The Red Lily

Fred Niblo directed Ramon Novarro the year before they made Ben-Hur together, and this smaller, darker film shows what both could do without a chariot race. A young couple in Brittany are separated on the night they flee to Paris together; the boy is wrongly jailed and sinks into the city's underworld, while the girl becomes a cabaret dancer. The film follows them through the Paris slums, where Wallace Beery's pickpocket pulls Jean into crime, until fate and a recognizable scar reunite them. Victor Milner's cinematography moves from the misty Brittany coast to the nocturnal streets of Paris, and the film's mood of romantic despair was a contrast to Novarro's usual swashbuckling roles. The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2020.