Without Fear

The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.

Roddy Forrester has formed the White Mice club with a pal. The purpose of the club is to help those in trouble. When Roddy's father sends him to the South American republic of Montebello, he gets his chance to be of service. General Rojas, the former president, is locked away in a prison and slowly dying. Roddy decides to rescue him, especially since he has been inspired by the general's pretty daughter, Inez.

When Florette, a popular actress, and her friend Edith become rivals for the love of Walter Stanley, a leading man, Florette sacrifices her feelings for the other girl. Three years later, Phillip Rowland, a young aristocrat, falls in love with Florette. When Edith intrudes in her affairs, Florette--although she fears unhappiness will result because of their differing social positions--decides to marry Rowland regardless of the consequences. Rowland stands by his wife, although she is snubbed by his family, but when Edith conspires with Walter Stanley to place Florette in a compromising position, Judge Rowland accepts circumstantial evidence as truth and plans for a divorce. Florette, however, cleverly puts her brother-in-law on the defensive; making amends, he has her reinstated in the family's good graces. A lost film.

Sally Marrio, neglected wife of a prominent shoe designer, has three wishes: to be a millionaire's wife, to be famous, and to have a child.

Dramatic adventure of the wildcat oil industry set amongst the derricks.

Natalie Bourget, an American living in Paris, is married against her will to Jean Bourget, the brutal leader of the Paris "Apache" underworld. At a cabaret, Jean compels Natalie to perform an Apache dance, during which Harrison Forbes and his American mistress, Helen Armstrong, notice Natalie's strong resemblance to Helen.

In trying to conceal evidence of her father's forgery, society girl Naomi Warren agrees to marry wealthy promoter Edward Langden, who holds the damning notes; but he dies on the eve of the wedding, and his estate falls to his nephew, Richard. Naomi next makes the acquaintance of a crook who is attempting to steal her jewels, and she persuades him to help her rob Richard's safe. Richard catches Naomi red-handed, but--rather than turn her in--he decides to reform her. Instead, they fall in love, Richard learns Naomi's true purpose in her attempted robbery, and Mr. Warren's forgery is forever secreted with the marriage of Naomi and Richard.

When Dorothy wants to marry Bob (Robert Agnew), her mother, Mildred, forbids the match. Dorothy angrily asserts that Mildred might reconsider if her own mother had forbid her marriage. The rest of the film is a flashback, as Mildred recalls her own youth, when her dictatorial mother did forbid her to marry Lyman. Lyman enlisted with Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders to fight in the Spanish-American War, but was killed in battle.

A criminal known as Thunderbolt is imprisoned and facing execution. Into the next cell is placed Bob Moran, an innocent man who has been framed and who is in love with Thunderbolt's girl, without knowing of their relationship. Thunderbolt hopes to stave off the execution long enough to kill young Moran for romancing his girl.

John Warriner, facing financial ruin, accepts the proposal of a bootlegger, Benedict, to underwrite the business of illegal wine-selling. His daughter, Angela, takes up with the jazz set and is caught in a raid, at a cafe owned by Benedict. Her former sweetheart, Carl Graham, comes to the rescue and saves her from notoriety, while the family struggles back to its former respectability following Warriner's prison term.

Recently divorced career woman Alex Greville begins a romantic relationship with glamorous mod artist Bob Elkin, fully aware that he's also intimately involved with middle-aged doctor Daniel Hirsh. For both Alex and Daniel, the younger man represents a break with their repressive pasts, and though both know that Bob is seeing both of them, neither is willing to let go of the youth and vitality he brings to their otherwise stable lives.

When all Broadway shows are shut down during the Depression, a trio of desperate showgirls scheme to bilk a repugnant high society man of his money to keep their show going.

Miss Petticoats stops a runaway horse, saves a wealthy woman from death, is rewarded with position as a private secretary. Society shuns her. She goes abroad; then see how she becomes the acknowledged daughter of a French Count and falls heir to a title.

Wealthy Wall Street broker Thomas Maughm finally decides to divorce his spendthrift and reckless wife, and dictates a letter to that affect to his stenographer, Mary Moreland. While dictating the letter, he realizes that he is actually in love with Mary; when he tells her this, she confesses that she loves him, also, The pair make plans to meet in Boston later that night, but before Mary leaves, Maughm's wife confronts her and tells Mary that she still loves her husband. Ashamed, Mary convinces Maughm to go back to his wife. Complications ensue.

