Alice Joyce

A compilation of thirteen rare silent films digitized by the Library of Congress, selected for the 2022 Domitor conference theme “Copy/Rights and Early Cinema.” Drawn from nitrate and safety film, the program spans comedies, trick films, and dramas exploring censorship, invention, adaptation, and social rights. Titles include: Pruning the Movies (Nestor, 1914); Imperial Japanese Dance (Edison, 1894); Early Edison Camera Tests (Edison, c.1890s); Censorship and its Absurdities (Edison, 1915); In Wrong (Crystal, 1914, dir. Phillips Smalley); Tillie’s Tomato Surprise (Lubin, 1915, dir. Howell Hansell); Indian Land Grab (Champion, 1910); The Stolen Play (Falcon Features, 1917, dir. Harry Harvey); And the Villain Still Pursued Her (Vitagraph, 1906, dir. J. Stuart Blackton); The Doll’s Revenge (Hepworth, 1907, dir. Lewin Fitzhamon); The Disintegrated Convict (Vitagraph, 1907); The Mexican Joan of Arc (Kalem, 1911, dir. Kenean Buel); and Fads and Fashions of 1900 (U.S., 1940s).

Broken hearts in Ireland. Sean is a great tenor, in semi-retirement, living in a village close to Mary, the woman he’s always loved. Mary’s aunt convinced her to marry a man for his money; he has recently deserted her, leaving her penniless. She and her two children, Eileen and Tad, move in with the selfish and austere aunt. Eileen is falling in love with Fergus, a young man who’s off to Dublin to seek his fortune. Sean is drawn out of retirement and goes on tour in America. At his first concert, he’s nervous and out of sorts until the last song, when peace descends on him like a gift. What has happened, and can family life be set right?

An airplane carrying three Brits crash lands in the kingdom of Rukh. The Rajah holds them prisoner because the British are about to execute his three half-brothers in neighboring India.

A novelist has to choose between his wealthy patron and a penniless romantic.

Gregory La Cava directs this comedy of errors, starring W.C. Fields as a hen-pecked, inebriated inventor who triumphantly creates unbreakable windshield glass while struggling to gain the respect of his social-climbing daughter and nagging wife.

Amy Spencer is engaged to artist Heath Desmond, a nature-worshipper who shuns organized religion. James Bartlett, a minister in love with Amy, influences her against Heath, and they break up. Cousin Kate Curtis, a novelist whose views on love are considered by her relatives to be unconventional, is called in to smooth matters over. She meets Heath on the train, and the two, not knowing each other's identity, apparently fall in love.

Adapted from the Fannie Hurst story of the same name, Mannequin is the story of Joan Herrick, kidnapped in infancy from her wealthy parents and raised by a slatternly slum woman. The film is still extant.

Brothers Beau, John and Digby Geste join the Foreign Legion, where they fall under the rule of tyrannical Sergeant Markoff. Beau and John are assigned to Fort Zinderneuf, where Markoff tries to break their spirit, aware of a dark family secret concerning a fabulous jewel one of them carries. As tensions rise, Arabs attack the fort and rivalries must be thrown aside in a desperate battle for life.

In this suspenseful silent crime drama, a hijacker proves his loyalty to his mother by killing his biological father, a blackmailing gangster who has been threatening to destroy the mother's happy marriage to the governor.

Constance Randall learns from her dying father that he has been blackmailed by a cashier in his bank who has knowledge of his part in a crime, and she swears to keep the secret from her younger sister, Muriel. Hugh Martin obtains documentary proof of the crime and threatens to give it to the press unless Constance induces Muriel to marry him.

Julian (Percy Marmont) is a poor artist who lives with wife Edith (Alice Joyce) and their newborn baby in Harlem. Struggling to make ends meet, he foregoes his artistic calling and draws for magazines. Reaching his limits, Julian convinces his wife he could reach higher grounds if he were to go to Paris. He moves to Paris while his Edith works at a shop on Fifth Avenue. Each of their lives evolves differently—Edith is courted by a wealthy suitor whom she ignores while pining for her husband, while Julian fails to meet his goals in Paris, returning defeated three years later. The meeting highlight how different their routes have been.

