How Men Propose

A married farmer falls under the spell of a slatternly woman from the city, who tries to convince him to drown his wife.

An elderly couple are forced to separate themselves from each other after their children refuse to take both into one house.

The queen of Egypt barges the Nile and flirts with Mark Antony and Julius Caesar.

After years of questioning why people fear him, Death takes on human form so he can mingle among the mortals and find an answer. However, events soon spiral out of control as he falls in love with the beautiful young Grazia, the only woman not afraid of him. As he falls in love with her, her father sees him for what he is and begs him to return to his duties. Death must decide whether or not to seek his own happiness or sacrifice it so that Grazia may live.

After retiring from movies to get an education, a man discovers his ex-staff is trying to have him expelled.

Ludwig "Old Dutch" Streusand and his daughter Violet live in New York, and after years of hard study and labor Old Dutch completes his invention: the "teloptophone," a device which, when attached to a telephone, enables the speaker to see the party at the other end of the wire.

Mimi, an orphan, is taken in by a drunken innkeeper and becomes a domestic. She meets Rudolphe, scion of a well-to-do family, who rescues her from the unwanted advances of a drunken hotel guest. They fall madly in love, but Rudolphe's uncle, M. Durandin, wants Rudolphe to marry a family friend, Madame de Rouvre, and writes Mimi a letter, telling her that she is ruining Rudolphe's life. Musette and Marcel, friends of Mimi, also try to break up the romance by introducing Mimi to other men, and Rudolphe becomes jealous and leaves her. Brokenhearted, Mimi declines in health and eventually throws herself into the river but is rescued and taken to the hospital. Realizing it is only a matter of time before she dies, she drags herself back to the room where she and Rudolphe were happiest. Rudolphe is there and she dies knowing that he loves her.

Ted Vandeveer, a lawyer without clients, receives notice that he has been included in his rich uncle's will, he and his partner, James Sweeney, are excited, then they find that Ted's cousin Archie inherited nearly everything. With the $700 left after paying their creditors, Ted and James go to a fashionable resort, where the hotel clerk mistakenly puts them in the exclusive suite reserved for Archie. Passing for a wealthy man, Ted attracts many eligible girls, among them Mildred Niles, the daughter of a wealthy broker.

A restless young girl yearns to leave her rural environment and "get away from it all". One day she stumbles upon a film crew shooting a western near her home. She makes friends with the film's leading man, who encourages her to try her luck as an actress. So she leaves her small town and goes to the big city to break into the picture business. However, things don't turn out quite the way she planned.

Jones is a traveling salesman -- or drummer, as they were known in those days -- who peddles Bibles and playing cards at a discount. Along with Professor Goodly, he goes to a prize fight which is raided by the police. The two men wind up at a boarding school for young ladies where Jones is mistaken for the Bishop of Timbuctoo.

The story of Ethel Armstrong and her father Henry looking forward to her marriage to the ambitious attorney Bruce Steele. Bruce is elected district attorney and goes after a group of food profiteers. Ethel breaks the engagement when her father falls under suspicion as one of the food hoarders.

A female ape takes to mothering the orphaned boy (Tarzan) and raises him over the course of many years until a rescue mission is finally launched and the search party combs the jungle for the long-time missing Lord Greystoke. But then, one of the search members, Jane Porter, gets separated from the group and comes face to face with fearsome wild animals. Tarzan saves her from harm just in the knick of time and love begins to blossom.

With the aid of his former law students, a professor-turned-prosecutor battles corruption and organized crime.

Someone is murdering the cast and crew of a new Hollywood movie, and the leading lady may be next. As a police detective locks down the lot and refuses to let anyone leave, the studio’s publicity head and his secretary attempt to solve the murders themselves.

Dr. Gorman is a millionaire adventurer, traveling the world in search of dangerous game. His bored, beautiful, much younger wife entertains herself in the arms of other men. In turn, Gorman uses his animals to kill these men. When a New York City zoo suggests a fundraising gala, Gorman sees a prime opportunity to dispatch the dashing Roger and anyone else who might cross him.

The first talkie was directed by Alice Guy, the first color film was produced by Lois Weber, who directed more than 300 films over 10 years. Frances Marion wrote screenplays for the Hollywood Star Mary Pickford and won two Oscars, Dorothy Arzner was the most powerful film director in Hollywood. And what do all of them have in common? They are all women and they have all been forgotten. Incredibly, it also took until 2010 for the first woman, Kathryn Bigelow, to win the Oscar for Best Director. Even if underrepresented women have always played a big part in Hollywood and it is this part of the film history left untold that this documentary sets out to uncover.

