Mae Busch

Erich von Stroheim's third directorial effort was advertised as "the first million-dollar picture," a claim producer Carl Laemmle happily promoted even as he battled his director over the spiraling budget. Stroheim stars as Count Karazmin, a phony Russian aristocrat who, with his "cousins" Marietta and Olga, sets up in a villa above Monte Carlo to prey on wealthy women. The production recreated the casino and plaza of Monte Carlo on the California coast at Point Lobos, with hundreds of carpenters building an entire Riviera resort. Stroheim's obsessive attention to detail, from hand-tailored uniforms to accurate military decorations, established the template for his later extravaganzas. The surviving version runs about 130 minutes, a fraction of the director's original cut. As a work published before 1930, the film is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Silent

The Mad Monster is a 1942 horror film directed by Sam Newfield and produced by Sigmund Neufeld for Producers Releasing Corporation. George Zucco plays Dr. Lorenzo Cameron, a discredited scientist who injects his simple-minded handyman Petro (Glenn Strange) with a serum derived from wolf's blood, transforming him into a werewolf. Cameron unleashes his creation on the colleagues who ruined his career, while reporter Tom Gregory (Johnny Downs) and Cameron's daughter Lenora (Anne Nagel) close in on the truth. A quickie knock-off of Universal's monster pictures, it gave Glenn Strange an early turn as a screen monster before he played Frankenstein's creature at Universal. The film is in the public domain through non-renewal.

Horror · Sci-Fi

Hat-check girl Judy Peabody (Betty Hutton) pulls a drowning millionaire (Barry Fitzgerald) out of the water, and he repays her anonymously with a bank account, a swanky apartment, and unlimited credit. The only catch: her GI boyfriend Danny (Don DeFore) comes home and assumes the worst. A breezy Paramount Cinderella story produced by Buddy DeSylva — who also co-wrote the score — with Robert Benchley and real-life Stork Club owner Sherman Billingsley along for the ride. Hutton's "Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief" became a hit. The film is in the public domain.

Comedy · Musical

The silent original of the story Tod Browning later remade in 1930 as Lon Chaney's only sound film. Three sideshow performers, a ventriloquist, a strongman, and a dwarf, leave the circus and set up a pet shop as a front for a burglary ring. Echo, the ventriloquist, uses his talent to throw his voice and frame an innocent man for the murder he commits. Chaney, in one of his most unsettling roles, plays a man who manipulates others through their voices, and the film is a prime example of the grotesque, circus-inflected material Browning was drawn to throughout his career. This is the silent version; the 1930 sound remake is also in the collection. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Crime · Drama · Silent

Oliver Hardy invites Stan Laurel over for a home-cooked meal, but the attempt to use Mrs. Hardy's new kitchen leads to culinary disaster, a destroyed apartment, and a run-in with their neighbor. The first all-talking Laurel and Hardy comedy, directed by Lewis R. Foster and produced by Hal Roach. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Comedy