Street Angel

Frank Borzage's silent romance about a destitute woman in Naples who flees the police and finds love with a struggling painter, only for the past to catch up with her. Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell were paired here for the first time and became one of Fox's most popular screen couples, making a string of films together through the early sound years. The film is one of three for which Gaynor received the first Academy Award for Best Actress, awarded for her body of work that year rather than a single performance. Borzage's direction favors a soft, fatalistic sentimentality that was out of step with the harder realism coming into fashion, but the film's emotional directness is its own thing. The 1928 film entered the United States public domain on January 1, 2024.