard brawl — with a tender romance about two lonely people from very different worlds. The story proved durable: RKO remade it a decade later as the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical Follow the Fleet (1936). As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Romance · Silent