Frank Lloyd

A silent melodrama directed by Frank Lloyd for Goldwyn Pictures, based on an original screen story by Gouverneur Morris. During the Boxer Rebellion in China, a white orphan girl is adopted and raised by a Chinese man who brings her to San Francisco's Chinatown. As she grows up, played by Leatrice Joy, no one suspects she is not Chinese, and the film follows the collision between the two cultures of its title as the truth of her identity surfaces. Wallace Beery plays the villain Li Fang. The production built an elaborate Chinese street set at the Goldwyn studio in Culver City, and Lloyd took advantage of a real fire in Venice, California, filming it with his camera crew to use as a burning temple scene. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

A historical drama directed by Frank Lloyd and starring Norma Talmadge, set in 16th-century France during the wars of religion between Catholics and Huguenots. When Catherine de' Medici orders the massacre of French Protestants, the Comte de la Roche spares his enemy, the Huguenot Rupert de Vrieac, by reducing him to an indentured servant in his castle. Rupert falls in love with Yolande, the count's sister, only to find his rival for her hand is the Duc de Tours, a notorious persecutor of Huguenots. Produced by the Norma Talmadge Film Corporation and presented by Joseph M. Schenck, the film was an expensive prestige production with lavish 16th-century costumes and a reproduction of the Louvre ballroom. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent · History

An American newspaper editor in 1920s Tokyo uncovers a secret Japanese military plan for expansion across the Pacific, and becomes a target of both the army and a double agent. James Cagney stars in this wartime thriller, which won an Academy Award for art direction. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Thriller · War · Drama

Jackie Coogan, fresh from his triumph in Chaplin's *The Kid* (1921), stars as Dickens's orphan hero in this First National silent adaptation directed by Frank Lloyd. Lon Chaney plays Fagin, the sinister fence who trains young street urchins as pickpockets, in one of his most memorable character performances beneath layers of makeup. The film was considered lost for decades until a print surfaced in Yugoslavia in 1973. Sol Lesser produced the picture for Jackie Coogan Productions at a budget of nearly half a million dollars, with elaborate sets recreating Victorian London. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · 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

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