Enid Bennett

Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckles through twelfth-century England as the Earl of Huntingdon turned outlaw, scaling walls and leaping from battlements to win Maid Marian from the usurping Prince John. Allan Dwan directed this lavish silent epic, built around one of the largest sets ever constructed. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Adventure · Romance · Action

Fred Niblo directed Ramon Novarro the year before they made Ben-Hur together, and this smaller, darker film shows what both could do without a chariot race. A young couple in Brittany are separated on the night they flee to Paris together; the boy is wrongly jailed and sinks into the city's underworld, while the girl becomes a cabaret dancer. The film follows them through the Paris slums, where Wallace Beery's pickpocket pulls Jean into crime, until fate and a recognizable scar reunite them. Victor Milner's cinematography moves from the misty Brittany coast to the nocturnal streets of Paris, and the film's mood of romantic despair was a contrast to Novarro's usual swashbuckling roles. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2020.

Drama · Romance · Silent

Frank Lloyd's lavish silent adaptation of Rafael Sabatini's pirate novel, one of the most expensive films of its day. Four full-scale sixteenth-century ships were built for the production, and the action ranges from Cornish manors to slave galleys to the deck of a Moorish pirate fleet. Milton Sills plays an English nobleman betrayed by his half-brother, sold into slavery, and reborn as the pirate captain known as the Sea Hawk, who returns to harry the Spanish and avenge himself. The film was a huge hit and set the visual template for Hollywood swashbucklers that the later Errol Flynn version would build on. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2020.

Adventure · Romance · Silent