Josef Swickard

A long-retired director of early silent films recalls his exciting career as a filmmaker.

Alice, the only relatively normal member of the eccentric Sycamore family, falls in love with Tony Kirby, but his wealthy banker father and snobbish mother strongly disapprove of the match. When the Kirbys are invited to dinner to become better acquainted with their future in-laws, things don't turn out the way Alice had hoped.

A mad doctor named Zanoff uses a drug to bring himself back from the dead after his execution in prison. Dick Tracy sets out to capture Zanoff before he can put his criminal gang back together again.

Kit Cardigan seeks the killer of his father...among other plot threads leading up to the famous historical incident.

Chandu consults his crystal ball and sees that Nadji, Princess of Egypt, is in danger. She is about to be sacrificed by the black magic cult of Ubasti. Headed for the magic island of Lemuria, he is shipwrecked , washed ashore and captured. He becomes invisible, escapes and after numerous detours is able to rescue the princess.

August Bolte, the richest man in a settlement in German East Africa in the period before World War I, is called "Mamba" by the locals, which is the name of a deadly snake. Despised by the locals and the European settlers alike for his greed and arrogance, Bolte forces the beautiful daughter of a destitute nobleman to marry him in exchange for saving her father from ruin. Upon her arrival in Africa, she falls in love with an officer in the local German garrison. When World War I breaks out, Bolte, unable to avoid being conscripted, foments a rebellion among the local natives.

Fact and fiction collide in this exploitation flick that employs documentary footage depicting the bizarre self-flagellation rituals of the fanatical Catholic sect known as the Penitentes. Mixed with those truly disturbing sequences is a story concerning a killing in New Mexico, itself inspired by the murder of real-life reporter Carl Taylor as he worked on an article on the Penitentes.

Funds are embezzled and a fur trapper is murdered. Rin Tin Tin to the rescue!

Story about four generations in a family of musicians.

Jimmie Allen, a shady bookie, is in love with Pearl Proctor, a greedy dance hall girl. He schemes to get her back after she rejects him; and along the way, he revives a failing Gilbert and Sullivan troupe.

The feature length version of the serial by the same name. A mystical medicine arrow, the key to a lost gold treasure, is lost in one of many Indian attacks. It is recovered by the only two survivors, a Major and his daughter, who become the targets of those who wish to possess it. General George Armstrong Custer and army scout Kid Cardigan attempt to stop the ensuing war over the arrow, but fail in their efforts, which becomes the historic Custer's Last Stand.

A famous singer, bored with music and fans, goes to live in Mexico. His manager sends a woman to bring him back. They fall in love.

An American golf pro falls in love with a woman while visiting France; before long they are married and in the US. Upon their arrival, they are dismayed to discover that the golfer's parents have arranged for him to marry a wealthy socialite so they can use her money to support their business....

In this comedy, a wealthy sheik kidnaps and falls for a snobby socialite.

A couple inherits a college and to generate revenue offers a thousand dollars to players for each touchdown they score.

The Millionaire Kid is young Tommy Neville whose wealthy parents, Thomas and Gloria Neville are preparing to fight it out in divorce court.Tommy runs away from home. The private detective assigned to watch him tells Mrs. Neville he has been kidnapped. She immediately suspects her husband. Meanwhile, Tommy is selling newspapers in another city. He is attacked by a bully, and is rescued by gangster Terry Mallon and his daughter Kitty. Unaware of his identity, they take him to their beach home. Reporter Breezy Benson is sent to interview Mrs. Neville about the divorce, and is fired when she won't talk to him. He meets Kitty at the beach and is intrigued by her. He meets her father, who is curious but not suspicious as news of the alleged kidnapping has not been reported.

A famous scientist and his beautiful daughter travel to Indochina to find an ivory disc that has the formula for a deadly gas engraved on it. An evil doctor and his gang are also looking for it.

