Oreste Grandi

A film directed by Luigi Latini de Marchi

Expert mountain-guide Maciste lives in the Dolomites. He dotes on his young nephew Hans, the illegitimate son of his sister, who died of a broken heart for the dishonour of being seduced and abandoned. Maciste’s bitter rival is the sinister Schultz, a smuggler in search of easy money who teams up with two adventurers: Müller and the mysterious Vanna Dardos. Schultz’s plan is to steal the design for a revolutionary aviation project that engineer Riccardo Ewert is finishing in the peace and quiet of his mountain chalet. Thanks to Maciste the plan is thwarted and Müller and Schultz die overwhelmed by an avalanche while escaping through the mountains.

A young girl is abducted by her tutor, and they set off in a ship which has a sheik on board, who tries to molest her, but she is saved by a sailor. He and Maciste fight off the entire crew but the girl is captured again by the sheik and carried off to his harem, where Maciste and the sailor rescue her and take her back to Italy.

No synopsis available yet.

Bartolomeo Pagano as Maciste in Maciste in the Lions' Den. A Italian silent from 1926.

Maciste takes advantage again of a break of acting in order to wash away injustice and castigate the wicked, this time in the name of dynastic legitimacy. Otis, the prince of Sirdagna kingdom, lives undercover in a foreign land, waiting to ascend the throne; Stanos the evil ruler though, is willing to do anything in order to prevent the legitimate prince installation. The court is a dangerous place, Otis is young and naïf: in order to solve the situation, Maciste, following the advice of his friend Saetta, temporarily takes Otis’s place, and presents himself as the legitimate prince. The crowd, enamored by his good looks, applauds him immediately as the emperor.

After seven years of traveling, Aeneas and the other Trojans are surprised by a storm that wrecks their ship on the African coast. Here they are led by the Amazons to the Queen of Carthage, Dido, who soon falls in love with Aeneas. When the King of Numidia, Iarbas, comes to marry Dido, she rejects him. But in the meantime Anchises appears to Aeneas in dreams, and commands him to leave to found Rome. So, while Iarbas’ army surrounds Carthage, Aeneas embarks secretly for Rome.

The mighty King of Babylon falls in love with a beautiful girl, ruthlessly tears her away from her lover, who is left wounded upon the ground, and carries her to his palace, where he seeks to will her affections, showering her with gifts of precious stones from his treasure chests. The heart-broken girl repulses all his overtures and dashes the jewels to the floor, and the infuriated monarch, incensed at her refusal to share his throne, orders her cast into the lions' den. An immense throng of his court followers are invited to witness the execution, but the expectant throng is dumbfounded when the ferocious beasts, instead of rending the victim to pieces, fawn upon her. A wave of superstitious awe sweeps through the gathering, who regard the incident as a miracle and believe that the girl is under the protection of the gods. The King's guards are overpowered and the girl released, and the monarch, by this time imbued with fear, pays homage to the maiden, who is restored to her lover.

A woman and a mistress fight.

Count Christian of Sivry secretly marries a beautiful factory worker, but his father disowns him. Living as a poor worker, he becomes a jockey when his money runs out. After a steeplechase fall, he is brought to his parents, who finally forgive him.

No synopsis available yet.

A fantasy film about the knight Parsifal, who has to protect the Holy Grail from wizards.

Saturnino Farandola: Raised by monkeys, taken in by sailors, captain of a frigate. He sets off to chart unknown worlds with his loyal crew. Beneath the sea he encounters love in the person of Mysora the beautiful. On land he comes up against a mad wise man, a Machiavellian mandarin and bloodthirsty Apaches, but nothing will be able to stop his desire to explore.

A humble fisherman's singing distubs some witches. The eldest witch tries to make him stop, to no avail. She throws handfuls of gold into the sea, making the fisherman crave for riches. He becomes a lord, a spendthrift, a gambler and, poor again, a bandit. Full with remorse, he returns to the sea only to drown himself.

Italian short drama directed by Luigi Maggi.