Very jealous of the Duke of Desborough's prize race horse "Clipstone," Major Roland Mostyn schemes to destroy his rival and thus obtain possession of the animal. After framing the duke's wife Muriel in a false adultery suit which results in divorce, Mostyn ruins the young duke at cards, thus forcing him to auction his horse in order to pay his debts. Muriel, heartbroken by the separation, persuades her old friend Captain Streatfield to purchase the horse and enter him in the derby. Mostyn bets all his money on his horse and attempts to fix the race but his plot is discovered and Clipstone wins the contest. After Muriel's innocence is proven, Mostyn's villainy towards the duke is finally stopped and the couple is happily reunited.

An officer in the British Guards takes to drink when a friend and fellow officer convinces the woman they both love that he has another woman.

Having misused funds held in his trust by investing them with his friend, Henry Lowe, Robert Reardon appeals to his future son-in-law, James Calvin, a candidate for the position of district attorney, for help. When Calvin threatens to indict Lowe for fraud if he is elected, Reardon's anger becomes so great that the engagement between Calvin and Reardon's daughter Helen is broken, resulting in Reardon's suicide. After Lowe comes into possession of a check forged by Helen's brother Jack, he uses the document to force a marriage with Helen. Treated brutally by her husband, Helen seeks Calvin's aid, but Lowe frames Calvin, now the district attorney, in a compromising situation with his ex-fiancée. Calvin is about to resign when Helen traps her husband with some marked money, causing his suicide through disgrace. Thus freed, Helen and Calvin find happiness together.

A feisty, sexy and manipulative gypsy woman disrupts the lives of a conservative farm family.

Hardworking reporter Phyllis Dale has been hiding a seventeen year old secret. But when her wild daughter Bobby is removed from boarding school, it looks like the secret is out. That is, until Bobby introduces herself as the little sister to Phyllis' fiancé Lawrence and boss Roger. Yet Bobby is bound to cause mischief by flirting with everyone. And when she draws the attention of a philandering divorcee, she is bound for scandal! Will Phyllis be able to keep wild Bobby out of the Headlines?

A man's life seems to be falling apart. He's bored with his job, gets passed over for a promotion and, when the pressures get to be too much, he tries to commit suicide, but he even fails at that and manages only to cripple himself instead of killing himself. Forced to stay at home, he finds the role of "househusband" enjoyable--until his wife takes a low-paying job with his old company, and rapidly rises up the corporate ladder.

An eccentric lower class woman struggles to gain respect in high society after marrying a wealthy man, and the problem gets worse when their daughter starts growing up.

Lady Andrea Pellor is engaged with a South African wealthy mine owner only to save her family from misery. Before the wedding, she changes her mind about marrying the rich man for the wrong reasons, and she begs a pilot known as "White Man" to take her with him.

Madame Vervier, a sophisticated woman, sends her daughter Alix to live with Owen Bradley's parents in London.

A major and his wife return from abroad and pose as servants to observe their adolescent children.

Stephen Sorrell, a decorated war hero, raises his son Kit alone after Kit's mother deserts husband and child in the boy's infancy. Sorrell loses a promising job offer and is forced to take work as a menial. Both his dignity and his health are damaged as he suffers under the exhausting labor and harsh treatment he receives as a hotel porter. But Sorrell thrives in the knowledge that his son will benefit from his labors. Sorrell has allowed the boy to believe his mother dead, but when the mother shows up, wanting to re-enter the young man's life, Sorrell must make hard decisions. Preserved and restored by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.

Indiana Stillwater, the daughter of a wealthy American railroad industrialist, marries English nobleman Viscount Canning and travels to England. Her in-laws are somewhat shocked by her casualness in dress and manner, but welcome her into the family anyway. When her parents invite her to a Sunday-night dinner at their hotel, however, her husband--believing it to be inappropriate behavior for the wife of a nobleman--orders her not to go. Complications ensue.