On the mystic island of Lemuria, the cult of Ubasti seek the Egyptian Princess Nadji to sacrifice so that their goddess Ossana, whose soul resides in Nadji's body, may be resurrected by Black Magic. Nadji is located in the Far East port of Suva, but shielded by the White Magical powers of Frank Chandler, an American raised by Eastern mystics who is also known as Chandu. When Chandu takes a voyage alone, however, the evil Voice of Ubasti is able to magically spirit her to Lemuria, where Black Magic reigns supreme. Chandu sets out in pursuit with his sister Dorothy, niece Betty and nephew Bob; but, shipwrecked on the magic island, Chandu finds his family also held prisoner for sacrifice while he is plunged into an endless maze of caverns beneath the evil temple, where both his mortal and magical strength seem rendered useless.

An Englishman sought for murder, tries to escape fate to South Seas island.

A farm girl learns she is a princess and is swept away by a tornado to the land of Oz.

Set in the years before and during World War I, this epic tale tells the story of a rich Argentine family, one of its two descending branches being half of French heritage, the other being half German. Following the death of the family patriarch, the man's two daughters and their families resettle to France and Germany, respectively. In time the Great War breaks out, putting members of the family on opposing sides.

George Thorne is a young army lieutenant at a border post. He is in love with Mercedes Castanada who, in the lawless life about the fort, is always in danger of falling into the hands of Snake Landree's bandit gang that is the terror of the region. Into the life of the post comes Dick Gale, a man from the East who is soon engaged in a battle for the heart of the girl, whom he has quickly come to love. He aids her in a battle with the desperados. They escape onto the desert and are lost in a sandstorm. They are rescued by the lieutenant, whom, the young woman confesses to the other man, she loves. The Easterner accepts his defeat in the struggle for her affections. According to silentera.com the film survives while Arne Andersen Lost Film Files has it as a lost film.

In the Spanish town of Magdalena live María and her sweetheart, Pancho, son of the governor. When the town is captured by brigands led by Ramírez, the governor is deposed, and Don Domingo Maticas is appointed in his place. Ramón, son of the new governor, becomes infatuated with María. She repulses him, but he is encouraged by her mother.

Tells of Caleb Plummer, his son Edward and blind daughter Bertha, and rivalry over neighbour May Fielding. May's friend Dot weds John Peerybingle; they find a lucky cricket in their cottage. A mortgage and house on fire figure in the story.

Maurie Monnier, a poor young American sculptor in Paris, marries Clarice, a gold-digging model who later abandons him. When Maurie's wealthy father dies, Maurie returns to the U.S., but his mother and brother will have nothing to do with him because of his poverty. At the end of his rope, he's about to kill himself when he meets Hope, a beautiful young girl who inspires him. Just when things are looking up for Maurie and his new love Hope, who should show up but his gold-digging wife Clarice.

If there was one thing that Don Juan de Marana learned from his father Don Jose, it was that women gave you three things - life, disillusionment and death. In his father's case it was his wife, Donna Isobel, and Donna Elvira who supplied the latter. Don Juan settled in Rome after attending the University of Pisa. Rome was run by the tyrannical Borgia family consisting of Caesar, Lucrezia and the Count Donati. Juan has his way with and was pursued by many women, but it is the one that he could not have that haunts him. It will be for her that he suffers the wrath of Borgia for ignoring Lucrezia and then killing Count Donati in a duel. For Adriana, they will both be condemned to death in the prison on the river Tigre.

In the great white north, a trapper searchers for the thief who has been stealing his furs while a local trader seeks to take advantage of the situation.

Zora, a girl of French origin, is raised by a wealthy Bedouin family after her mother Valerie dies while eloping with another man. Zora feels such great longing for the French artist Adrien that she accepts the offer of another artist, Raoul, to take her to Paris with the stipulation that if Adrien rejects her, she must give herself to him. Jan, the chieftain's son who is in love with Zora, follows the two to Paris. There Zora realizes that Adrien does not love her and discovers her real love for Jan. However, she feels bound to honor her pact with Raoul and is about to succumb to his advances when her father appears and recognizes Raoul as the man who destroyed his home years earlier. In the ensuing fight between the two men, Raoul is killed, thus freeing Zora to accept Jan's love.

A "love-'em-and-leave-'em" sailor hooks up with a dance-hall girl in Paris while waiting for his ship to sail. She falls in love with him, and when his ship leaves port she decides to show up at its next stop and reunite with her lover. However, when she arrives at the ship's next destination, she discovers that her "lover" has already found another local girl to spend his time with. Complications ensue.

No synopsis available yet.

