King Baggot

Among the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips from such lost films as Cleopatra (1917), starring Theda Bara; The Miracle Man (1919), with Lon Chaney; He Comes Up Smiling (1918), starring Douglas Fairbanks; an early lost sound film, Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), filmed in early Technicolor, and the only color footage of silent star Clara Bow, Red Hair (1928). The program is rounded out with interviews of film preservationists involved in identifying and restoring these films. Also featured is a new interview with Diana Serra Cary, best known as "Baby Peggy", one of the major American child stars of the silent era, who discusses one of the featured fragments, Darling of New York (1923).

When a rich woman's ex-husband and a tabloid-type reporter turn up just before her planned remarriage, she begins to learn the truth about herself.

Discovery by Flo Ziegfeld changes a girl's life but not necessarily for the better, as three beautiful women find out when they join the spectacle on Broadway: Susan, the singer who must leave behind her ageing vaudevillian father; vulnerable Sheila, the working girl pursued both by a millionaire and by her loyal boyfriend from Flatbush; and the mysterious European beauty Sandra, whose concert violinist husband cannot endure the thought of their escaping from poverty by promenading her glamor in skimpy costumes.

A married woman and a drifter fall in love, then plot to murder her husband.

Penny Addams lives in a constant state of depression stemming from the trauma of her father's death when she was just a young girl. Her brother, Chase, and stepmother, Lee, work to help Penny process her grief through psychotherapy and revisiting their past, but only the revelation of long-buried family secrets -- including her Lee's secret lover and the true nature of her father's death -- can bring Penny out of her intense despair.

A detective is hired to protect the life of a singer, who has recently inherited a department store, from the store's crooked manager.

Fast-talking con-man and grifter Candy Johnson rises to be the corrupt boss of Yellow Creek, but his wife's alcoholic father tries to set things right.

Seeking US citizenship, a Viennese refugee arranges a marriage of convenience with a struggling writer.

When two bumbling barbers act as agents for a talented but unknown singer, they stage a phony murder in order to get him a plum role.

In Chicago, an unemployed actor aims to solve the mystery concerning a string of ax murders, apparently committed by a lunatic.

Doc and Wishey run into some Nazi-agents, who want to smuggle bombs into the USA from a Mexican border hotel.

On return from Europe Dr. Decker foils glamour girl Georgi from jumping overboard. At Decker's suggestion to keep busy, she assists at his clinic in the slums.

Comedy about a bandleader with hypnotic powers.

An unknowing orphan idolizes the horse thief/mail robber who has shot his father.

Christine Evans, the fifteen-year-old daughter of the widowed American ambassador to Mexico Jeffrey Evans, believes that she is no longer a young girl and that she has fully matured into adulthood. Eager to make her mark in the sophisticated world of foreign diplomats living in Mexico, Christine appoints herself as organizer of her father's social activities and takes over the planning of a big garden party he will be hosting. Because he loves his daughter,

Comic mayhem results when a small town pet store owner, mistakenly believed killed during a sea voyage, turns up very much alive.

A flirt tries to make her fiancée jealous by hiring a gigolo.

In 1915, Kansas theatre usher Merton Gill is a rabid silent-movie fan. When he brings Mammoth Studios free publicity by imitating star Lawrence Rupert's heroics, they bring him to Hollywood to generate another headline; he thinks he'll get a movie contract. Disillusioned, he haunts the casting offices, where he meets and is consoled by Phyllis Montague, bit player and stunt-woman. When Merton finally gets his "break," though, it's not quite what he envisioned.

A woman runs away with her music teacher in order to escape an arranged marriage, but they struggle to make ends meet.

A beautiful singer and a battling priest try to reform a Barbary Coast saloon owner in the days before the great earthquake and subsequent fires in 1906.

