Louise Dresser

Lon Chaney plays a dual role — both the Chinese patriarch Mr. Wu and his grandfather — in this MGM silent drama directed by William Nigh. When Wu's daughter Nang Ping (Renée Adorée) falls in love with a young Englishman and becomes pregnant, Wu kills her according to custom and then turns his vengeance on the Englishman's family. Louise Dresser co-stars as the mother who offers her own life to save her children. Chaney's elaborate makeup and prosthetics for the role were as remarkable as ever, though the film's racial politics have not aged well. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

A loose adaptation of Pushkin's novel Dubrovsky, with Valentino as a Cossack lieutenant who catches the eye of Catherine the Great, rejects her, and goes on the run. When a corrupt nobleman seizes his father's lands and kills the old man, Vladimir dons a black mask and becomes the Black Eagle, a Robin Hood figure, then infiltrates the nobleman's household as a French tutor and falls for his daughter. Clarence Brown directs with a light, fleet touch, and George Barnes's cinematography includes a celebrated extended tracking shot across a banquet table. Vilma Banky is the love interest and Louise Dresser a memorably imperious Czarina. Valentino, in his first United Artists picture, gets to swashbuckle in the Fairbanks mode and romance in his own, and the balance suits him. Published in 1925, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Romance · Adventure · Silent