Janet Loring is a young widow with a young son. She marries millionaire Malcolm Trask, but doesn't tell him about her previous marriage or her son, Ranny. Abandoned to the streets by Janet, Ranny eventually moves in with a bookseller and her granddaughter Margy. As the years go by Janet comes to regret abandoning her son and takes out ads looking for him. Marcio, a vicious blackmailer, sends Ranny to Janet posing as her son, not knowing that the young boy actually is her son. Complications ensue.

A mysterious rider, known as Whitehorse Cactus, steals from the dishonest water company in order to help ranchers who have been cheated out of their water rights by its crooked agents.

Carol Kingsley and Jimmy Mason, who are both employed in a fashion emporium run by Pierre Ronsard, fall in love and are married. Victor Ronsard, the son of the owner, falls in love with Carol and designs to break up the Mason marriage. He falsely informs Carol that Jimmy, who is the Ronsard bookkeeper, is short in his accounts and that, if she will have dinner with him, he will give her the incriminating papers.

Comrades is a 1928 American silent drama film directed by Cliff Wheeler.

1928 was the last year when silent films dominated the market, and this aviation-based action serial from Pathe was one of the studio's last. Some pieces are no longer extant (half of chapters 3&6, all of 7, 8, and 9, and the beginning of the 10th and final chapter), but the beginning and end are there as well as enough to follow the action adequately. The surviving Grapevine print is beautifully restored and tinted in spots, although you can tell the print is deteriorated in some of the surviving sections. Basically, an inventor (Josef Swickard, in a role not unlike the one he later played in THE LOST CITY) has created a silencer/muffler for planes to silence any engine sounds, and the bad guys are out to steal the invention and put it to evil use.

Robert Ardis, a small-town youth studying for the ministry, encounters a visiting Gypsy, Marcheta, and is displeased by her pagan conduct. When she saves the life of his younger brother, however, Robert becomes fascinated with her. Though scorning his religion, Marcheta saves his life during a storm by praying for a miracle, and in rescuing him she comes to believe in God.

Turn Back the Hours is a 1928 American silent drama film directed by Howard Bretherton and starring Myrna Loy, Walter Pidgeon, and Sam Hardy.

Gilead is a lumber town that is dominated by two branches of the Kidder family: the puritanical, ultra-conservative side led by Enoch and his son John, and the hedonistic branch led by Enoch's brother Aaron. Aaron plans to sway John to come over to his side by using a young girl who has lost her memory to lure him over, but when he kidnaps her John sets out to free her. Complications ensue.

Richard moves to a remote island to escape from the memory of Eve. Who had been forced to marry another man. But fate still has more in store.

In a kingdom in fifteenth century Italy, Duke Roberto overthrows the king and abandons his heir Gigi in the wilderness to die. However, he is discovered by a troupe of Gypsy acrobats and emerges as their star performer.

Alfred Sava-Goiu, who, after being dumped by his sweetheart, philosophically decides to end it all by jumping into the Seine. Instead, he lands in a passing boat owned by the Countess Elvire. Falling in love with his savior, Alfred returns the compliment by rescuing the Countess from a precipitous waterfall.

A bee keeper does his best to help the army. This film is lost.

Returning from the war to his father's California sawmill, Bob Cameron takes up with Hinky Dink, a cocky Englishman and man of the road. Ignoring a "no trespassing" sign on Cameron's property, Hinky is caught in a steel trap; Cameron, seeking aid, is threatened by Eben Beauregard, an old southerner, but the appearance of Antonia "Tony" Lee, Bob's childhood friend, quells his temper.

A womanizing city man meets Tillie in the country. When he sees that her father has a very large bankroll for his workers, he persuades her to elope with him.

Charlie is a clumsy waiter in a cheap cabaret, suffering the strict orders from his boss. He meets a pretty girl in the park and tries to impress her by pretending to be an ambassador. Unfortunately she has a jealous fiancé.

A painter turned tramp (Chaplin), devastated by losing the woman he was courting as a wealthy man, finds himself drunk and getting drunker by the minute with some sailors at a bar until he's literally falling down. He keeps futilely trying to draw the woman's picture on the floor with a piece of chalk until he finally passes out cold (or perhaps dies, as in the poem) at the end of the film.