The young Austrian princess Marie Antoinette is arranged to marry Louis XVI, future king of France, in a politically advantageous marriage for the rival countries. The opulent Marie indulges in various whims and flirtations. When Louis XV passes and Louis XVI ascends the French throne, his queen's extravagant lifestyle earns the hatred of the French people, who despise her Austrian heritage.

The Marx Brothers take on high society and the opera world to bring two lovers together. A sly business manager and two wacky friends of two opera singers help them achieve success while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies.

Respected Parisian banker Paul Lavond is framed for robbery and murder by crooked associates and sent to prison. Years later, he escapes with a friend, a scientist who was working on a method to reduce humans to a height of mere inches (all for the good of humanity, of course). Lavond, however, is consumed with hatred for those who betrayed him, and takes the scientist's methods back to Paris to exact painful revenge.

While in Shanghai reporting on the Sino-Japanese war, Chris Hunter, a shrewd news reporter, meets pilot Alma Harding. She does not trust him, but he manages to hire her as his assistant. During an adventurous expedition through the jungles of South America, her opinion of him begins to change.

A young pacifist, after refusing on principle to defend her sweetheart's honor and being banished in disgrace, joins a riverboat troupe as a singer, acquires a reputation as a crackshot after a saloon brawl in which the villain of the piece accidentally kills himself with his own gun, falls in love with his former fianceé's sister and finally bullies an apprehensive family into accepting him.

Devout but iron-willed Father Flanagan leads a community called Boys Town, a different sort of juvenile detention facility where, instead of being treated as underage criminals, the boys are shepherded into making themselves better people. But hard-nosed petty thief and pool shark Whitey Marsh, the impulsive and violent younger brother of an imprisoned murderer, might be too much for the good father's tough-love system.

Marianne falls in love with con man Valentine who uses their relation to get her father's endorsement on a money-raising scheme. He runs off with the money and Marianne, later dumping her. Her sister Laura loves Dr. Lindley although she knows he loves Marianne. Marianne returns and marries a wealthy young man, and Lindley turns his love toward Laura.

The Palmers, an apparently wealthy family, move into the house next door to the Lazarres. However, the Palmers are actually a gang of thieves plotting to rob the Lazarres.

A law student poses as a fight promoter to catch a notorious gangster.

A popular jockey is disbarred from racing after he's accused of throwing a race.

Mary and Larry are are a modestly successful skating team. Shortly after their marriage, Mary gets a picture contract, while Larry is sitting at home, out of work.

From MGM's "Crime Does Not Pay" series. Mobsters convince a meat packing company employee to help them hijack a truckload of beef.

When a movie actor is shot and killed during production, the true feelings about the actor begin to surface. As the studio heads worry about negative publicity, one of the writers tags along as the killing is investigated and clues begin to surface.

Corrupt politicians resort to murder and blackmail when a young boy accidentally witnesses them taking payoffs.

Spies on opposite sides fall in love in pre-revolutionary Russia.

The son of a ruthless meatpacking king goes through a number of changes in ideals and motivations as he reluctantly inherits the mantle and falls in love.

A boozy former veterinarian and a teenage orphan team together with dreams of entering a broken-down horse in the big race.

Sassy and ambitious waitress Mary Evans amuses and befriends amiable seldom-sober Hollywood film director Max Carey when he stumbles into her restaurant. Max invites Mary to his film premiere and, after a night of drinking and carousing, Mary is granted a screen test. A studio contract follows. Just as Mary finds her dreams coming true, Carey’s life and career begins its descent.

Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell struggles to free his country from English rule, but his relationship with married Katie O'Shea threatens to ruin all his dreams of freedom.

A café dancer bluffs a Mexican landowner to save her lover.

An attorney handling a murder case is unaware his own wife played a crucial role in the killing.

A Night at the Movies is a short film starring Robert Benchley. It was Benchley's greatest success since How to Sleep, and won him a contract for more short films that would be produced in New York. In this comedic short, a man and his wife suffer through a night at the movies. The film was nominated for an Academy Award at the 10th Academy Awards, held in 1937, for Best Short Subject (One-Reel).

