- Description:
- BluRay - Zone A. viewing copy. 6 videodiscs of 6.
- Notes:
- Supplemental materials include: interviews with historians and archivists; documentary shorts on female directors, and an 80-page booklet with essays and photos.
Titles
+ Mixed Pets
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice
- Production Co:
- Solax Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 14 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1911
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Drama, Early Cinema, Female Directors, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- Mr. Newlywed will not allow his wife to have a dog. Her uncle, taking pity on her, goes out to buy one. Meanwhile, Wilkens and his wife, butler and maid to the Newlyweds, are informed they must retrieve their "secret" child from friends who were watching her.
+ Tramp Strategy
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice
- Production Co:
- Solax Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 12 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1911
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Early Cinema, Female Directors, Drama, Romance, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Dan Wellington objects to his daughter's marriage with Richard Darlington. The father finds the letter in the arms of his daughter and puts him out of the house. The much abused lover is followed out of the house by his sweetheart and maid. The latter conceives a brilliant idea whereby the lover is to assume the disguise of a tramp and rescue the sweetheart from being ground beneath the wheels of an automobile.
+ Greater Love Hath No Man
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice; Bulter, Alexander
- Production Co:
- Solaz Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 18 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1911
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Early Cinema, Female Directors, Drama, Romance, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. In the eastern part of New Mexico is locate the little mining town of Gatlach. There, however, we find an active mining camp dependent largely upon the famous Gatlach mine for its existence. Living in the camp we find Florence, who is loved by Jake. Florence, too, loves Jake. However, things change when a new superintendent arrives to take charge of the mining property.
+ Algie the Miner
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice; Schenck, Harry
- Production Co:
- Solax Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 10 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1912
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Early Cinema, Female Directors, Drama, Romance, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- Algie Allmore has one year to prove he's a man in order to wed Harry Lyons' daughter.
+ Falling Leaves
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice
- Production Co:
- Solax Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 12 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1912
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Early Cinema, Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Melodrama
- Notes:
- This straightforward family melodrama was filmed while Solax was still located in Flushing, New York. Falling Leaves echoes aspects of O’Henry’s 1907 short story “The Last Leaf” and depicts the clever attempts of a concerned young girl trying to save her older sister who is dying of consumption.
+ Little Rangers, The
- Alternate Title:
- Two Little Rangers
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice
- Production Co:
- Solax Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 12 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1912
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Silent Cinema, Early Cinema, Female Directors, Drama
- Notes:
- 4K restoration. "Wild Bill" Gray is a renegade and a wife-beater. He is about to start on some expedition of crime and his wife implores him to stay at home. She receives a beating for her trouble. Jim, a cowboy, rides past the shack, hears Mrs. Gray's screams and interferes, and takes Mrs. Gray over to his friend, the postmaster, so that she may have a good home. "Wild Bill" plans vengeance.
+ Canned Harmony
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice
- Production Co:
- Solax Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 12 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1912
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Silent Cinema, Early Cinema, Female Directors, Comedy, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. A father who is obsessed with music won't let his daughter marry anyone who isn't a musician, so the girl's fiancé poses as a violin player
+ Fool and His Money, A
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice
- Production Co:
- Solax Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 11 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1912
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Early Cinema, Silent Cinema, Female Directors
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Sam the white-washer pines for the affluent Lindy, but she has dumped him in favor of another. Sam finds a large sum of money, and goes to New York to enjoy a shopping spree, buying new clothes, jewelry and a car with a driver. Back home, Lindy flips for Sam and his newfound wealth, and dumps the rival. Sam throws an engagement party where he indulges in a friendly game of cards with his former rival and another man, who unbeknownst to Sam, is a card shark. Sam loses his bankroll, jewels, clothes and car in short order, Lindy runs off with the card shark, and Sam resigns himself once again to a life of white-washing.