An unfaithful husband and his daughter go on nightly club outings, leaving the mother at home. The mother rebels against her lonesome life and attempts to prevent a man from pursuing her daughter.

A rich man leaves his wife, poses as a coster, and saves a factory girl from a crook.

In this comedy, a wealthy matron is terribly upset when she learns that her socialite son is planning to marry a blue collar girl.

The Green Goddess is a 1923 American silent adventure film based on the play The Green Goddess by William Archer. Set during the British Raj, it stars George Arliss as the Rajah of Rukh, into whose land arrive three British subjects, played by Alice Joyce, David Powell, and Harry T. Morey.

When the nation of Ruthania declares war on the United States, an army of enemy soldiers invades the U.S. and captures New York. But the American forces have prepared adequately for such an event, and hidden booby traps, trick fortifications, and remote-controlled bombs...

Hampton, a broker, employs a detective to investigate Stella, a show girl, with whom his younger brother Dick is in love. As a result of the detective's discoveries, Dick breaks his engagement with Stella. The woman calls at Dick's office late that afternoon. Hampton leaves the two alone. Unable to alter Dick's decision, Stella seizes a knife and threatens suicide. Dick tries to wrest the weapon from her and is accidentally killed.

One of many adaptations of the comedy of manners written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan satirizing the gossip and scandal-mongering of London's high society.

John Burkett Ryder, "the richest man in the world," determines to discredit a judicial decision which works against the interest of his millions by discrediting its author, Judge Rossmore, and causes impeachment charges to be laid against him in Congress. The judge's daughter Shirley Rossmore, learns of his trouble and returns home from Paris, where she has won success as a writer. She is loved by Jefferson Ryder, son of the magnate who is slowly killing her father.

The friends of the story are John Drene, a sculptor, and Jack Graylock, a painter. Both men swear eternal friendship on the night before Drene's marriage.

Mary's lot. always hard, becomes doubly so upon her father's death. Desiring to re-marry, the girl's stepmother conspires to get her out of the way.

The opening picture finds Edith in prison where she has been for the last three years. She is a widow and her baby has been placed in an institution. She is paroled, finds her child and steals him from the asylum. After wandering around she finally obtains a position in a department store, where Jim Roberts, superintendent, falls in love with her. They are married, but she fails to tell him of her past. Mabel, also freed from prison, demands that Edith join with her and her side partner in a crime, under threat of exposing her past to Jim.

Henri Durand of the French nobility is insanely jealous of his beautiful American wife Marion's innocent conversations with her many male admirers. Durand provokes her suicide when, egged on by a rejected suitor of Marion's, he accuses her of having illicit relations with her visiting childhood friend, Tom Franklin. Twelve years later, when Tom returns after a long expedition, the vengeful Durand coaches his daughter Beatrice, who resembles Marion, to court Tom.

Little Elsie, scarcely two years of age, awakens one morning and crawls out of the house, dragging her doll. The little tot creeps to the nearby railroad station and resumes her nap in one of the flower beds. Mrs. Hastings, a wealthy widow, is taking an early morning train, after having spent several weeks at an eastern summer resort. She reaches the station before train time and while strolling about, she discovers little Elsie. While she is fondling the little one, the train arrives and Mrs. Hastings, who has no child of her own, cannot master the temptation to take this baby with her. Upon arriving in the west, Mrs. Hastings learns from a newspaper of the strange disappearance of Elsie Mason.

Louise Grayling escapes from a straight-laced aunt on a plea that she wants to visit her uncle, Captain Abe, on Cape Cod. Abe is henpecked by his housekeeper and rather looked down upon by the villagers who haunt his store. To give himself a fictitious glory he invents a fictitious brother, Amzon, who is a composite of all the pirates from Blackbeard to the food profiteers. Louise penetrates the deception and induced Abe to go away and come back as the fictitious brother.

