John G. Adolfi

Writer and philosopher Voltaire, loyal to his king, Louis XV of France, nonetheless writes scathingly of the king's disdain for the rights and needs of his people. Louis admires Voltaire, but is increasingly influenced against him by his minister, the Count de Sarnac.

A successful shoe manufacturer named John Reeves goes on vacation and meets the grown children of his recently deceased and much-respected competitor; they're on the verge of losing the family legacy through their careless behavior. Reeves takes it upon himself to save his rival's company by teaching the heirs a lesson in business.

The king of an unnamed European country abdicates and tries to recapture the happiness with the wife he had to give up for the throne.

Two destitute New Yorkers meet cute in Central Park and then separate and independently get tangled up with some gangsters only to be reunited again in the end.

Henry Wilton is an elderly millionaire saddled with his selfish young second wife Emmy 'Sweetie' Wilton and a pair of spoiled grown children, Peggy and Eddie. To test his family's mettle, Henry pretends to have gone broke. Just as he suspected they would, his children rally to their father's side and change their ways: Peggy forsakes the fortune hunter George Struthers for the nice young man she's really in love with, the polo coach Larry Rivers, while Eddie applies for a demanding job and performs admirably. Only Sweetie seems to desert Henry.

While giving a private performance for a visiting monarch, concert pianist Montgomery Royale is deafened when a bomb is detonated in an attempt to assassinate the foreign ruler. With his career over as a result of his injury, Royale returns to New York City with his sister Florence, close friend Mildred Miller, and considerably younger fiancée Grace Blair. After abandoning thoughts of suicide, Montgomery discovers he can lip read, and he spends his days observing people in Central Park from his apartment window. As he learns of people's problems, he tries to help them anonymously. He becomes absorbed in his game of "playing God" but his actions are without sincerity.

Poor working-class girl Stella marries wealthy Sidney Brock, recently jilted by his fiancée and social equal Connie. The two go through contentious times with the Brock patriarch, but when Stella becomes a mother, she seems to becomes accepted, although it's used as a way to shift Sidney's and the child's affections from her. Connie comes back into their lives, now seeking to reclaim Sidney, and manipulates the situation to convince Stella that he's been seeing her. So Stella decides to get a divorce, but fortunately, Sidney becomes aware of the deception in time.

The founding father has an extramarital affair and meets with the likes of Thomas Jefferson.

A millionaire automaker retires upon the advice of his doctor, but becomes so bored he buys half interest in a gas station and works it on the sly.

Famous actress Norma Shearer's jewels are stolen… (Star-packed promotional short film intended to raise funds for the National Variety Artists Tuberculosis Sanatorium.)

Ma Delano runs a penny arcade in Coney Island, living upstairs with her sons and daughter. Story involves rum-running, accidental murder and a frame-up.

Romance on a college campus.

Mr. and Mrs. Warner Bros. Pictures and their precocious offspring, Little Miss Vitaphone, host a dinner in honor of Warner Bros. Silver Jubilee, attended by most of the major players and song writers under contract to WB at that time.

In this drama, a 50-year-old married man (played by John Halliday) goes with his wife (Belle Bennett) and son (Junior Durkin) to a nightclub in a fancy hotel in Detroit. He meets a gold-digger (Dorothy Burgess) there, singing the theme song of the picture, and eventually ends up going out with her on a subsequent occasion and falls in love with her. His wife finally finds out and this leads to her leaving him and getting a divorce in Paris. He is married to the gold-digger but finds life with her and her "jazz friends" to be too much for him. He begins to long for his old wife when he finds her in a nightclub with another man and becomes jealous.

In a small town in Virginia, Faith Corey, daughter of a socially prominent family, meets and falls in love with Jerry Malone, a prizefighter, though her straitlaced mother wants her to marry Siegfried, a spellbinding "missionary reformer." Though Grandma Corey promotes the romance with the prizefighter, Mike, the fighter's hardboiled, wisecracking manager, tries to keep them apart; following a quarrel, Faith reconciles herself to marrying Siegfried, but when he invites a group of "weak sisters" to a revival meeting, he is disgraced when one accuses him of her downfall. Finally, with Mike's advice, Jerry wins back Faith and they are united with the family's blessings.

A musical parody on prison reform in which a prison warden gives his cellblocks the look of a summer resort in order to stave off reformers.

Evidence is a 1929 Pre-Code crime drama film produced and distributed by the Warner Brothers. It is based on the 1914 Broadway play Evidence by J. duRocher MacPherson and L. duRocher MacPherson. This early talkie was directed by John G. Adolfi and starred Pauline Frederick and Lowell Sherman. While this film is lost, its soundtrack, recorded by the Vitaphone process, survives.

It's 1929. The studio gave the cinema its voice gave offered the audiences a chance to see their favorite actors and actresses from the silent screen era to see and for the first time can be heard in a gaudy, grandiose music comedy revue. But also appear actors and actresses from the first 'talkies', stars from Broadway and of course the German shepherd Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay is the host of the more than 70 well-known stars who show various acts.

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.

Sinner's Parade is a 1928 American silent crime film directed by John G. Adolfi and starring Victor Varconi, Dorothy Revier, and John Patrick. It is not known whether this film survives. The film's sets were designed by the art director Harrison Wiley.

The Midnight Taxi is a 1928 early part-talkie thriller picture from Warner Bros. directed by John G. Adolfi and starring Antonio Moreno, Helen Costello, and Myrna Loy. It is unknown whether a sound copy survives, but a silent copy with no talking is in the care of the British Film Institute. The silent print runs just under 50 minutes. According to the Library of Congress, the film survives in British Film Institute's National Film and Television Archive.

The Devil's Skipper was based on Demetrios Contos, a seafaring yarn by Jack London. Effectively cast against type, Belle Bennett plays a wronged woman who becomes the most brutal and feared slave-ship captain on the Seven Seas.

Film was released in 1927

Marie Devere and Helen Gray are two sophisticated, gold-digging chorus girls on the look-out to marry a rich man, who measure the men they meet by their Bradshaw ratings. They befriend Lettie Crain, a country girl who comes near being deceived by Bartley Mortimer, a rich playboy. She is saved by another girl, Cynthia Kane, whose life Mortimer has ruined, and Lettie finds happiness with Bob Garrett, a poor but honest working man.

Wallace MacDonald as a car mechanic who invents a revolutionary new carburetor. To prove the efficiency of his creation, MacDonald enters an important auto race. It soon develops that our hero is in direct competition with a car owned by Lionel Belmore, the father of his girl friend Elaine Hammerstein.

A judge's daughter spurns his wealthy lifestyle and goes to do social work in poorer neighborhoods. There she meets a boxer contending for a championship.

Cardelanche, the son of an Indian chief, returns from the East to find himself rejected by his own people. He is made captain of the U.S. army when he saves a detachment of cavalry from a group of renegade Indians, and further removes himself from his race when he develops a relationship with Miriam, the daughter of the Fort Remmington commandant. Lieutenant Parkman (Walker) gets into a fight with Cardelanche when Parkman is demoted, while General Custer's troops are slaughtered by Cardelanche's people. Cardelanche decides that his true allegiance is to his own race, and gives up Miriam to return to them.

Young Herbert Thompson, wanting to attain wealth and social status, marries Ann Morton, who comes from a rich and prominent family, throwing over pretty young Angelina Kilboure, who really loves him. Years later Herbert has become the local District Attorney and has two children, Bert and Virginia. One night Bert, a patron at a seedy roadhouse, defends his sister's honor from a ruffian and winds up killing the man. Angelina persuades Herbert to leave his post as D.A. to defend his son in his murder trial. Herbert wins the case, but it turns out to have unexpected consequences.

French Secret Service agent and boxer Henri D'Alour uncovers a plot to con the government out of millions of francs in its purchase of machinery.

The true story of Edith Cavell, a British nurse who served with the underground in Belgium during the First World War.

Elaine Brooks marries Robert Ames, a junior member of the Department of Justice. Mrs. Durand, a spy uses underhanded means to steal important papers from Ames, which she gives to her superior, Dr. Kemp. Although she is innocent, Elaine becomes implicated in this plot.

Annette Kellerman, the Australian swimming star of the early 1900s, made a number of films, most of them in the 1910s, which displayed her athletic skills. Most of these films were underwater fantasies, and this one was no exception. Here, Kellerman is Merilla, a mermaid who is the "Queen of the Sea." Not satisfied with being a mermaid, she wants a mortal human body with an immortal soul. She discovers she can achieve this if she saves four human lives.

Annette Kellerman, the Australian swimming star of the early 1900s, made a number of films, most of them in the 1910s, which displayed her athletic skills. Most of these films were underwater fantasies, and this one was no exception. Here, Kellerman is Merilla, a mermaid who is the "Queen of the Sea." Not satisfied with being a mermaid, she wants a mortal human body with an immortal soul. She discovers she can achieve this if she saves four human lives.

Fearing that his daughter Patsy is becoming a tomboy, John Primmel sends her to a friend back East for education and refinement. Arriving in New York, Patsy discovers that her father's friend has died and his apartment is now inhabited by his son, Dick Hewitt. Dick allows Patsy to stay, and they hire a maid, a housekeeper, and a butler.

Joyce's mother keeps her younger daughter in the background so that Polly, the elder daughter, can monopolize all the eligible young men, especially Tom. Although Tom is Polly's choice, she decides to pique his interest by flirting with Harry. Joyce, who likes Tom herself, decides to defeat her sister's plan by having Tom pretend that he likes her. Soon, the pretense turns to love and Tom proposes to Joyce. To test his sincerity, Joyce jumps into shark-infested waters and almost loses her life. Tom visits her constantly in the hospital and finds that his operation on her heart was quite successful.

