Hedda Hopper

Colonel Bleep and his companions find their holiday turned perilous when danger threatens their island base, testing the futuristic envoy's futomic powers. A Colonel Bleep episode directed by Jack Schleh. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Sci-Fi · Family

John Barrymore at the peak of his matinee-idol powers, swashbuckling through Borgia-era Italy as the legendary lover. Directed by Alan Crosland for Warner Bros., it's a lavish silent spectacle — duels, dungeons, and Lucrezia Borgia herself — but its place in history is technical: Don Juan was the first feature released with a synchronized Vitaphone musical score and sound effects, the experiment that led directly to The Jazz Singer a year later. Mary Astor and a young Myrna Loy are among the women pursued through its nearly two hours. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Romance · Silent

An early RKO talkie built around a then-modern question: what happens when a society girl secretly marries a man her parents would never approve of and has to keep the marriage hidden while living at home? Olive Borden plays the debutante who weds Morgan Farley's penniless architect and then splits her life between his boarding-house room and her family's mansion, dodging a mother's plan to marry her off to a rich suitor. Directed by William J. Cowen and produced by William LeBaron, it is a time capsule of both the transitional sound era and 1920s anxieties about class and working wives. It entered the public domain after its copyright was never renewed.

Drama · Romance

A Chesterfield old-dark-house mystery directed by Charles Lamont. Two brothers, eccentric misers feared and hated by everyone in their household, have made a habit of threatening to cut off their heirs — so when one of them is murdered at midnight during a thunderstorm, nearly everyone is a suspect. Retired detective Jim Landis (Ray Walker) must sort out which heir pulled the trigger while reporter Elsa Carson (Irene Ware) gets in the way. Hedda Hopper, a year away from becoming Hollywood's most feared gossip columnist, appears as one of the scheming relatives. The film's copyright was not renewed; it is in the public domain in the United States.

Mystery · Comedy