+ High Cost of Living, The
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice
- Production Co:
- Solax Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 15 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1912
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Silent Cinema, Early Cinema, Female Directors, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Old Joel Smith is charged with murder in the first degree. At the trial he pleads in opposition to his own lawyers. He explains that he is now too old to be of any assistance to his widowed daughter and his grand-children who are dependent on him for support. He says he prefers death to a life of poverty and wretchedness. In telling the judge and jury his pathetic story (which is shown on the screen) old Joel betrays a love for his grandchildren and his fellow laborers that is poignant with pathos.
+ Coming of Sunbeam, The
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice
- Production Co:
- Solax Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 12 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1913
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Silent Cinema, Early Cinema, Female Directors, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K scan of nitrate print. A woman disowned by her wealthy father sneaks her young daughter into his life, sending the girl into his home via a Christmas basket. Soon the girl, whom they call Sunbeam, “warms a cold and vacant spot in his heart.” The man’s daughter then re-enters the household as a trained nurse sent to care for the girl when she becomes ill.
+ Burstup Homes’ Murder Case
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice
- Production Co:
- Solax Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 15 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1913
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Silent Cinema, Early Cinema, Female Directors, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Mrs. Reggie Jellybone has her husband completely under control. She places a reflector on her sewing table in such a position that every movement and expression and manifest desire of her husband become known to her. She is, therefore, able to anticipate his movements and interfere in his plans.
+ House Divided, A
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice
- Production Co:
- Solax Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 14 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1913
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Silent Cinema, Early Cinema, Female Directors, Comedy
- Notes:
- An unhappy husband and wife decide to “live separately together,” communicating only through notes after each mistakenly thinks the other is having an affair.
+ Matrimony’s Speed Limit
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice
- Production Co:
- Solax Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 14 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1913
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Early Cinema, Silent Cinema, Female Directors, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K scan from nitrate print. A man must marry by noon or lose his inheritance. It's 11:50 a.m. and he can't find his fiancée.
+ Ocean Waif, The
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice
- Production Co:
- International Film Service, Inc.; Golden Eagle Features
- Running Time:
- Short. 36 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1916
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Early Cinema, Silent Cinema, Female Directors
- Notes:
- Novelist Ronald Roberts hopes to seclude himself in a quiet home in a small town on the coast in order to write his next book. Then, when he moves in, he discovers that Millie has taken refuge in the home from her brutal foster father, Hy Jessop. Ronald and Millie soon fall in love, but the novelist has no way of getting out of his engagement to Beatrice, whom he left behind in the city. When Hy is found dead, however, and Ronald is accused of killing him, Beatrice, not wanting to ruin her social standing by marrying a murderer, quickly breaks off the engagement. Then, just before killing himself, Sem, a local man who always hated Hy for his cruelty, confesses to the murder, after which Millie and Ronald make plans for their marriage.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Colleen Bawn, The
- Director:
- Olcott, Sidney; Gauntier, Gene
- Production Co:
- Kalem Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 36 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- United Kingdom
- Year:
- 1911
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Early Cinema, Silent Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. A young Irish boy has fallen in love with a poor girl and wants to marry her, but his mother will stop at nothing, including murder, to see that he marries his rich cousin.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ On the Brink [Fragment]
- Director:
- Weber, Lois; Porter, Edwin S.
- Production Co:
- Rex Motion Picture Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 12 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1911
- Language:
- Emg;ish intertitles
- Genre:
- Early Cinema, Silent Cinema, Female Directors, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. A young woman caring for her mentally disabled brother falls for the local fisherman, who does not return her affections.
+ Cricket, The [Fragment]
- Director:
- Guy-Blaché, Alice
- Production Co:
- Universal Film Manufacturing Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 12 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1917
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Silent Cinema, Female Directors, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Three Paris bachelors adopt a young, orphan girl.
+ From Death to Life
- Director:
- Weber, Lois; Smalley, Phillips
- Production Co:
- Rex Motion Picture Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 13 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1911
- Genre:
- Drama, Silent Cinema, Early Cinema, Female Directors
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. In this tale set in Ancient Greece, Aratus bars his wife from a laboratory where he is perfecting a potion to freeze life. Stop-motion cinematography shows how he turns live fish and a rabbit to stone. Aratus remains blind to the inhumane consequences of his experimentation until his wife accidentally falls into a bath of the solution and is turned to stone herself.