A man tries to woo a woman, rescue an orphanage, and bet on the right horse.

A young girl falls in love with a member of a gang of crooks. She determines to bring the rest of the gang to justice so she can save the man she loves.

A coquettish socialite falls for a straight-laced associate in her father's law firm. But she must also fend off the advances of a greedy fortune-hunter and his sister.

During the height of Prohibition courageous reporter Chick Slater and determined "sob sister" journalist Myrtle Hines uncover a dangerous bootlegging and extortion ring operating in their city. As they dig into the corruption, they get swept into a web of racketeers, mob violence, and romantic complications. The film explores the power of the press as the journalists risk everything to expose the criminal underworld.

After World War I, Armistice Lloyd Hart goes back to practice law, former saloon keeper George Hally turns to bootlegging, and out-of-work Eddie Bartlett becomes a cab driver. Eddie builds a fleet of cabs through delivery of bootleg liquor and hires Lloyd as his lawyer. George becomes Eddie's partner and the rackets flourish until love and rivalry interfere.

Various groups of people, both well-intentioned and otherwise, search for a buried treasure that is buried underneath a skyscraper.

A small-town, jazz-mad girl, Peggy Marston (Dorothy Revier), becomes involved with a pair of society thieves, Maurice Dumond (Armand Kalis) and Maxine (Mildred Harris), and finds herself falsely accused of possession of stolen jewels.

A poor man refrains from proposing to the woman he loves until he can secure the fortune left him by his uncle. Believing the treasure awaits in his uncle's abandoned mansion, he begins searching... only to uncover mystery, murder, and a killer ape.

Joe Morgan, a previously respectable worker, becomes a town drunkard, losing his job and neglecting his family due to the influence of the local tavern, the "Sickle and Sheaf". Joe's daughter, Little Mary, frequently comes to the bar to beg her father to return home. During a confrontation in the bar, a thrown glass hits Little Mary, resulting in her death. Devastated by the death of his child, Joe vows revenge but reforms, ending his addiction and reuniting with his family.

A 1921 film directed by Herbert Brenon.

Prospector Harry Farley returns from Alaska to find that his sister, Helen, has gone to New York with Florence, her blind daughter, after being deserted by her husband, Richard Norman. Under the name of Sidney Heaton, Norman has married Blanche Maberly and fallen in with a bootlegging gang while succumbing to the blackmail of Dick Watkins. Helen dies, Heaton kidnaps Florence, but Harry tracks him to the Adirondacks.

In the hills of Kentucky, Alexander McGivens, known as "the girl in pants," is reared by her father as if she were a boy. When her father, Aaron, is wounded in a fight with Bud Sellers, the girl undertakes to get her father's logs to market with the help of a crew from the lumber camp. Her numerous suitors include a young Irishman, Jerry O'Keefe, roughneck Jase Mallows, and a wealthy young easterner, Jack Halloway. After delivering the logs, she entrusts her money to the repentant Bud Sellers, and on her return trip she is captured by Mallows and his followers. She finally reaches home, where she offers her hand to O'Keefe, the soft-spoken mountaineer.

The Perils of Pauline is a motion picture serial shown in weekly installments featuring the actress Pearl White playing the title character. Pauline has often been cited as a famous example of a damsel-in-distress, although viewers will find her character more resourceful and less helpless than the classic 'damsel' stereotype. Nine episodes (from a condensed 1916 re-release) survive to this day.

Mary Dexter comes to Washington with her husband, Phillip, to get his invention, an appliance for battleships, adopted. He runs against graft and influence on all sides and finally realizes he can do nothing without money and "pull." Unknown to Phillip, Mary goes to Senator Barring and by her beauty and charm so interests him that he promises to help her husband.

Queen of the serials Pearl White gets herself into plenty of trouble up Klondike way as a young maiden named Tiger's Cub.

David Spencer (Holbrook Blinn) is a basically good man, but like all men he has a few character flaws. Alas, these flaws deepen into weaknesses, leading to disaster for Spencer and his lady love Janice Lane (Eleanor Woodruff).