A tale set during the 1916 Irish Easter Rebellion against the British.

A young mother wants to be with her child so much that she is cross to her husband when he asks her to spend a pleasant evening with him away from home. The husband in consequence seeking diversion and relief from business cares alone, drifts away from her.

Alcibiades Shamley and Cassandra, a sweet young girl, with a very bad temper, are married. After the wedding Cassandra prepares her pup, Cara, for the wedding .journey. The Pullman car porter discovers the dog in the car and Alcy and his bride are promptly put off. She wires her uncle, the vice-president of the road, asking that all the employees of the railway be discharged as Cara has been insulted. Reaching their first stopping place, Alcy is informed that no dogs are allowed. Cassandra insists she will keep the dog and they start out for another hotel.

Mary Turner is a young shopgirl who is unjustly convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison. Upon her release, she does everything possible to make the man who wronged her to suffer, always taking care to stray no further than the extremes of the law allow.

An expose of the methods used by a police-department to extract a confession from a suspect, regardless of innocence or guilt, and the effect and consequences on a family when an innocent member breaks under the interrogation methods and confesses to a crime he did not commit.

During an attack on the Matelija Indian village, Wana, a beautiful Indian girl, is captured. Don Pablo, a Mexican gentleman, rescues Wana and places her in the care of the old Padre at San Louis Rey Mission. Two months later Wana again meets her rescuer. Romero, a half-breed, is rejected by Rubia, Don Pablo's sweetheart.

Carrying on with the antique business of her deceased father, Jacqueline Nevers is asked to catalog James Desboro's collection. When they fall in love, it induces the jealousy of Elena Clydesdale, a married woman who is also in love with James.

Lieutenant Malcolm, of the United States Army, arrives at the Casa Verdugo and reads the proclamation authorizing the occupation of Southern California by the United States government. The lieutenant orders all Mexican flags lowered and the United States emblems hoisted instead. Don Luis Verdugo, a feeble old Spanish grandee, unreconciled to the American occupation, refuses to allow the lowering of the Mexican flag. His daughter, Dona Maria, intercedes with the American officer, who temporarily allows the flag to wave. Struck with the brilliant beauty of the little senorita, the Union officer falls a slave to her charms and the attachment seems mutual. Don Luis, however, refuses to allow his daughter to receive the attentions of the American officer.

Bill is discharged from Bar K Ranch and in his desperation decide to turn train robber. On his way to town he rescues Myrtle Mulligan, who has been driven from protection to the high branches of a tree by a vicious bull. Arriving in town Bill applies to the superintendent of the railroad and secures a job as track walker. Pinto Joe, a friendly Indian, learns of Bill's train wrecking plans, and tells Myrtle about it. Hearing Bill intends to dynamite the bridge the plucky girl decides to take a hand in the game. Arriving on the scene just after Bill has lighted the fuse she fearlessly picks up the cartridge and throws it where it can do little damage. Rushing up the bank to the track she flags the oncoming train. When the passengers and trainmen cluster about her to learn the cause of the explosion she tells them that Bill saved their lives by finding the burning fuse just in time to prevent the blowing up of the bridge.

When her husband and sons are executed without trial by Colonel Cephis, Señora Talamantes vows revenge. She rallies a band of Mexicans and Indigenous fighters, joins the Insurrectos, and lures the Colonel into a trap. Captured and condemned by a drumhead court martial, he faces the same fate he dealt to her family. With justice served, the widow returns to her people.

John Sark is the owner of a piece of land coveted by Henry Murden, leader of the band of "White Riders," who has purloined the information that a railroad wishes to buy the property. Sark is a naturalist and has for an assistant Rose Ember. He discovers one of the rider's masks which is made of one of Rose's handkerchiefs, and this introduces a mysterious element into the love affair. The mask belonged to her father. The riders try to force Sark's hand, but are obliged to capture him. Rose, seeing Sark lead away, dons a mask and riding close to his horse, cuts his bonds. Sark kills Murden, and, finding that his savior was Rose, is once more happy in his love.

