Cinematic Era: 1929 Vintage

'A clerk embezzles money to pay for a girl's singing lessons in Rome.' (British Film Institute)

Monte and Vernon go to a society party where they behave like jerks. Monte's pants get torn, the butler keeps getting dunked in a punch bowl.

Ambitious social climber Mr. Wygate hires charming rogue Eddie Able to polish his shy daughter Geraldine into a dazzling debutante. Geraldine, smitten with the aloof lawyer Bell Cameron, initially embraces Eddie's lessons. However, Eddie falls for her genuine spirit and clashes with Mr. Wygate's aspirations.

Mr. Young introduces the sketch in an appropriately melodramatic fashion, wearing an opera cape and a glowering expression. He recites a bit of doggerel about the current popularity of mystery plays ("full of thrills and sighing moans, slamming doors and ringing phones") and then slinks away. Eerie music, thunder, and sinister lighting set the scene. Vivien enters, frightened, and then John, ditto. They tiptoe about, and exchange ridiculous quips about how terrible it all is. Young staggers in, groaning, and slumps into a chair. Vivien screams, and dashes away. When John bumps into the corpse and excuses himself, the corpse comes to life long enough to say "That's all right" before falling dead again.

A train operator's obsession with being on time leads to tragedy for his family.

A dance trophy winning young couple is temporarily split up when a playboy aviator leads the girl to believe he's in love with her.

"A comedy drama of New York life of a restaurant proprietor and it's a scream from start to finish." - Sheffield Observer, 03/28/1929

Daisy, a clerk at Woolworth's, loves to sing. She meets Bill, a guard on the subway, at a party and they're both attracted to each other, but each tells the other that they have a different job than they actually do. Bill later finds her handbag on the subway, returns it to her and invites her to dinner. They dine at the swanky Mayfield Club, where owner Lawrence Mayfield is also attracted to Daisy and offers her a job there as a singer. Bill is not happy, although Daisy is.

Helen Brandon, an unhappily married woman, marries former suitor Jack Mason when her husband, Ralph, is killed in action. The report of Ralph's death is false; he returns to the States, a deserter, under an assumed name and becomes a derelict.

Jenny, a cheerful kitchen maid at the Paris-style Palais de Luxe, is hopelessly in love with charming head waiter Jean—only to be stood up when he forgets their planned tryst in favor of the hotel’s glamorous dancer, Lola. Humiliated and on the verge of arrest for “stealing” champagne, Jenny hides backstage where she’s mistaken for a performer, wows the crowd with an impromptu dance, and finally wins Jean’s heart.

Concern for her father, who is being slowly ruined by cattle rustling, prompts Mary Benson to do some investigating in a distant cattle town, where she briefly encounters drifters Oklahoma Adams and Sneezer Clark. They follow her back to Arizona, go to work on the Benson ranch, and discover the ranch foreman to be responsible for the rustling and the robbery of a rodeo box office.

Central Asia during the Civil War. The Jarkent battalion of the Red Army, located in the Verny (now Alma-Ata), receives an order from Frunze to go to the Fergana region to fight the Basmachi. A group of kulaks, with the support of local merchants and beys, incites the unconscious, wavering mass of the Red Army to revolt. The anti-Soviet agitation of counter-revolutionaries, demagogically exploiting the mood of war weariness, provokes an open mutiny in the battalion.

Big Boy hands out ginger snaps to people he meet.

A film based on the story of the Tyrolean innkeeper and patriot Andreas Hofer who led an Austrian uprising against Bavarian and French troops during the Napoleonic Wars.

Little Johnny Jones is a jockey who is in love with his all-American sweetheart, Mary Baker, and also his career as the rider of thoroughbred horses. But he almost loses both when he is tricked by a showgirl, Vivian Dale. His story of vindication swings from the racetracks of America to England and the historical National Derby, with plenty of red-white-and-blue bunting waving behind the little patriot.

