Blanche Sweet

The first film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's play, this silent version stars Blanche Sweet as Anna Christie, a young woman raised by relatives after her father, a Swedish coal barge captain, abandoned her. When she reunites with her father on his barge, she falls for a rough-hewn sailor, Matt Burke, but cannot be honest with either man about the life she led before finding them. Produced by Thomas H. Ince, who paid $100,000 for the stage rights, and directed by John Griffith Wray, the film was considered lost for decades until Blanche Sweet herself helped locate a print with Russian intertitles in a Soviet archive. O'Neill, who was famously difficult about adaptations of his work, cited this silent version as the best film made from his writing. George F. Marion recreated his stage role as Anna's father. 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 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

An RKO pre-Code adventure drama adapted from Rex Beach's 1909 novel, directed by George Archainbaud. Joel McCrea plays Boyd Emerson, a young man who heads to Alaska to make his fortune in the salmon fisheries and finds himself squeezed between ruthless cannery interests and two very different women — society girl Mildred Wayland (Jean Arthur) and Cherry Malotte (Evelyn Brent), the worldly saloon keeper who truly loves him. Louis Wolheim is memorable as George Balt, the rough-edged fisherman who becomes Boyd's loyal ally. Shot partly on location in Alaska, it was an early talkie showcase for McCrea on his way to stardom. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 1958 after its copyright was not renewed.

Drama · Adventure · Romance