+ Fine Feathers
- Director:
- Weber, Lois
- Production Co:
- Rex Motion Picture Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 15 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1912
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Early Cinema, Drama, Romance
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley co-star and co-direct this story of a male painter who rises to fame after completing two portraits of his maid, a woman who later becomes his companion.
+ Rosary, The
- Director:
- Weber, Lois; Smalley, Phillips
- Production Co:
- Rex Motion Picture Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 14 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1913
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Early Cinema, Silent Cinema, Drama - Historical, Romance
- Notes:
- 4K restoration. A powerful evocation of loss and longing, The Rosary illustrates a popular song of the day against the backdrop of the Civil War using an innovative matte technique.
+ Suspense
- Director:
- Weber, Lois; Smalley, Phillips
- Production Co:
- Rex Motion Picture Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 11 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1913
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Early Cinema, Silent Cinema, Female Directors, Thriller
- Notes:
- 4K restoration. Lois Weber stars as a young mother who is home alone when a tramp enters her house in this visually captivating and stylistically advanced thriller. The chase scene, the use of split-screen, and the shots of the tramp ascending into the house are all powerful visuals that proclaim Lois Weber’s skill as a film director.
+ Lost by a Hair [Fragment]
- Director:
- Weber, Lois; Smalley, Phillips
- Production Co:
- Rex Motion Picture Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 4 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1914
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Early Cinema, Comedy
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. In this comedy about female fandom and desire, young women at a summer hotel are transfixed by the arrival of a famous tenor, much to the chagrin of their male companions.
+ Hypocrites
- Director:
- Weber, Lois
- Production Co:
- Hobart Bosworth Productions
- Running Time:
- Feature. 51 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1915
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Early Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Hypocrites tells the story of a modern-day clergyman who, in dreams, exposes the hypocrites of his congregation with the help of the “Naked Truth.” Hailed in its day as a “new revelation in the artistic possibilities of the photo play,” this film uses superimposition to portray the allegorical figure of Truth.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Sunshine Molly [Fragment]
- Director:
- Weber, Lois; Smalley, Phillips
- Production Co:
- Hobart Bosworth Productions
- Running Time:
- Short. 31 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1915
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Early Cinema, Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Only fragments of Sunshine Molly survive, but they include the stunning opening panorama shot of the La Brea oil fields. Against this horizon, Weber explores the theme of sexual harassment and sexual violence in the workplace, focusing on “Sunshine Molly,” one of the few women employed in the oil fields. The story is told through an intricate flashback structure that privileges her point of view.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Idle Wives [Fragment]
- Director:
- Weber, Lois; Smalley, Phillips
- Production Co:
- Universal Film Manufacturing Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 23 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1916
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Early Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. The characters in the film attend a movie theater where they watch a film by one “Lois Weber.” They watch onscreen surrogates live out the consequences of their actions - and change their own lives accordingly after the show.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Too Wise Wives
- Director:
- Weber, Lois; Orth, Marion
- Production Co:
- Lois Weber Productions
- Running Time:
- Feature. 69 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1921
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Early Cinema, Comedy - Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restorations. Weber’s commentary on the spate of “sex comedies: that appeared after the end of the first World War. Though her punning title echoes many others in the category, Too Wise Wives is actually a more subtle commentary on marriage, consumer culture, and Jazz Age Femininity.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ What Do Men Want? [Fragment]
- Director:
- Weber, Lois
- Production Co:
- Lois Weber Productions
- Running Time:
- Short. 40 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1921
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Early Cinema, Silent Cinema, Drama, Tragedy
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. One of the last films Weber made at her independent company - and the film that cost her a lucrative distribution contract with Paramount. A visceral critique of masculinity, associated with twin drives for profit and sexual conquest, the film’s climactic scene features the public suicide of a young, pregnant, and unmarried woman abandoned by her lover.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Hazards of Helen, The. Episode 9 “The Leap from the Water Tower”
- Director:
- McGowan, J. P.
