Frank Borzage

Frank Borzage's adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's World War I novel. Gary Cooper plays an American ambulance driver on the Italian front who falls in love with an English nurse, played by Helen Hayes in her screen debut. The romance unfolds against retreats, bombardments, and a hospital in Switzerland. The film's copyright was not renewed, placing it in the public domain.

Drama · Romance · War

A small-town girl hungry for a grander life leaves her devoted sweetheart behind for a wealthy businessman's Riverside Drive apartment in Frank Borzage's silent drama. Adapted by Frances Marion from a Fannie Hurst story and produced by Cosmopolitan Productions for Paramount, the film stars Seena Owen as a woman who discovers, too late, the cost of the comfort she traded for love. Borzage's early interest in the emotional lives of working women, the thread he would pull through much of his later career, is already visible here. The film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

A Lower East Side boy from an immigrant Jewish family grows up to become a celebrated violinist, only to enlist and head to the trenches as war breaks out. Frank Borzage directed this Cosmopolitan Productions release, adapted by Frances Marion from a Fannie Hurst story, with Vera Gordon's Mama Kantor anchoring the family and Gaston Glass as the adult Leon. The film was a hit and a model for the immigrant-family melodramas that followed. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

Frank Borzage's adaptation of Ferenc Molnar's 1909 play about a carousel barker in Budapest whose doomed romance with a servant girl ends in tragedy and a chance at redemption from beyond the grave. Charles Farrell stars as Liliom, a swaggering but troubled carnival worker, with Rose Hobart as Julie, the woman who loves him despite his flaws. Lee Tracy plays the Sparrow, a heavenly marshal who oversees Liliom's posthumous trial. The film was one of several Borzage-directed romances that blended realism with spiritual fantasy, a hallmark of his career. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Fantasy

7th Heaven is the romance that won Frank Borzage the first Academy Award for Best Director and helped win Janet Gaynor the first Best Actress award. She plays Diane, a young woman abused by her sister and rescued from the Paris slums by Chico, a sewer worker who invents a marriage to protect her. Their love grows real, only to be interrupted by the First World War. Borzage directs with a soaring, almost spiritual faith in love that survives distance and death. The film was a huge hit for Fox and was selected for the National Film Registry. It entered the public domain in the United States on January 1, 2023.

Romance · Drama · Silent

Frank Borzage's silent romance about a destitute woman in Naples who flees the police and finds love with a struggling painter, only for the past to catch up with her. Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell were paired here for the first time and became one of Fox's most popular screen couples, making a string of films together through the early sound years. The film is one of three for which Gaynor received the first Academy Award for Best Actress, awarded for her body of work that year rather than a single performance. Borzage's direction favors a soft, fatalistic sentimentality that was out of step with the harder realism coming into fashion, but the film's emotional directness is its own thing. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.

Drama · Romance · Silent

An anti-Mormon silent drama directed by Robert Z. Leonard and produced by Jesse L. Lasky's Feature Play Company. Mae Murray stars as Dora Hogue, a young woman traveling west with her family when their cabin is overtaken by a Mormon caravan. An elder demands Dora as his plural wife, setting in motion a melodramatic conflict that capitalizes on the anti-Mormon sentiment prevalent at the time. Frank Borzage — better known today as one of Hollywood's great directors — appears as an actor in the role of Tom Rigdon. The film was originally eight reels but cut to five before release. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent