Cinematic Era: Before 1950 Vintage

God, heaven, and several Old Testament stories, including the Creation and Noah's Ark, are described supposedly using the perspective of rural, black Americans.

Rustler Pete Sontag kidnaps Merlin Warner after he kills her father. Pete, a drug smuggler who uses his saloon as a front, coerces Merlin though beatings to become the dancer Mexicali Mae. She meets and falls in love with morphine addict Joe Blanchard but Pete frames Joe for a murder that he committed, forcing Mae to hide Joe in a homestead in the hills. After many struggles, Joe is cured of his addiction and proposes to Mae. She accepts, but when his mother and fiancée Eleanor arrive, they offer her money to leave, Mae refuses the money but becomes convinced that she is not good enough for Joe and writes to him that she is returning to the saloon. Joe learning of his mother’s plot arrives at the saloon and in the resultant fight Pete is killed. Mae and Joe are reconciled.

Idalene Nobbin attends a village dance but, due to the constant nagging of her mother, she believes herself to be a constitutional wallflower. By great luck she gets a dance with college football star Roy Duncan, although Roy has eyes for the village belle Prue Nickerson.

A clever veterinarian repairs a horse's leg so the animal can run in a big race and save a man's farm.

Marshals Lash and Fuzzy are sent to get the goods on Duce Rago. To join Rago's gang, Lash decides to pose as an outlaw by wearing the known belt buckle of a notorious outlaw.

Snafu inadvertantly starts a panic on his base when he begins a mistaken rumour that the base is about to be bombed.

Snobbish attorney Charles 'Beauty' Steele loses his wife due to his drinking and his airs at the same time that his brother-in-law absconds with funds belonging to one of Steele's clients. In search of the thief, Steele is attacked and left for dead. He is rescued by a kindly couple, but suffers from amnesia.

Archie Slott inherits a successful racing stable from his dissolute uncle, but his sanctimonious aunt tries to convince him to sell it off. In an attempt to avoid doing so, he accidentally buys a failing all-in wrestling stadium as well. Now Archie is faced with the tasks of ensuring success for his stable's Derby entry, paying the salaries of his newly-acquired wrestlers, and avoiding a plot to convert the stables into a holiday home.

Alberto, son of a rich engineer, falls in love with Luisa, a ruthless manicurist who is only after his money. His parents offer him a holiday in Venice because they hope he will forget her. Alberto however leaves for Venice with Luisa, who has asked a friend of hers to take her place at the beauty parlour. Alberto's parents go there and mistake Teresa for Luisa. A series of misunderstandings ensues...

A high-school student in a small town becomes smitten with the sophisticated new girl who's just arrived from Chicago. Based on Booth Tarkington's story.

It is pouring with rain at one minute to midnight on Friday the thirteenth, and the driver of a London bus is peering through his blurred windscreen as his vehicle sails down an empty road. Suddenly, lightning strikes, and a vast crane above topples into the path of the oncoming bus... Then Big Ben begins to wind backwards. Time recedes. And we discover the lives of all the passengers and the events that brought them to that late-night bus journey, from the con-man with a hundred-pound cheque to the businessman's distraught and elderly wife. Time flows on, inevitably, to the crash -- and past it, as some live and some die.

Young minister Keith Rollins comes to a backwoods community in Kentucky and finds that lawless and political elements are against him and threaten his position with the congregation.

Victoria marries David, the man of her dreams. After a number of years and two children, the marriage turns out not to be what she had expected. Then she discovers her faith, and everything turns out for the best. In several scenes Victoria has visions of love and marriage throughout history: she appears in the Stone Age, with a tribe of Amazonians, in the Middle Ages and in the Roman era.

Cameo Kirby, an honest riverboat gambler who works the Mississippi, rescues a girl from a gang of ruffians in New Orleans, but she disappears after he sings her a love song.

At the Indianapolis Speedway mobsters try to bump off a young racer just as they did his dad. Junk yard owner tap dances.