- Production Co:
- The Kalem Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 11 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1915
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Action Adventure, Silent Cinema, Serial
- Notes:
- Rand, a train fireman, is a belligerent drunk, who gets into a fight with Wadsworth, his engineer. After the fight is broken up, Rand is fired by the railroad, and later sabotages Wadsworth's train by disconnecting the air brakes after the third car. Rand falls from the moving train and is injured. He is discovered by a passing lineman and confesses to his misdeed. The lineman takes Rand's confession to a nearby train station, where a telegrapher wires the information to Helen. Helen rides to a water tower on the road in front of the train. She climbs to the top of the tower and leaps to the roof of one of the boxcars as the train passes below her. She warns Wadsworth of the danger, and he restores the brakes.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Hazards of Helen, The. Episode 13 “The Escape on the Fast Freight”
- Director:
- Hurst, Paul C.
- Production Co:
- The Kalem Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 11 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1915
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Action Adventure, Serial, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- Released in 119 different installments, episodes of The Hazards of Helen chronicle the adventures of a telegraph stationed in a remote post who repeatedly foils bandits and saves lives. Star Helen Holmes often directed episodes of the serial.
+ Hazards of Helen, The. Episode 26 “The Wild Engine”
- Alternate Title:
- The Wild Engine
- Director:
- McGowan, J. P.
- Production Co:
- The Kalem Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 10 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1915
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Action Adventure, Serial, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- The spunky Helen (Helen Holmes) is our hero as a telegraph operator at a remote location along a railroad. She dashes to the rescue when a train engine goes out of control.
+ Purple Mask, The. Episode 5, Reel 1
- Director:
- Cunard, Grace; Ford, Francis
- Production Co:
- Universal Film Manufacturing Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 13 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1917
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Silent Cinema, Female Directors, Action Adventure, Drama, Serial
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. “Patsy” Montez is a philanthropist. Being without funds, she levies on the rich to give to the poor. She is attacked by a band of art thieves whom she duped. Detective Kelly, the Sphinx, goes to her aid but is captured and thrown into a den. The apaches attempt his rescue.
+ Purple Mask, The. Episode 12 “The Vault of Mystery”
- Director:
- Cunard, Grace; Ford, Francis
- Production Co:
- Universal Film Manufacturing Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 19 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1917
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Serial, Female Directors, Action Adventure, Crime, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Patsy Montez, operating as the Purple Mask, succeeds in securing funds from the offices of a fake benevolent society, funds that they had intended to squander. The money is returned to the poor depositors. Phil Kelly, a detective, endeavors to apprehend The Purple Mask, but she eludes him.
+ Purple Mask, The. Episode 13, Reel 1 “The Leap”
- Director:
- Holmes, Helen; Maloney, Leo
- Production Co:
- Universal Film Manufacturing Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 10 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1917
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Serial, Action Adventure, Crime, Female Directors, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Patsy Montez, the Purple Mask, hearing that Phillip Johnson has accumulated a fortune by nefarious practice, sets out with her band to secure his hoard from a private submarine vault. The money is then to be used to establish a home for unfortunate girls. Detective Kelly is hired by Johnson to safegaurd his vautl.
+ Daughter of “The Law”, A
- Director:
- Cunard, Grace
- Production Co:
- Star Ranch Productions
- Running Time:
- Short. 22 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1921
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Action Adventure, Silent Cinema, Western
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Writer, star, and director Grace Cunard plays a revenue office who convinces her boss to let her follow the trail of moonshiners. Plenty of action in the Western setting, including a sequence in which the heroine is tied to a log and set afloat above a waterfall.
+ Eleanor’s Catch
- Director:
- Madison, Cleo
- Production Co:
- Rex Motion Picture Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 13 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1916
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Director Cleo Madison plays a “young tenement blossom” nearly trapped into a life of prostitution by a charming beau. But she turns the tables on him in a surprise ending, revealing herself to be the fearsome “Detective Eleanor Grady of the Secret Service.”
