Rex Ingram

A young lawyer in pre-Revolutionary France vows vengeance on the aristocrat who killed his friend in a duel, becoming a roving commedia player and then a master fencer as the Revolution engulfs them all. Ramon Novarro and Alice Terry star in Rex Ingram's celebrated silent swashbuckler. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Adventure · Romance · History

A 1921 American silent epic war film directed by Rex Ingram, based on the 1916 Spanish novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, adapted by June Mathis. The film follows the Desnoyers family: wealthy Argentine landowner Madariaga has a German son-in-law and a French one, and when he dies, the family splits — the French branch settling in Paris, the German in Berlin. Julio Desnoyers (Rudolph Valentino), Madariaga's favorite grandson, becomes a playboy in Paris, famous for his tango, and takes up with the married Marguerite Laurier (Alice Terry). When World War I erupts, the family finds itself on opposing sides, and Julio must choose between his hedonistic lifestyle and his duty. The film made Valentino an overnight superstar and was one of the highest-grossing silent films of all time, earning over $4 million worldwide. Its famous tango scene became iconic.

Drama · War · Romance

An English traveler who happens to resemble the king of Ruritania is pressed into impersonating the monarch when the real ruler is kidnapped by his treacherous half-brother, and falls in love with the queen-to-be. Lewis Stone and Alice Terry star in Rex Ingram's lavish silent adaptation of Anthony Hope's novel. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Adventure · Romance

George Pal's Puppetoon short, photographed in three-strip Technicolor, tells the story of Jan and Janette, a young Dutch couple whose windmill country idyll is overrun by an army of mechanical Screwball soldiers — an unmistakable allegory for the Nazi occupation of Pal's native Netherlands. When a thunderstorm rusts the invading machines into scrap, the tulips grow again. A young Ray Harryhausen worked on the film's replacement-animation puppets. Released by Paramount in 1942, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short and was added to the National Film Registry in 1997. The film entered the public domain because its copyright was not renewed.

Animation · War · Short