Bat Masterson, who after failing to secure a job as a newspaper reporter becomes marshal of Dodge City. Preferring socializing to peacekeeping, Masterson falls in love with Dora Hand, the obligatory golden-hearted chorus girl whose concern for the welfare of her fellow citizens at time reaches Madonna-like dimensions. When Dora is shot down cattle baron King Kennedy, Masterson begins taking his job seriously. After taking care of Kennedy, Masterson determines to enshrine the memory of Dora, whose efforts to clean up Dodge City were largely ignored by the "decent" townsfolk.

A young couple and their child fall prey to kidnappers when a storm drives them into a seemingly abandoned farmhouse.

A detective tries to figure out who killed a man who predicted his own death.

Oswald the Rabbit comes to the rescue when a peg-legged sheik abducts his girlfriend and brings her to a mysterious pyramid filled with walking skeletons, animate hieroglyphics and other strange sights.

Starting with a cruel joke – a couple of callow men make a bet that one of them can seduce the woman sharing their train compartment – the film charts the relationship that develops between a small-town girl in the big city, and the brother of the man who has heartlessly seduced and abandoned her.

A police inspector tracks a notorious jewel thief, 'Diamond-Lasse,' to a hotel filled with eccentrics.

Raymond Dabney returns to his family after trouble with the law. He convinces the sheriff to give him a job watching the house and furniture of widow Crystal Wetherby without knowing she is engaged to his brother.

Dorothy, the girl who presides over the notion counter of the Emporium, the general store in a country town, is the sole support of her aged grandparents, with whom she lives. Her sweetheart, Bob, is the boy-of-all-work in the same store. To the Emporium comes a flashy drummer from the city to sell the merchant a bill of goods.

On september 28th, 1903, the Urban Mountaineering Expedition, headed by Frank Ormiston-Smith, left Zermatt to attempt the conquest of the Matterhorn. On the 29th, the conquest was completed by the filming of the panorama from the actual summit of the mountain. The film consists of 20 scenes and illustrates the whole ascent from Zermatt through the Hornli Ridge. A copy of the film was found in Zermatt in 1953 and was was erroneously attributed to Frederick Burlingham and dated 1901. Since then, the film has been widely publicized as the first mountain film under the title of 'Cervino 1901', but this is incorrect.

In the small farming community of Spring Valley, young Aurora Lane has caused a scandal by bearing a son by townsman Lucius Henderson, who refuses to marry her or even admit that he's the father. Shunned as a "sinful" woman by most of the town, she turns over her son, Don, to be raised by Miss Julia, the town librarian, who tells the boy that she's his "aunt". Don grows up and goes to college, and when he comes back home the town gossips begin a rumor-mongering campaign. When the town policeman tries to drive Aurora out of town he is found murdered, and Don is arrested for the crime.

Bob Allen in his starring debut gets a job on Wright's ranch where he hopes to find the rustlers no one else has been able to locate. Everyone is looking for men when the actual rustler is a horse.

The Toilers (1928)

The "unseen guardians" of the title are the Postal Inspection Service, which investigates mail order racketeering; the Underwriters' Laboratories, which are shown testing electrical equipment, fire extinguishers, and large floor safes; and those who run orphanages, who assure that the children in their care are placed in proper adoptive homes.

A collection of arctic animals (seals, walruses, polar bears, penguins) float by on ice floes and on shore, performing various musical numbers.

A private detective is offered a job protecting a rich business man from suspected blackmail. Before he can accept the case a murder is uncovered.

Erich Kästner’s beloved novel has been adapted for film or television six times since its publication in 1929; this 1935 British version was the first in English. Believed lost for decades, it was recently rediscovered by the BFI and has now been restored. The film moves the action from Berlin to London, where Emil goes to stay with his grandmother and cousin. Thereafter, the tale of Emil’s adventures with a gang of streetwise London children faithfully follows the original plot.

The wife, having learned that her husband has lost his job, is trying to get a job in a bar. When a husband finds out that his wife is going to a bar, he misunderstands for what purpose she goes there and beats her.

Impulsive flapper Elizabeth Winthrop, rebels against her parents and moves to New York after breaking with her fiance, Clayton Webster. Hugo Von Strohm, a wealthy playboy, procures Elizabeth a job as a chorus dancer and secretly pays her salary. After he tries to seduce her, Elizabeth sees through his kindnesses and returns to her parents and Clayton.

Neil Rogers, a young man who owns a substantial share of a Western gold mine, comes East and falls in love with the rather wild Elizabeth Vandegrift.

Tex Benton, riding across the country, sees a turtle, catches a jack rabbit and tests out the old fable of the tortoise and the hare; when the rabbit wins, Tex vows to model his behavior on that style. In a border town, he rescues an Indian, "Bat," and the two become friends. In Wolfville, Tex enters a rodeo. Meanwhile, a stalled Eastern train carries Alice Marcum, the girl Tex decides he wants. Tex competes with an Easterner for the girl's attentions, but Tex, the "hare," loses to the Eastern tenderfoot, the "tortoise." Tex then concludes that he is not the marrying kind.

An Englishman kills a German look-alike and poses as a Nazi spy in London.

A featureless land fit only for war, as the narrator, J. L. Hodson stated in the early scenes: "If war was to be fought then let it begin here". In endless miles of rock-strewn scrub desert, where civilians hardly existed. Desert Victory tells the story of the Allied campaign to drive Germany and Italy from North Africa is analysed, with the major portion of the film examining the battles at El Alamein, including some re-enactment. Won "Best Documentary Feature" at the 16th Academy Awards in 1944.

The film takes place somewhere abroad. One of the characters in the film, novice Morne, rescues a fisherman girl, Armela, who loses her mind from terror and seriously begins to believe that she is the "goddess of the winds". The monks of the monastery use this not without benefit. Armela's father finds his daughter and takes her home. Morne, in love with the girl, leaves the monastery and returns to his former profession of an artist. Soon Armela recovers and marries Morne.

Barely out of prison, Jim Regan is arrested once again, this time for the attempted shooting of Denver Dan Norris, the villain who framed him in the first place. With the assistance of his young friend Wally Weston Jim is released once again on the condition that he won't leave town.

This Columbia western starring Charles Starrett finds Steve Randall (Charles Starrett) forming a radio show with Jimmy Wakely (Jimmy Wakely) and his Saddle Pals, and are in town for a rodeo. Reporter Connie Pearson (Constance Worth) persuades them to visit Marty Jones (Elvin Fields), a fatherless boy, who has been sent to a boy's home after stealing Steve's wallet, ran by Tom Goodwin (Forrest Taylor.) Marty tells Steve that the home is a phony and is a front for cattle rustlers. Steve passes the information on to Connie, who doesn't believe him, so he and Jimmy wire the ranch for sound. They are caught and Goodwin turns them over to Sheriff Barnes (Edmund Cobb), and then plans to skip the country

Two wives, one rich, one poor, each find themselves tempted by romantic seducers, and each faces the dilemma of remaining true to the husband who neglects her or of falling into the arms of another.

A pair of con men in Monte Carlo attach themselves to a nouveau rich American snob with a weakness for titles...

Paramount's highly-fictionalized 1945 musical biography of Texas Guinan, the Roaring '20s New York nightclub owner and celebrity with alleged underworld connections who famously greeted her customers with the phrase, "Hello, suckers!"

The revolution causes Sasha Boroff's wealthy family to lose its fortune; and her lover, Count Michael, is sentenced to death by Rogojin, the Boroffs' former coachman. Rogojin's sudden death saves Sasha from marriage to the despot, and the Boroffs escape to the United States, where Sasha marries Dr. Godfrey Luke to please her family. Later Sasha discovers that Michael survived, fled to the United States, and married Helen, an American. When Helen has a love affair with Dr. Luke, Michael challenges him to a duel. Sasha is wounded in the exchange of gunfire, the shock prostrates Michael, and Grishka cures him with a radio-vibration device. At the end, Sasha and Michael are still happily married to their respective American spouses.

This John Nesbitt's Passing Parade short takes a look at the typical American barbershop throughout the years.

When theatrical agent Sterling, a ladies man known for signing his latest paramours onto his agency's talent roster, returns to New York from a trip to Europe, he tells his more down-to-earth partner, Lawson, that he has hired a beautiful Neopolitan acrobat he saw onstage in Italy. When the acrobat, Tina Bambinetti, arrives in their office, though, Sterling is shocked to find that, offstage, she is plain, unkempt and badly dressed. Crushed by Sterling's dismissive treatment, Tina performs some acrobatics that almost destroy the office...

Newspaper photographer Jim Tyler sneaks into a society girl's wedding, and the bride's sister decides she prefers him to her upper-crust suitors. She even likes his pigeon, who travels everywhere with him.

During World War II in San Francisco, Eve Morgan and her single girlfriends spend their days welding ships and their nights dancing with soldiers and sailors shipping out that night. Eve is determined to avoid any romantic entanglements until the war is over she refuses to spend her days and nights worrying about getting bad news about a man she has fallen for. But she doesn't count on meeting a soldier who is determined to change her mind.

Set during Prohibition, the movie centers on Touhy's rise from small time thug to the city's most powerful bootlegger whose empire is rivaled only by that of Al Capone (who is referred to, but never named in the story). It is his rival who frames Touhy for kidnapping and arranges for him to serve a life-long term in Stateville prison. Determined to be free again, the desperate Touhy and his cellmate Basil "the Owl" Banghart, begin plotting a violent break out.

After losing his factory job, virtuoso violinist Tommy Breen is inspired by June Norton, who lives in the same boardinghouse to write his song, "When You Smile with Your Eyes in Mine." Song publisher Simon Berg signs Tommy and the song becomes an enormous success. Success goes to Tommy’s head, he forgets June, surrounds himself with Broadway lowlife, spends extravagantly, and becomes infatuated with Mona Merwin, a musical comedy performer. He hits a rough patch, and June asks Berg to help her save Tommy from himself, so he decreases Tommy's royalty checks. Tommy's Broadway friends desert him when the checks stop coming. Now that Tommy has seen the error of his ways Berg sends him to a country cottage he purchased in Flatbush, where Tommy finds June waiting to marry him.

After a brief courtship, Rose Stanton (Florence Vidor) marries lawyer Rodney Aldrich (Clyde Fillmore). She wants to be a helpmate, rather than just a plaything to him, but her attempts to study law are met with derision. So Rose leaves Rodney and goes to New York, explaining in a note that she will return when she has earned the right to be his equal. Rose heads for Broadway and lands in the chorus, but soon enough her talent as a designer is discovered and the great Ziegfeld gives her a two year contract to create the costumes for the Follies.

The goalkeeper of a football team gets in troubles after unknowingly signing a compromising document and gets fired. His companions will help him back before an important match. Famous real football players in the cast.

Breton doctor René Laennec fights tooth and nail against consumption, all the more desperately as his brother Michaud has just died of it.

A strong-willed young woman hires a student to impersonate a boorish French count and brings him home to meet her parents.

Siamese twins, separated at birth, maintain a psychic knowledge of each other's dire fates.

Gunner and Bucker are friends who work as riveters. Whenever Bucker gets the urge to marry, which is often, Gunner will hit on his girl to see if she is true or not. So far, Gunner hasn't failed. But one night, while Gunner is in jail, Bucker meets Mary, a tough dame with a line. He falls for her, and she falls for his money. But Mary is already a gal pal of Gunner, and no two know about the third one. The trouble starts when the triangle is revealed too late.

Naive small-town girl gets pregnant on her prom night, and winds up in the clutches of the local abortionist. Depending on the release presentation, the movie includes an animation of conception, filmed vaginal and caesarian section births, and a filmed presentation on how syphilis and gonorrhea present themselves.

After a night of wild partying at a friend's house, a couple wake up to discover the party's host has been murdered in his bed.

A vaudeville performer returns from the dead to help his wife and daughter, who are being dominated by a greedy banker.