Mary Astor

John Barrymore stars as George Bryan "Beau" Brummel, the impoverished soldier who talks his way into the friendship of the Prince of Wales and the heart of Regency London society, only to fall when the prince withdraws his favor. Directed by Harry Beaumont for Warner Bros. and based on Clyde Fitch's 1890 play, the film is a showcase for Barrymore's stage-trained intensity, from the arrogant dandy at his peak to the broken exile in Calais. Mary Astor plays the woman he cannot have. The film survives in several cuts of differing length and is in the public domain in the United States.

Drama · Romance · Silent

A capable private secretary holds a struggling executive's business together, only to see him take the credit and the corner office, in a pre-Code workplace drama about the woman behind the man. Mary Astor and Ricardo Cortez star. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Drama · Romance

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

A sequel to The Mark of Zorro (1920), with Douglas Fairbanks now playing Don Cesar, the son of the original Zorro, in Spain rather than California. Framed for the murder of a rival archduke, he fakes his death and returns to clear his name and win back the woman he loves. Fairbanks produced and starred, and Donald Crisp directed while also playing Don Cesar's father. The swordplay is elaborate even by Fairbanks's standards, and the film leans into the swashbuckling spectacle that made him the action star of the silent era. Published in 1925, it is in the public domain in the United States.

Adventure · Action · Romance · Silent

A 1930 American pre-Code romantic comedy directed by Edward H. Griffith, starring Ann Harding, Mary Astor, and Edward Everett Horton. Wealthy Julia Seton (Astor) meets struggling young lawyer Johnny Case at Lake Placid and brings him home to meet her family as her future husband. But Johnny is a free spirit who wants to make enough money to retire early and enjoy life — a plan that horrifies Julia's conservative father. Julia's rebellious sister Linda (Harding) is taken with Johnny's unconventional philosophy and finds herself falling for him. Based on the 1928 play by Philip Barry, this is the first film adaptation of the story later remade in 1938 with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Edward Everett Horton reprises his role as Nick Potter in both versions.

Comedy · Drama · Romance

William Powell's fourth and final outing as S.S. Van Dine's dilettante detective Philo Vance. A Long Island dog-show society gathering ends in a locked-room murder when the universally disliked Archer Coe is found dead — apparently by suicide, except for the bullet in his head and the corpse of his dog found in a closet. Vance unpicks a tangle of rivalries, inheritances, and championship terriers. Directed at speed by Michael Curtiz for Warner Bros., it's widely considered the best of the Philo Vance pictures and one of the cleverest whodunits of the pre-Code era. The film is in the public domain.

Mystery · Crime