A young woman is shocked to discover that her mother, who she always believed was a stylish and successful member of upper-crust society, is actually a dance-hall "hostess" at a low-class nightclub. Wanting revenge on her mother, she marries a brutal bootlegger, which causes her mother to do something that turns out to have dire consequences for everybody. This is reportedly a lost film.

In order to get back some very important papers from her father's business rival, a young woman pretends to be the rival's new secretary. Complications ensue.

Lloyd Hamilton stars in this Educational short.

Lost movie.

A society woman wrongly -- and very publicly -- accused of infidelity is dropped by her friends, spurned by her husband, and faced with the loss of her child.

Vivid tale of love in Tin Pan Alley.

Dowsing is the wand that shows in the hands of the right man where water is found and the well can be dug.

Olive Borden returns home to Buenos Aires and discovers her father has been murdered and her sister has been attacked by an American.

Young Angélique has a crush on the famous writer René Vernon. One night she follows him, sleeps with him and becomes pregnant. Years later, she meets Vernon again, but he doesn't recognize her...

A French girl raised in the south seas is brought to prim and proper New England by her New England born and bred sea captain husband. She wears short skirts and shocks the puritanical New Englanders in her new home with her wild candid ways...

Jockey Johnny Spencer loses his job with Mrs. Calhoun for throwing a race. An adventuress named Sybil, who made Johnny hold back Mrs. Calhoun's horse, Lady, leaves him, and he becomes a racetrack bum. Johnny returns to Mrs. Calhoun's stable when the new jockey proves unable to manage Lady. Johnny wins the next race, thereby regaining Mrs. Calhoun's confidence and winning the love of her attractive daughter, Lucy.

A.K.A. "Mickey's Brigade". Mickey and the gang try to become explorers, "like Columbus and all them guys".

After losing his job as a firefighter, Lupino decides to start his own station.

Early sound short starring Lionel Atwill.

The struggle of the Komsomol members against private speculators for the surrender of fish to the state.

A Mandarin hypnotises his partner's daughter to locate hidden bonds.

While changing clothes in a getaway car, escaped convicts Stan and Ollie mistakenly put on each other's pants. They spend the rest of the film trying to exchange pants in various unlikely settings.

Zarah, a beautiful Arabian played by Olive Borden, saves irrigation engineer Bob Winslow (Hugh Trevor) from being abducted by bandit leader Abdullah (Noah Beery).

This film was released in both silent and sound versions.

lost jean harlow movie

A beautiful girl exposes her shameful past to save the life of a girl she has never met.

Sweat (1929) is a slapstick riff on tendency-film themes, as a bored young millionaire has his clothes stolen by a tramp; dressed in the tramp’s clothes, he has to accept work as a labourer. As the hero ends up building the mausoleum he had himself commissioned.

George's partner in vaudeville quits their act, claiming that Betty has broken his heart. George then teams up with Charlie, a stranded trouper, and Irving becomes their manager. Later, in New York, the "Two Black Crows" star in their own revue and save money to build their own theater on Broadway. Betty comes to the theater with her lover, who poses as a cousin and induces George to hire her. He showers her with jewels and money. She tries to persuade George to invest in oil stock her lover is selling, and though their act is a success, Charlie fires Betty. When Charlie and Betty's lover quarrel, Charlie is injured.

“Mosaico criollo” is not exactly a spoken film: it is a series of filmed musical sketches of several popular genres in four scenes, each one with a description. Joaquina Carreras sings folk song “Triste está mi rancho”, then Giménez and Suárez (“genuine northern dancers”) dive into an enthusiastic folk tap dance. After them, Julio Perceval (“delight of Buenos Aires citizens’ ears”) executes a piano solo, and “graceful interpreter” Anita Palmero sings the tango “Botarate”, by Acuña and De Cicco.

An Aesop’s Film Fables cartoon.

A two reel Bobby Vernon comedy

A rich widower finds unexpected romance after rescuing a young woman from drowning.

A jockey finds himself caught in a web of corruption. He is heavily pressured to "throw" The Derby, one of the most prestigious horse races in the world. The primary source of this pressure is the wife of a Member of Parliament, who is deeply involved in gambling and uses her influence to try and manipulate the outcome of the race for her own financial gain.