After the woman who raised him claims he's not her son, Richard searches for clues about his identity. Urged on by his mentor, Capt. Randolph Courtney, Richard focuses on Julia Trent Anders, a middle-aged actress who just might be his real mother. But soon, Richard begins to fall for Julia's stepdaughter. Amidst the upheaval, Richard schemes to return Julia to the stage -- but he's in for another big surprise.

Phillip Gresson is in the employ of the British secret service, while heroine Judith is a spy for the Enemy. Hoping to gain possession of the usual Secret Plans, Judith pretends to be in love with Phillip. Only after nursing the seriously wounded Phillip back to health does Judith come to the realization that she genuinely loves him.

Donald Gray is accused by his partner of dishonesty. The shock of the accusation kills him, and since his innocence cannot be proven, his daughter takes it upon herself to avenge the insult. Meeting Alan Burnham, the couple's only child, he decides to ruin his career.

A rich merchant, Antonio is depressed for no good reason, until his good friend Bassanio comes to tell him how he's in love with Portia. Portia's father has died and left a very strange will: only the man that picks the correct casket out of three (silver, gold, and lead) can marry her. Bassanio, unfortunately, is strapped for cash with which to go wooing, and Antonio wants to help, so Antonio borrows the money from Shylock, the money-lender. But Shylock has been nursing a grudge against Antonio's insults, and makes unusual terms to the loan. And when Antonio's business fails, those terms threaten his life, and it's up to Bassanio and Portia to save him.

Habitual unfaithful husband, Jack Freeman begins flirting with the Effie McKenzie, and so breaks up her marriage. Blanche Gordon, a friend of Jack's wife Louise, then comes to see Jack several times in order to plead with him to give up extramarital affairs and accept the responsibilities that go with being a husband.

Fenella, a poor Italian girl, falls in love with a Spanish nobleman, but their affair triggers a revolution and national catastrophe.

There were more women directors before 1920 than at any other time in history. The first director to put a narrative story on celluloid was, Alice Guy Blaché in 1896. Few people know that Lillian Gish became a director in her own right in 1920. Ida Lupino directed over a hundred episodes of "Have Gun, Will Travel," "Thriller," "Gunsmoke," and many independent features.

False Gods (1919)

A young working girl, struggling to support her family on her meager salary, desperately wishes for a new pair of shoes.

The hypnotic Svengali controls the singing voice of a young starlet, but he cannot control her heart.

Beatrice Fairfax, the original advice-to-the-lovelorn reporter and her friend and not-so-secret admirer Jimmy Barton investigate calls for help and escape exotic perils and dangers. Episodes include exciting and fun stories of baby-napping, blackmail, jewel thievery, disguise, counterfeiting, and the long-unseen episode featuring entrancing cult starlet Olive Thomas and the real New York Yankees and Giants playing a game in the Polo Grounds.

Eileen O'Hara lives as a member of a cult in a remote retreat in the Adirondacks with her father, an embittered man since his wife's infidelity years earlier. Because his wife was untrue, O'Hara is determined that his daughter, Eileen, shall never marry. Peyster Sproul was the man who had the affair Mrs. O'Hara's infidelity, and when he shows up as president of the Sagamore Club and attempts to buy O'Hara's land, the two men come to blows.

Esther Wells is dumped by her husband, Martin, just as she's boarding a train. She gets off at the next stop, wanders into a cabin owned by Samuel Radburn, who happens to have been swindled out of a mine by Martin.

When Bob Stokes, a wealthy New York clubman, loses his fortune, he is jilted by his fiancée Marcia Fontaine. He then wanders to an upstate lumber camp where he impresses the owner, Henry Willard, with his leadership and fighting abilities. After Stokes quells a strike engineered by the previous foreman, Robert Brummon, who is really a Bolshevik agitator, to prevent shipments of lumber for government contracts, Brummon, seeking revenge, sets the forest on fire, but Stokes controls it. Willard then sends for Stokes to oversee his New York shipyards where a government "mystery ship" is under construction. After Stokes and Willard's daughter Helen fall in love, Brummon gets Marcia to attempt to seduce Stokes. Marcia lures Stokes to her apartment, where Brummon plans to kill him, but he escapes when he learns that a time bomb is set to destroy the ship.

Wall Street financier Frederick Searles goes bankrupt, prompting his mercenary wife to marry their eldest daughter Needa to the wealthy, disreputable John Davis Warren, despite Needa's love for Hugh Stanton.