The story is of Angelina Allende, who is left an orphan by the suicide of her father, a real-estate visionary who has beggared not only himself but his friends in a vain attempt to "boom" the deserted hamlet of Anne's Bridge. Receiving news of his death, Angelina returns home, where she is presently inveigled into a trip to New York by two men, one of whom wants the property and the other of whom wants Angelina.

Florence is a little milliner who shares a room in "Brick Dust Row" with Ella, a fellow worker. It is all the home she has and the girls have to receive their company in the parks because there is no reception room, the millionaire owner of the Row having sublet the parlors. They see no harm in chance acquaintances. Then Florence meets Blinker, and real love comes into her life; but Blinker learns of what to him seems her promiscuous acquaintances and makes it plain that he cannot marry such a woman.

Young, innocent, confiding, it is a shock to Ann Fenton to learn that her supposed husband is not a business man, but a gambler, and that her marriage is bigamous. The child is taken from her by a Helping Hand Society and apprenticed to a brutal farmer. She is left upon her own resources. Seven years later Fenton again crosses her path, but she finds happiness in honorable marriage while her betrayer is taken away to face a murder charge, and the Song of the Soul now rises in full, pure tones from the breast of the happy wife and mother.

Lem Ransom, the village drunkard, steals the Widow Huggins' bonds while under the influence of liquor, at the instigation of Hannibal Chapman, an unscrupulous lawyer. After taking the stolen bonds from his catspaw, Chapman treacherously arranges to have suspicion fall upon Lem.

A mystery film in which two people fall into a mysterious sleep coma; an Oriental hypnotist then tries to reawaken them.

"Richard the Brazen" is the romance of a modern knight who has all the flourish and daring of the knights of old, although he happened to be born in Texas in the 20th century. While traveling with his chum, an English peer, an accident forces him to assume his friend's title, valet, and monocle and leads to a meeting with a girl whom he had worshipped from afar in England.

A short Western in which a colonel and a resistance fighter help each other out in times of war.

The prison doors open and Tom Benton, a first timer, and Slim Jim, alias Red Davis, of the underworld, are liberated. Tom learns that the prison odor clings by being ceremoniously turned away wherever he applies for work. Slim Jim immediately on his release beats his way west. Eventually Tom goes west and finds his work. Several months later Slim Jim gets a job at the same place Tom is employed. Slim Jim, being caught at his old tricks and exposed by Tom, reveals Tom's past. The several thrilling scenes that follow show Tom's genuine manhood and gives Slim Jim an opportunity to prove that even the underdog has at least a spark of good lying dormant under the rough exterior.

Foster sister of the Duchess d'Aubeterre, Madeline, marries Jean Renaud, a French soldier, and has a daughter named Adrienne. Five years later, on a battlefield, Renaud is entrusted by the Count de Moray with jewels and papers proving that Adrienne is his heir. After Moray's death, Renaud gives everything to Madeline and then returns to the battle.

While exploring the fair, Mary is approached by Burke, who is drawn to her beauty. Mary's former sweetheart, Earle, and Burke's own jilted former lover discover the two are planning to elope. Working together, Earle and the shell-game man’s former sweetheart manage to intervene and prevent the elopement, preserving the "rural life" and farm scenes depicted throughout the film.

The scenes are laid in the Hudson Bay country in comparatively recent years and cover the life of a Hudson Bay factor, showing him as a young man assuming his business in the wilderness and, as was common in those days, taking an Indian wife that he had purchased of her father in Indian fashion.

Due to her parents' coldness and constant struggle for social recognition, Marcia Van Arsdale grows into womanhood despising love. When mine owner Robert Jardine comes to New York, he causes the near bankruptcy of Marcia's father by manipulating the copper market. Marcia's parents bring about a marriage between their daughter and Robert, although Marcia makes it clear that she can never love.