+ ‘49 - ‘17
- Alternate Title:
- The Old West Per Contract
- Director:
- Baldwin, Ruth Ann
- Production Co:
- Universal Film Manufacturing Company
- Running Time:
- Feature. 70 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1917
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Western, Female Directors, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. In one of the earliest examples of a western directed by a woman, Ruth Ann Baldwin provides a self-reflexive genre parody where actors recreate the glory days of the western gold rush to feed a male character’s ego.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Caught in a Cabaret
- Director:
- Normand, Mabel
- Production Co:
- Keystone Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 23 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1914
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Comedy, Female Directors, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Mabel Normand wrote and directed Charlie Chaplin in one of his early appearances as The Tramp, here a lowly waiter who pretends to be a foreign dignitary in order to impress Normand’s society women.
- Link to:
- FII catalog |
+ Mabel’s Blunder
- Director:
- Normand, Mabel
- Production Co:
- Keystone Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 16 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1914
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Comedy
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. In one of the many cross-dressing comedies of the period, Normand plays a jealous young woman who disguises herself as a male chauffeur in order to follow her beau and his visiting sister whom she mistakes as a romantic rival. She switches identities with her brother, who attempts to maintain her role as a secretary, fending off advances from her boss.
+ Mabel and Fatty’s Wash Day
- Director:
- Keystone Film Company
- Production Co:
- Normand, Mabel; Arbuckle, Roscoe
- Running Time:
- Short. 13 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1915
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Silent Cinema, Comedy, Female Directors
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. One of a series of comic shorts co-staring Normand and Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Here Mebel and Fatty find themselves doing laundry on the same day - she without the assistance of her lay-about husband, he hectored by his wife. Their efforts to aid one another are complicated by jealous spouses.
+ Mabel Lost and Won
- Director:
- Normand, Mabel
- Production Co:
- Keystone Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 13 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1915
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Comedy, Female Directors, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. In a comedy that emphasizes female point-of-view and female desire, Mabel’s engagement at a high society party goes briefly awry.
+ That Ice Ticket
- Director:
- Gibson, Angela Murray
- Production Co:
- Gibson Studios
- Running Time:
- Short. 10 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1922
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Comedy, Female Directors, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. An important example of amateur filmmaking during this era, That Ice Ticket was made by Gibson in the small community of Casselton, North Dakota. Gibson cast community members in her productions, taking on multiple roles herself - writing, directing, and acting in the films, operating the camera during filming, then processing the footage and editing the finished picture together. Here, she plays a young woman managing multiple male suitors with the “help” of her mischievous kid brother.
+ Ethnographic Films
- Director:
- Hurston, Zora Neale
- Running Time:
- Short. 12 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1929
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Documentary, Female Directors, African - American Interest
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Zora Neale Hurston’s ethnographic films, part of her effort to collect the folklore of black communities in the rural south, provide a rare glimpse of African American life in central and southern Florida in the late 1920s, when few were documenting these communities. Hurston’s footage is remarkable not only for the way it documents these subjects, but for the way it engages with their lives.
+ Where Are My Children?
- Director:
- Weber, Lois; Smalley, Phillips
- Production Co:
- Universal Film Manufacturing Company
- Running Time:
- Feature. 65 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1916
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. The top money-maker for Universal in 1916, Where Are My Children? is one of two films Lois Weber wrote and directed about birth control and abortion at the height of Margaret Sanger’s campaign to legalize contraception. In Where Are My Children?, the case for legalized family planning is complicated by a eugenics argument that vilifies wealthy white women for having repeated abortions. Even still, the film remains a fascinating example of how Weber engaged with complex contemporary social issues in popular narrative films.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Her Defiance
- Director:
- Madison, Cleo; King, Joe
- Production Co:
- Universal Film Manufacturing Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 21 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1916
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Madison co-directs and stars as a naive country lass who falls for a man from the city, then finds herself pregnant and alone. Defying her brother’s attempt to marry her off to an older man, she travels to the city alone, working as an office cleaner to support herself and her son. Madison uses an innovative matte technique to juxtapose the heroine’s memories with those of her former lover.