A mother confronts Death as to why he has to take her young boy. And he shows her the future to explain why he need to be eliminated.

This story first takes you to Misslimeri, a little Sicilian village, and into the home of Don Ruggero, a wealthy landowner. Don Ruggero is an iron-hearted man and strongly prejudiced against the lower classes. His son, Corrado, a young fellow, loves Rosalia, a shepherdess, but Don Ruggero has always refused to allow their marriage and to recognize little Vincenzino, their child, as his grandchild. Finally to destroy all Corrado's hopes, he discharges poor Rosalia from his farm, where she had been employed for many years. Even the sight of her departure with Vincenzino in her arms does not soften him. Rosalia is the very ideal of the Sicilian beauty, and Capt. Altieri, an officer in the service of the Dominators, the Bourbons, admires her immensely, but all his approaches are strongly repulsed by her. Don Ruggero and his son have for a long time conspired to free their motherland from the hands of the Bourbons, and when they receive news of the arrival of Garibaldi.

Elsa, daughter of the Count of Arcole, is terminally ill. Moved by a violin playing Gounod's "Ave Maria" in a small church, she longs to meet the performer, Janko. Welcomed into the Count's villa, Janko falls in love with Elsa during a moonlit encounter on the lake. But the cold worsens Elsa's health. Janko plays the melody one last time as she dies smiling. That same night, Janko lets himself fall into the sea, refusing to outlive his love.

At Megara, near Carthage (204 B. C.), the slave merchant Sahabalcar lusts after his roman slave Licia, who loves Terentius instead. Threatening her with sacrifice to the man-eating god Moloch, he is still refused. As the rite begins, Terentius rescues her, unleashing lions on the pursuing crowd, and the two lovers escape by boat toward freedom and happiness.

A grandfather recalls how he and his wife met and fell in love during the Second Italian War of Independence.

A short Italian melodrama about the tragic life of an adulterous lion tamer.

This film shows the realistic battle scenes of the Siege of Moscow, with the sensational defeat of Napoleon, with the belching cannon, the battling soldiers, scenes of heroism and daring reproduced in the most exquisite photography.

Early biopic of Dante. From the Cineteca Milano collection.

After leaving Elba, Napoleon camps in a wood near Grenoble, where a peasant leads him to a gameskeeper's cottage. Napoleon sends an orderly officer with the intention to warn Colonel Labédoyère and his grenadiers in the city, but the guards at the gate turn him back. The gamekeeper and his son volunteer instead, and the boy is hidden in a basket of cabbages carried into the city by a peasant. At the checkpoint, a guard stabs the basket with his bayonet, wounding the boy's arm, but he stays silent and delivers the message before fainting. The next day, Napoleon enters Grenoble in triumph and awards the boy the Legion of Honour.

Italian silent film.

Two friends are both in love with the lovely widow Gigetta Moreno. When they duel and one is victorious, he is happy with his conquest for about sixteen frames. After that, the dressmaker, hatmaker and other tradesmen present their bills for the wares sold her.

A small faction of the militia of the Kingdom of Ircania are conspiring to dethrone their King, Ircanus III. Beneath her costly robes Queen Maritza hides a woman's heart full of love for Oscar, the king's aide-de-camp.

No synopsis available yet.

A cruel game between the disdainful Kunigund and the passionate Delorges.

A young man sentenced to death manages to postpone his execution because of the impending wedding of his poor sister, who is to be married off. His best friend vouches for his return. After taking care of his sister, the young man hurries back, but is delayed by numerous unexpected obstacles. Nevertheless, he continues the journey, determined to join his now-presumably dead friend.

Scientist Galileo Galilei was engaged in his studies, but a servant of his attempts to seduce his daughter, and denounces Galilei to the Holy Office.

Invited by Duke Alfonso II to the court of Ferrara to read his poems, the poet Torquato Tasso finds himself at the center of court intrigue because of his secret love for the Duke’s sister, Eleanora d’Este.