During a dinner party at the Brookfield family estate, private detective Craig Kennedy relates a story of one of his unsolved murder cases. What Kennedy knows, and the other guests do not, is that the person who was the killer in the unsolved mystery is in the room, and Kennedy makes plans to expose him.

Dr. Bonner plans to live forever through periodic gland transplants from younger, healthier human victims. Bonner looks about 40; he's really 104 years old. But people are starting to get suspicious, and he may not make 200.

After intrepid working girl Mary Carter becomes the new owner of a reputedly haunted mansion located off the Cuban coast, a stranger phones warning her to stay away from the castle. Undaunted, Mary sets sail for Cuba with a stowaway in her trunk—wise-cracking Larry Lawrence, a radio announcer who helps Mary get to the bottom of the voodoo magic, zombies and ghosts that supposedly curse the spooky estate.

After being freed from a Vietnamese war prison, French Lt. Col. Pierre Raspeguy is sent to help quell resistance forces in Algeria. With the help of the Capt. Esclavier, who has grown weary of war, and Capt. Boisfeuras, who lives for it, Raspeguy attempts to convert a rugged band of soldiers into a formidable fighting unit, with the promise of marrying a beautiful countess if he's made a general.

A meek bank clerk who oversees the shipments of bullion joins with an eccentric neighbor to steal gold bars and smuggle them out of the country.

Escaping from the police, The Baron, a gentleman crook, learns that Colonel Patterson, a wealthy banker, is remodeling his house as a surprise for his daughter, Mildred, who is about to be married to Robert Wallace. The Baron goes to the house, and, by impersonating the architect, discovers the location of the safe and also gains the confidence of Mildred, who is angry at Robert for kissing a vamp. Mildred arranges with The Baron to feign a kidnapping in order to test Robert's loyalty; but she soon regrets the deception, for The Baron, having burgled the Patterson safe, really does abduct her. Trapped on a runaway train, she is rescued by Robert just as it crashes into a deep river. Mildred forgives Robert for his indiscretion with the vamp, and The Baron is apprehended.

Involuntarily-retired Colonel Hyde recruits seven other dissatisfied ex-servicemen for a special project. Each of the men has a skeleton in the cupboard, is short of money, and is a service-trained expert in his field. The job is a bank robbery, and military discipline and planning are imposed by Hyde and second-in-command Race on the team, although civilian irritations do start getting in the way.

After she marries Jack Valentine, Janie Wakefield discovers that her husband's reputation as a flirt is well deserved when she sees him riding in a taxi with a strange woman. Jaine sets out to remodel her husband into the man she wants.

An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.

Thurlow Michael Barclay Jr., a bookish mathematics professor, is asked by his father to inspect his mine in Kentucky to determine why it's failing. He discovers love with a local girl named Sally and a plot to destroy the mine by local villains.

A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score.

Cinema a century ago was a new, exciting and highly democratic form of entertainment. Picture houses nationwide offered a sociable, lively environment in which to relax and escape from the daily grind. With feature films still rare, the programme was an entertaining, ever-changing roster of short items with live musical accompaniment. 100 years on, this special compilation from the BFI National Archive recreates the glorious miscellany of comedies, dramas, travelogues and newsreels which would have constituted a typical night out in 1914. Our selection includes a comic short about a face-pulling competition, a sensational episode of The Perils of Pauline, scenes of Allied troops celebrating Christmas at the Front, and an early sighting of one of cinema’s greatest icons.

Bob Monkhouse introduces the golden age of slapstick comedy.

Mrs. Owing is fond of fine dresses, but she cannot pay her bills. The dressmakers, calling to collect from her, annoy Mr. Owing at his office. Determining to teach his wife a lesson, Mr. Owing disguises himself as a constable and hires two toughs to impersonate bailiffs.

Refusing to marry her stepmother's choice, Gail Prim leaves her life of luxury, after cutting her hair, dressing in her butler's clothes and stealing money and jewels from her father's safe. Spending the night in a barn, she introduces herself to the thieves already there as the Oskaloosa Kid, a wanted criminal, and barely escapes their struggle to get her loot. Meanwhile, the real Oskaloosa Kid kills Reginald Paynter and throws Nettie Penning, whom Reginald was trying to seduce, onto the highway.