In order to keep her job, a young dress designer must keep her recent marriage a secret from her boss. An important client arrives from Paris and her boss decides to hold a dinner party for the man at the girl's house. When her husband finds out that the client wants to take her back to Paris so she can "study," he comes up with a plan to stop it, and it begins with his being the "server" at the dinner party.

In medieval Japan, a brutal and corrupt magistrate is planning to kill the child who is about to become the heir to the estate and position of the local lord and substitute his own "heir", an orphan, in order to get control of the late lord's estate and rule as the impostor's "regent". However, a mysterious stranger appears and sets out to thwart the magistrate's plans and free the people from his oppressive rule.

Pivoine, a tramp living on the docks near Notre Dame, Macaroni and Georgette are his companions in misfortune. Could no longer bear the insults of passersby and stone throwing children, Pivoine decided to move...

A family goes on its weekly outing to the movies. Complications ensue...

Paramount's first all-talking picture, Interference was dismally directed by Roy Pomeroy, whose lofty status as the studio's "technical wizard" did not necessarily qualify him to be a director. Evelyn Brent heads the cast as scheming Deborah Kane, who sets out to blackmail Faith Marley (Doris Kenyon), the above-reproach wife of Sir John Marlay.

In a small mine town north of the circle, Torsten lives, working with his sister Eva and comrade Lars, who is engaged to Eva. The town's bat-owner has a daughter, Märta, who, after trying out the big city life, has returned to the village for a while, and begins to flirt openly with Torsten, but also with Lars. Märta hears of an old gold treasure that will be hidden somewhere in the mountains, trying to seduce both of them and seek both friends to find out the treasure. Neither Lars nor Torsten knows the plans or swarms of others, but Eva notices how Märta attracts Lars away from her.

Young Englishwoman Lillian Garson is unhappy with her marriage and decides to elope with another man. However he is killed in a car accident and she returns home to her husband and tries to carry on as if nothing had happened. Only the doctor who shows up at their house for dinner that night, and who dealt with the crash, knows the truth. A lost film.

A man is blamed for a murder that was actually committed by his wife.

A chauffeur falls in love with the daughter of his employer.

The Fly's Bride was produced in 1929, one year following Van Beuren's edict that all cartoons would be produced in sound. The RCA Photophone System is the credited process, and Carl Edouarde is credited with "synchronization." The film continues the long-running silent series of Aesop's Fables ("sugar coated pills of wisdom" as the end titles remarked) that the studio turned out. This entry displays the lively brand of "rubber hose" animation that was common in the early sound era. The story opens as a swarm of white shoe-clad flies cavort in a kitchen (gags include a soft-shoe number danced over spilled salt and a cop fly directing traffic around a piece of flypaper). The story shifts outside as a fly calls his gal on the phone. Here some rare lip-synch is attempted during the dialogue; Van Beuren usually avoided dialogue in the years to come in favor of songs to help the story along.

Walter, a songwriter who is in love with Mary, a nightclub singer, prefers to make a living by fleecing crackpot songwriters and promoting their creations. When Walter writes "At Last I'm in Love" for Mary, she promises to plug the song at the Frivolity Club, but he leaves in a huff when she flirts with Sam, a legitimate song publisher. On the street, he gives refuge to Claire, a girl accused of a theft, and hires her as his secretary. Mrs. Fioretta gives Walter a large sum to publish her song, "The Night Elmer Died," but Sam induces Mary to get Walter to stop the deal. When Walter discovers that Claire is having an affair with Sam, he returns to Mary at the club. A lost film.

The wife and secretary of a mine operator attempt to conceal their romantic affair.

Pearl a vaudeville dancer is stranded somewhere in Alaska. With no official place to stay in the vicinity, Pearl is obliged to accept the hospitality of a wealthy family which has itself been stranded in the Great White North. An ill-tempered fur trader and a looney Eskimo both lust after Pearl, but she is rescued by Peter Van Dykeman her hosts' male secretary….