+ When Little Lindy Sang
- Director:
- Warrenton; Lule
- Production Co:
- Powers Picture Plays
- Running Time:
- Short. 10 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1916
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, African - American Interest, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Director Warrenton worked with child actors, making films designed for younger audiences. Here, she explores racism, focusing on “Little Lindy,” the only African American child in an otherwise all-white classroom. Lindy, played by Ernestine Jones, is the target of racial prejudice but ends up saving her classmates when she uses her voice to warn them of a fire.
+ Curse of Quon Gwon, The: When the Far East Mingles With the West
- Director:
- Wong, Marion E.
- Production Co:
- Mandarin Film Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 35 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1917
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. The first feature film made with an all-Chinese American cast and an all-Chinese American company. Offering an important counterpoint to racist depictions of Asian characters in other films of the period, the film explores western influence on traditional Chinese society and amongst Chinese American communities, suggesting Wong’s keen awareness of early 20th century transnational identity.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Scandal
- Alternate Title:
- Scandal Mongers
- Director:
- Weber, Lois; Smalley, Phillips
- Production Co:
- Universal Film Manufacturing Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 35 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1915
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. After exploring contentious social issues like contraception, capital punishment, drug addiction, and poverty, Lois Weber took on the more subtle topic of gossip mongering or “scandal.” She and husband Phillips Smalley play co-works caught in a trumped-up scandal about a supposed affair. Weber’s visual acuity is on display here as the superimposed figure of “scandal” haunts the characters.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Dream Lady, The
- Director:
- Wilson, Elsie Jane
- Production Co:
- Universal Film Manufacturing Company
- Running Time:
- Feature. 54 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1918
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- LGBT Interest, Female Directors, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. In this film, one of many in the collection that feature cross-dressing or gender reversal, a young woman inherits a fortune, then sets herself up as the “dream lady,” making the dreams of others come true. One of her first clients is a young woman who dreams of being a man. The dream lady grants the wish, then watches as the new young man forms a close bond with another man, developing what publicity at the time called “a strange love.”
+ Something New
- Director:
- Shipman, Nell; Tuyle, Bert Van
- Production Co:
- Nell Shipman Productions, Inc.
- Running Time:
- Feature. 57 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1920
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Nell Shipman stars as a “writing woman” who travels to Mexico in search of “atmosphere,” but is captured by bandits. Rescued by a handsome mining engineer in his Maxwell automobile, the heroine must herself take the wheel after he is injured, driving the car to safety across rough desert terrain.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Risky Road, The [Fragment]
- Director:
- Park, Ida May
- Production Co:
- Universal Film Manufacturing Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 2 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1918
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. A brief fragment of Ida May Park’s The Risky Road, the only known elements to survive. The film’s protagonist is a young stenographer who agrees to be a “kept woman” for a former employer, inciting the ire of her hometown sweetheart. In these surviving scenes we see her alone, penniless and freezing in her New York apartment.
+ Bread [Fragment]
- Director:
- Park, Ida May
- Production Co:
- Universal Film Manufacturing Company
- Running Time:
- Short. 16 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1918
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. A surviving fragment of Ida May Park’s Bread, starring Mary MacLaren. Here MacLaren plays a stoic, impoverished heroine. These surviving fragments show her looking longingly at a loaf of bread in a show window. The wider story portrays her struggle to find work as an actress, living alone in the city after leaving her town behind. She opts to starve rather than succumb to the advances of a lecherous theater magnate.
