F. Richard Jones

A 1929 American pre-Code crime film in which Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond helps a young woman in distress. Ronald Colman stars as the title character in his first talking picture, a role that earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Claud Allister plays his loyal friend Algy Longworth, while Montagu Love plays the villain Carl Peterson and Lawrence Grant plays his accomplice Dr. Lakington. Joan Bennett appears as Phyllis Benton, the young woman whose plea for help sets the plot in motion. Produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by F. Richard Jones, the film was adapted by Sidney Howard from the 1921 play by H. C. McNeile. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Mystery · Thriller

Mabel Normand's only feature-length production, made under the banner of the Mabel Normand Feature Film Company, a short-lived division of Mack Sennett's Keystone studio. Normand plays Mickey, a tomboyish orphan raised in a western mining camp who is sent to live with her aunt in New York society. The film's production was troubled — it was begun in 1916, halted by Normand's illness, and then shelved for nearly two years because distributors thought it was a flop. When it finally screened at a small theater in Bayside, Long Island, it became a surprise smash, eventually grossing millions and proving that Normand could carry a feature as easily as a two-reel comedy. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Comedy · Drama · Silent

Mabel Normand stars as Sue Graham, a small-town girl who wins a fake screen test and heads to Hollywood to become a star, only to find herself working as an extra and a wardrobe assistant while the studio tries to pry her away from her sweetheart back home. The picture balances comic set pieces, including a runaway lion and a chaotic fashion-show sequence, with a behind-the-scenes look at a working studio lot. Mack Sennett produced through his own company, F. Richard Jones directed, and Normand, one of the biggest comediennes of the silent era, gets to play both slapstick and pathos. The film was released by Associated Exhibitors and is one of Normand's surviving features. Its copyright expired at the end of its first term, and it entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2019.

Comedy · Silent

A swaggering gaucho leader in the Argentine Andes falls for a mountain girl, but his head is turned by a woman known as the Miracle Girl of a mountain shrine. Misunderstanding her spiritual hold over him, the mountain girl betrays him to the authorities, and the Gaucho must escape to save the shrine and the priest who sheltered him. Douglas Fairbanks produced, wrote, and starred, and his then-wife Mary Pickford appears in a cameo as the Virgin Mary. The film was shot at the height of Fairbanks's box-office clout, with lavish sets and a budget to match, though he chose to film it in black and white rather than the Technicolor of The Black Pirate. It entered the public domain in the United States in 2023.

Adventure · Drama · Silent