J. Farrell MacDonald

A silent Oz fantasy written and produced by L. Frank Baum and directed by J. Farrell MacDonald for Baum's own Oz Film Manufacturing Company. Violet MacMillan plays Dorothy, who wanders into the Land of Oz and joins the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion in a quest to free Princess Gloria from the wicked King Krewl and the witch Mombi. The film draws on incidents from several Baum Oz books and is one of only three surviving features from his short-lived studio. As a work published before 1930, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Fantasy · Adventure · Silent

L. Frank Baum's own Oz Film Manufacturing Company produced this feature-length adaptation of his 1913 novel, making it the first Oz film shot at real feature length. Ojo and his uncle Unc Nunkie journey to gather the ingredients that will restore the Patchwork Girl's victims to life, joined by Scraps herself — the life-sized doll brought to life by the Powder of Life — along with the Woozy and a young Dorothy. Pierre Couderc, a French acrobat billed as "the Marvelous Couderc," plays Scraps with full-body contortions that remain the film's chief marvel, and Violet MacMillan plays Ojo. A fascinating glimpse of Baum attempting to film his own creation before Hollywood got there. Published in 1914, it is in the public domain.

Fantasy · Adventure · Silent

A protection racket run by mobster "Big Bill" Morgan moves in on a small city's shopkeepers, and the only people standing up to it are a crusading district attorney and a gutsy girl reporter (Anne Nagel). Robert Kent plays the detective who infiltrates the gang. A Monogram B-crime picture directed by Lambert Hillyer, who made hundreds of programmers and westerns for the Poverty Row studios. The film is in the public domain.

Crime · Drama

A Kentucky horse breeder of the old school loses his fortune at the card table and pins everything on a colt that breaks down in the Futurity, then watches years later as the colt's offspring carries the hopes of his family and his trainer. John Ford directed this gentle Fox silent, one of his lesser-known works, with Henry B. Walthall as the breeder and J. Farrell MacDonald as the loyal trainer. Several real thoroughbreds appear, including the legendary Man o' War. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

Bela Lugosi at his most committedly absurd: Dr. James Brewster, a scientist whose experiments with ape glands have turned him into a stooped, shaggy ape-man who must harvest human spinal fluid to stay alive. Wallace Ford and Louise Currie play the reporters who stumble onto the story, and Henry Hall wanders through as the creepiest character in the picture — a mysterious man who keeps appearing to comment on events. Shot in a week for Monogram under William Beaudine, it is cheap even by poverty-row standards, but Lugosi plays the degradation with real conviction, and the final twist is genuinely strange. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of copyright.

Horror · Sci-Fi