Michael F. Blake

Built in 1942 by a maverick film preservationist, this small Los Angeles theater championed silent film at the very moment when the Hollywood studios across town were busily destroying their nitrate inventories. With hard chairs, phonograph-record accompaniments, and mostly original vintage prints, the dingy mom-and-pop operation was nonetheless a palace to the fanatical few who became its loyal audience.

An in-depth look at the Lon Chaney Sr. horror classic and other "Phantom" films.

A video tour of Chaney's actual make-up case and the "double-amputee" costume worn in The Penalty, guided by Michael F. Blake, the author of three books on Cheney.

Lon Chaney, the silent movie star and makeup artist, renowned for his various characterizations and celebrated for his horror films, becomes the subject of this documentary.

Documentary about John Ford's relation to Monument Valley.

A tribute to producer Irving Thalberg.

Short documentary about the making of the John Ford/John Wayne film "Stagecoach".

Harker Flet and compatriots Timothy X. Nolan and Katy, along with three other men, steal $40,000 in money and jewelry from a California train in the gold-mining country of the 1880's. The six split up and while they are hiding out awaiting the rendezvous to divide the loot, Hark is cornered, framed and sent to prison. He is released after two-and-a-half years and sets out to find Katy and Nolan and get his share of the loot.

The life and times of the flamboyant showman who built his legendary Follies around beautiful women -- as told by the women in his life.

A veteran street cop is assigned a new partner. The partner is not exactly what he seems to be, though--he is an experimental android who has been programmed by the police lab.

In a Maine coastal village toward the end of the 19th century, the swaggering, carefree carnival barker, Billy Bigelow, captivates and marries the naive millworker, Julie Jordan. Billy loses his job just as he learns that Julie is pregnant and, desperately intent upon providing a decent life for his family, he is coerced into being an accomplice to a robbery. Caught in the act and facing the certainty of prison, he takes his own life and is sent 'up there.' Billy is allowed to return to earth for one day fifteen years later, and he encounters the daughter he never knew. She is a lonely, friendless teenager, her father's reputation as a thief and bully having haunted her throughout her young life. How Billy instills in both the child and her mother a sense of hope and dignity is a dramatic testimony to the power of love.