"Red" Davison(Buck Jones), the sheriff of Sun Dog, sacrifices his job and his good name to save his best friend, "Silent" Slade from the hangman's noose, following a framed-up court decision which sentences Slade to hang for the murder of "Scotty McKee (J.P. McGowan). Davidson allows Slade to escape from jail and follows him to aid him in proving his innocence.

A young woman who works in the movie business buys a sweepstakes ticket that turns out to be a winner. Her stroke of luck changes her life around--and not necessarily for the better.

After notorious jewel thief Flambeau meets Evelyn Fischer during a raid on a casino, he falls deeply in love with her. Later Flambeau sends notes to both Leopold Fischer, who unknown to him is Evelyn's uncle, and Father Brown, in which he vows he will steal from them the ten diamonds that comprise the "Flying Star." Flambeau intends to give these diamonds to Evelyn. Father Brown, whose gold cross contains some of the Flying Star diamonds, is determined to meet Flambeau before he is arrested, to reform and redeem his soul.

The publisher of a tabloid-type romance magazine decides to get some publicity by sponsoring a "Cinderella and Prince Charming" contest.

Two competing teams of scientists search the African jungles for a secret formula.

A 12-episode serial in which scholastic sports star Frank Merriwell leaves school to search for his missing father. His adventures involve a mysterious inscription on a ring, buried treasure, kidnaping and Indian raids. He saves his father and returns to school just in time to win a decisive baseball game with his remarkable pitching and hitting.

An eccentric, wealthy spinster, 'Queenie' Baxter is erroneously presumed to be kidnapped. She subsequently pretends to indeed be kidnapped, , in order to allow a reward of $50,000 to benefit an impecunious family headed by Tony Orsatti and his three sons, Blackie, Doc and Flash.

Story about four generations in a family of musicians.

A department store has an indoor ski slide for the annual contest for store employees. Salesgirl June has two admirers - a sausage salesman in the store and the store's snooty ski instructor. The Dandridge Sisters (Dorothy, Vivian and non-sister Etta Jones) perform two numbers.

Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself.

A criminologist and a government agent team up to expose a ring of German spies.

A young woman who disguises herself as a man to go gold prospecting after her father and brother forbid her from joining them.

A Parisian artist becomes addicted to the liquor absinthe and sinks to robbery and murder.

At her mother’s behest Kate Leigh marries wealthy Basil Kildare, owner of a Southern plantation called Storm. When Basil’s servant and mistress Mahaly protests bitterly he takes their shared son away from her. Kate discovers her new husband is a coarse and brutal alcoholic and turns for friendship to Dr. Jacques Benoix and his mother. When Basil becomes aware of their relationship, he finds the doctor and they have a brutal fight. Later Basil is found dead and Jacques is sentenced to life in prison. On her deathbed, Mahaly confesses that she killed Basil, leaving Kate and Jacques to begin a new life together.

Early movie star Florence Lawrence appears in this dramatic farce, in which the police pay a famous burglar to save the life of a child thought to be trapped inside a bank’s time-lock safe. Also stars King Baggot and Owen Moore (Mary Pickford’s first husband).

A young doctor is jealous of one of his patient's romantic interest in his nurse.

Through a forged will, a crook assumes control of a valuable estate. He poses as the brother of a dead man, and endeavors to dispose of the deceased man's two daughters, one of whom is in love with the forger's son.

In the valley the world's best "eternal triangle" is being worked between a husband, a much younger wife and "one who covets." On the heights, the shepherd hears the call and for the nonce becomes a wanderer, and descends into the valley of Passions and Pain. It is the gentle, unfelt, almost unseen influence of the wanderer that stops a maddened husband from first murder and then suicide; exposes the frailty of a wife to her own consideration, and points out to her the grim consequences of a moment's folly, and finally takes the "one who covets" away from the born passions of the valley a far journey up the heights, and disaster to three souls.