George Siegmann

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

D.W. Griffith's Civil War and Reconstruction epic was the first true blockbuster — the film that proved the feature-length movie could be a mass cultural event. Its technical innovations in cross-cutting, night photography, and large-scale battle staging reshaped the language of cinema. It is also infamous propaganda: adapted from Thomas Dixon's novel *The Clansman*, it depicts the Ku Klux Klan as heroic saviors and portrays Black characters — mostly white actors in blackface — through vicious racist caricature. The film sparked protests led by the newly formed NAACP and helped inspire the Klan's real-world revival. It is presented here as a historically significant work that must be understood in that context. Published in 1915, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · History · War · Silent