Charlie is in charge of stage props and has trouble with actors' luggage and conflicts over who gets the star's dressing room. Once all that is resolved the next issue is getting everyone on stage with the correct backdrop.

Lumberjack Anthony Briggs has lived alone in the Canadian North Woods ever since his wife took their daughter and ran off to New York City with Robert Lacey, the lumber camp foreman. One day he comes across young Indian chief Lone Wolf and his sister Na-ta-Le, whose tribe has been wiped out by a "spotted sickness", and adopts them. Years afterward Briggs' daughter, now a young woman, returns to lead a hunting party with her fiance, Lacey's son Reynard. Complications ensue.

Fatty steals a ride on a train, discovered, and put off in the middle of nowhere. He stumbles along over the hot desert and finally passes out. A very plump Indian woman finds him and takes him to her tepee, woos him and finally, in desperation, Fatty agrees to marry her. While the tribe is preparing for the marriage ceremony, Fatty attempts to escape but is caught.

At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Charles Darnay goes to Paris to rescue an imprisoned former family servant. He is himself imprisoned and condemned by the revolutionary forces there. His wife, the former Lucie Manette, is secretly loved by a gentlemanly wastrel, Sydney Carton. Carton embarks on a daring plan to save the husband of the woman he loves.

Mr. and Mrs. Gussle get up to some hijinks in this Keystone comedy.

Charles Murray out romancing in the park.

Because he desires to shield the father of the girl he loves, though he suspects another to be the real culprit, Clavering takes upon himself the reproach of business treachery and seeks a hiding place as operator at a little telegraph station in the desert. There comes the man he suspects, and Clavering wrings a confession from him, but lets him go when he declares that he is married to the girl. Too late he discovers his error, but in seeking to shield the girl from further distress finds happiness from an unexpected source.

Hubby and wifey are in love, but he's henpecked by her mother. A nip of whiskey gives him Dutch courage, and he storms out, declaring he won't be a domestic slave anymore. He heads for a park bench where a photographer mistakes him for a seated woman's sweetheart. The tintype of the two of them falls into the hands of the woman's husband, whose jealous rage frightens our hero. He abruptly leaves town, telling wifey he'll be away on business. Wifey doesn't need her house while he's away, so, unknown to hubby, she moves in with mom and rents the house to the couple from the park. When our hero returns home sooner than expected, the renter has another attack of jealousy.

Miriam Lee is a young woman in New York who works hard for a living. Her life changes when she meets Joe Valdez, a handsome and ruthless gambler. After the couple is married Valdez opens an elegant gambling house and uses Miriam, who is nicknamed "the queen of the night", as bait to attract rich and gambling customers.

After her father dies and a banker, to whom he owed $5,000, insults the family's honor, dancing instructor Mary Lee, the last of a long line of Southern aristocrats, goes to New York vowing to repay the debt. In Paris, Raoul Garson, an American theatrical manager, signs dancing sensation Anna Gerard, who resembles Mary, to appear on Broadway against the wishes of her Apache lover Pierre La Rouge.

A new electric chair has been installed in the prison, and the officials impatiently await the first execution. The victim, with careless disregard for their feelings, makes his escape from the prison. The sleuth goes in pursuit, and finding the discarded convict's garb dons it as a disguise, hoping to meet the hunted man and ingratiate himself. Prison guards capture the sleuth, and disliking to disappoint the waiting crowd, decide to execute him. He is placed in the chair and the current turned on, but he stubbornly resists death. The current is doubled and trebled, to no avail. Meanwhile the real criminal has been captured, and he is brought back in time to save the sleuth from his perilous position.

This Keystone from the end of 1914, involving the usual suspects running around some plumbing issues will not hold many surprises for those familiar with Keystone in this period, or, indeed, with the works of the Three Stooges, who often played inept plumbers. It is, nonetheless, very nicely performed, especially by Charles Murray who mugs it up freely and ineptly, as well as the pretty girl who plays the house's maid.

Charlie is hanging around in the park, finding problems with a jealous suitor, a man who thinks that Charlie has robbed him a watch, a policeman and even a little boy, all because our friend can't stop snooping.

Four miscreants get revenge on the police chief by planting bombs in his house.