Effie Marchand refuses to marry a man she has never met, but who has been picked out by her mother, is exiled to boarding school Then, when sculpting teacher Jules Gerard asks her to pose for him, an always impulsive Effie quickly consents. During one of the modeling sessions, however, Jules tries to seduce her, and Effie is saved only when Al Tournay, a visitor to the studio, fights off the sculptor. Later, when Jules' latest nude statue looks just like Effie, who really only posed for the head, an outraged principal expels her. Effie then begins a romance with Al, and when they get married, Effie's mother takes the wedding as just one more sign of her daughter's impulsiveness. Mrs. Marchand soon finds out, however, that her new son-in-law is the man she had chosen for Effie long before, and so mother and daughter are quickly reconciled.

Effie Marchand refuses to marry a man she has never met, but who has been picked out by her mother, is exiled to boarding school Then, when sculpting teacher Jules Gerard asks her to pose for him, an always impulsive Effie quickly consents. During one of the modeling sessions, however, Jules tries to seduce her, and Effie is saved only when Al Tournay, a visitor to the studio, fights off the sculptor. Later, when Jules' latest nude statue looks just like Effie, who really only posed for the head, an outraged principal expels her. Effie then begins a romance with Al, and when they get married, Effie's mother takes the wedding as just one more sign of her daughter's impulsiveness. Mrs. Marchand soon finds out, however, that her new son-in-law is the man she had chosen for Effie long before, and so mother and daughter are quickly reconciled.

After running away from an orphanage, young Alicia Jones disguises herself as a boy and gets a job on a farm. She falls in love with Harry Deigan, a farmhand who knows her secret, but when the farm's owner finds out, he fires her. Alicia is forced to return to the city, where she meets up with a wealthy man who adopts her. He turns out to be Thomas Deigan, the half-brother of Alice's love Harry Deigan. Harry finds out that Thomas is his half-brother, but also finds out something that could change his, Thomas' and Alicia's lives forever.

Unbeknownst to each other, Charles Macklin and his widowed father Arthur are having an affair with an exotic dancer called The Sphinx. When both come to see her at the same time, Charles gets upset, denounces the Sphinx, and is knocked out by Arthur. Arthur then decides to marry the Sphinx, while Charles then resumes his affair with Frances, to whom he was engaged before he met the Sphinx.

The young owners of a California orange grove loved each other, but they were unhappy because their lives were so narrow and circumscribed. Each dreamed of wealth and prayed continually that it might come. Sometimes dreams come true and in this particular case they did. Wealth came to the couple and they were in a position to gratify their every fancy.

Robin Hood is a 1912 film made by Eclair Studios when it and many other early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based in Fort Lee, New Jersey at the beginning of the 20th century. The movie's costumes feature enormous versions of the familiar hats of Robin and his merry men, and uses the unusual effect of momentarily superimposing images different animals over each character to emphasize their good or evil qualities. The film was directed by Étienne Arnaud and Herbert Blaché, and written by Eustace Hale Ball. A restored copy of the 30-minute film exists and was exhibited in 2006 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

A young woman tells her parents and fiance (in flashback) about the recent sinking of the Titanic and her experiences as a passenger during the disaster. Her intended marriage now faces a new hazard because her fiance is a sailor and her parents have just been reminded of the dangers of the sea. Premiering in the United States just 29 days after the event, it is the earliest dramatization about the tragedy.

Carl Wagner's good wife was dying. His heart bled at the thought of losing her, his life-long loyal helpmate. And his opera was almost completed, after spending months of weary hours to make it perfect. A pretty daughter tried in vain to brighten the overhanging gloom. Finally the composer, after a superhuman effort, and with a soul filled with sorrow, finished the last act of his score and hurried away to the impresario for a hearing. Here he was assured of an immediate reading and the return to his humble tenement was made with a much lighter heart. The doctor paid another visit to his patient and left a prescription to be filled. Carl reached home and realized how much depended upon the medicine ordered to possibly save a life most dear. Taking his cherished violin, the only article of value remaining, he rushed off to the pawnbroker and negotiated a loan.

Part two of Blackton's "The Life of Napoleon". After Waterloo, Napoleon reminisces. His triumphs are seen in flashback. The film ends with the exiled Napoleon overlooking the beach of St. Helena.

In a saloon in a Mexican border town, a group of cowboys, including a Mexican named Pedro, play poker. One man is discovered cheating, and is shot dead by Pedro, who is wounded as he attempts to escape. Pedro is followed home by the local sheriff, who proves the next victim of Pedro's quick temper and pistol. Pedro's wife, Juanita, is thrown into jail, but he manages to break her out. They head for the border, unaware that a posse is waiting for them.