Maciste atleta

The devil takes Maciste down to hell in an attempt to corrupt and ruin his morality.

Bartolomeo Pagano as Maciste in Maciste in the Lions' Den. A Italian silent from 1926.

Maciste, for the first time, suddenly discovers to be in love. The object of his love is Ada, the daughter of Thompson, an enlightened industrialist persecuted by Bethel, a competitor without scruples. He first makes use of a small group of agitators in order to foment the workers, then he tries to affect his loved ones, kidnapping his daughter. But he hasn’t squared things up with Maciste. In Maciste innamorato private and politic life interlace and condition each other. Maciste, a new popular hero, acts in advance of his time and sees himself as a media idol: after punishing the instigators, the crowd will recognize him as a movie star and promptly forget their claims carrying him shoulder-high. A hero, though, doomed to an unhappy love.

Monna Violante, wed by her father to the rich merchant Floridoro, falls in love with Spallatonda, the buffoon of count Giano, one her suitors.

Young Cabiria is kidnapped by pirates and sold as a slave in Carthage. Just as she's to be sacrificed to Moloch, Cabiria is rescued by Fulvius Axilla, a good-hearted Roman spy, and his powerful slave, Maciste. The trio are broken up as Cabiria is entrusted to a woman of noble birth. With Cabiria's fate unknown, Maciste punished for his heroism, and Fulvius sent away to fight for Rome, is there any hope of our heroes reuniting?

An American starlet inflames two Italian peasants who forget about their respective fiance's. One of them even thinks of marrying her and begins to plan for the engagement banquet. When the girl decides to live the countryside harmony reigns again.

A former silent film actor who has saved old movies of his time from destruction uses them to set up recreational performances at schools. After an accidental fire and the risk of prison, he meets a rich producer who helps him to build a film museum.

Based on a Victor Hugo play, and scored with music from the later opera by Giuseppe Verdi, the film tells about a hunchbacked clown whose beautiful daughter falls in love with the lecherous king.

The beautiful young Berta Trégner, paralyzed by an accident, spends her life tolerating her misfortune and believing that her husband Gerardo still loves her. After six years, however, almost miraculously, she recovers and discovers that Gerardo has started a new family with Elena, her best friend, and that they even have a son. Distraught, she runs away from home. Michele, Berta's godfather, saves the day by discovering that Elena has rekindled relations with her ex-husband Alberto. He informs Gerardo, who, having rejected the unworthy Elena, can return to Berta to find love again.

In L'innamorata, Almirante is at the zenith of her career, starring as Mara Flores, a vampish society lady, who casts her eyes on Carlo, an electrical engineer and director of a powerplant. Although attracted to Mara, he rejects her, and she immediately turns around and sinks her fangs in his best friend and future brother-in-law, Franco. Not possessing Carlo's self-composure, Franco takes up with Mara, and it leads him to his ruin and death. Now, Carlo does fall under Mara's spell, and as their passion intensifies, it becomes clear that there will be no happy end to this story.

The painter Pierre Bernier becomes famous thanks to the portrait "The Naked Woman" which represents his model, the seductive Lolette. The very evening of his triumph at the Salon des Expositions, he decides to marry her. But, having become rich and famous, he soon falls in love with the Princess of Chaban and abandons the woman to whom he owes his success.