+ Salomé
- Director:
- Bryant, Charles; Nazimova, Alla
- Production Co:
- Nazimova Productions
- Running Time:
- Feature. 71 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1923
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Film Adaptation, Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Drama - Historical
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. An adaptation of Oscar Wild’s notorious 1891 stage play, Salomé is a queer classic. The film re-envisions the biblical story of Salomé, who danced for King Herod with the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter. Under-appreciated in its day, Salomé is now considered one of the first American art films.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Red Kimona, The
- Director:
- Lang, Walter; Reid, Dorothy Davenport
- Production Co:
- Mrs. Wallace Reid Productions
- Running Time:
- Feature. 77 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1925
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Drama, Silent Cinema
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. The first project produced by Dorothy Davenport Reid under the auspices of Mrs. Wallace Reid Productions, a company she started after her husband’s highly publicized addiction and subsequent death. Adapted by Adela Rogers St. John and Dorothy Arzner, the film tells the true story of Gabrielle Darley, a woman who leaves her abusive home only to find herself trapped into prostitution in new Orleans, then accused of murder.
- Link to:
- FII catalog | AFI catalog
+ Motherhood: Life’s Greatest Miracle
- Director:
- Lawrence, Lita
- Production Co:
- Blue Ray Productions
- Running Time:
- Feature. 59 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1925
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. The story contrasts two women’s responses to pregnancy: one, from a modest household, welcomes the news and follows her doctor’s instructions; the other, a woman of wealth and privilege, requests an abortion. Her request is refused and both women welcome healthy infants in the end, the wealthy woman regretting her earlier request. Modern sources suggest director Lawrence may have been African American, but this information remains unverified.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Linda
- Director:
- Reid, Dorothy Davenport
- Production Co:
- Mrs. Wallace Reid Productions
- Running Time:
- Feature. 73 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1929
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Marketed as “Mrs. Wallace Reid’s Great Human Story,” Linda tells the tale of a young woman whose father forces her to marry a much older man. She flees to the city to get an education aided by a friendly, sympathetic teacher.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Call of the Cumberlands, The
- Director:
- Ivers, Julia Crawford
- Production Co:
- Pallas Pictures
- Running Time:
- Feature. 64 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1916
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- One of four films directed by Julia Crawford Ivers, better known as a screenwriter, The Call of the Cumberlands tells the story of an Appalachian son drawn to New York City with dreams of being an artist. Taken under the wing of the sister of a prominent artist, he learns the ways of wealthy society and achieves notice in the art world. However, he is ultimately brought back to Appalachia by a family feud.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Broadway Love
- Director:
- Park, ida May
- Production Co:
- Universal Film Manufacturing Company
- Running Time:
- Feature. 61 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1918
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Silent Cinema, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Advertised as a story about “the Heart of the Great White Way in all its nakedness,” Broadway Love chronicles the fortunes of chorus girl Midge O’Hara, who travels from her rural community to seek fame on the stage. Among the film’s more troubling ingredients are the protagonist’s stoic response to a near-fatal sexual assault and the unfortunate use of an actor in black-face.
- Link to:
- AFI catalog
+ Back to God’s Country
- Director:
- Hartford, David
- Production Co:
- Canadian Photoplays Ltd.; Shipman-Curwood Company; First National
- Running Time:
- Feature. 73 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1919
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Silent Cinema, Action Adventure, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Shot in remote northern Alberta, Canada, Back to God’s Country tells the story of a young woman who lives in harmony with the natural world and its many animal inhabitants. In the climactic sequence, she drives a dogsled team across the frozen tundra to save her husband’s life.
- Link to:
- FII catalog | AFI catalog
+ Song of Love, The
- Director:
- Marion, Frances; Franklin, Chester M.
- Production Co:
- Norma Talmadge Film Corporation; First National
- Running Time:
- Feature. 81 minutes
- Sound:
- silent - with soundtrack
- Color:
- tinted b/w
- Country:
- USA
- Year:
- 1923
- Language:
- English intertitles
- Genre:
- Female Directors, Action Adventure, Drama
- Notes:
- 2K restoration. Frances Marion is best known as the screenwriter instrumental in shaping Mary Pickford’s onscreen persona during the silent era. The Song of Love is one of two films she also directed, in this case sharing credit with Chester Franklin. Norma Talmadge, who also produced the film, stars as a dancing girl in a Hollywood fantasy Arabian desert who falls for a dashing French spy, then must rescue him when he is kidnapped.