Majestic Motion Picture Company

One of the earliest screen adaptations of Henrik Ibsen, this silent film was produced by D.W. Griffith and directed by George Nichols. Henry B. Walthall, fresh from *The Birth of a Nation*, plays a dual role as both Captain Arling, a dissolute father, and Oswald, the grown son who inherits his father's alcoholism and disease. When Oswald falls in love with the family maid, Regina, not knowing she is his half-sister, the family doctor intervenes to stop the marriage, and the sins of the father are visited upon the son. Erich von Stroheim, then a young technical assistant at Griffith's studio, served as wardrobe assistant and appeared in a bit part. The film was rereleased in 1919 under the title *The Curse*. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

A D.W. Griffith silent feature built around the life of John Howard Payne, the impoverished songwriter who wrote "Home, Sweet Home," and three episodic stories in which the song redeems its hearers. Henry B. Walthall plays Payne, with Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, and Robert Harron in the surrounding tales. Shot by G.W. Bitzer and advertised at the time as the first "all-star" cast, the film was produced at the Reliance-Majestic studio and distributed by Mutual. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

A D.W. Griffith silent feature inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, particularly "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "Annabel Lee." A young man (Henry B. Walthall) lives under the tyrannical rule of his uncle, whose murder he plots and commits. But guilt gnaws at him—apparitions of Poe's vision haunt his waking hours, and the beating of a dead heart seems to echo from beneath the floorboards. Griffith blends psychological horror with pastoral romance, intercutting the nephew's torment with scenes of courtship with his sweetheart (Blanche Sweet). Cinematographer G.W. Bitzer's inventive use of tinting and irises gives the film a dreamlike, Expressionist quality that anticipates the German Expressionist movement. Released August 2, 1914, the film is in the public domain.

Horror · Drama · Crime · Silent