Noble Johnson

Ossie Davis narrates a history of "race films," films made before 1950 which catered to a primarily black audience.

An Indian agent comes to the rescue when a local tribe's fishing rights are threatened by a greedy cannery owner.

A greedy businessman tries to block the building of a new railroad in his area.

After Custer and the 7th Cavalry are wiped out by Native Americans, everyone expects the worst. Capt. Nathan Brittles is ordered out on patrol but he's also required to take along Abby Allshard, wife of the Fort's commanding officer, and her niece Olivia Dandridge, who are being evacuated. Brittles is only a few days away from retirement and Olivia has caught the eye of two of the young officers in the Company. She's taken to wearing a yellow ribbon in her hair, a sign that she has a beau in the Cavalry, but refuses to say for whom she is wearing it.

When power-hungry Faulkner and Leroux want to divide Texas into smaller sections, instead of allowing it to enter the Union as a single state, Gary Conway and the Texas Rangers must step in to thwart their chicanery.

Sach just lost his job as an assistant to a private detective, but he wasn't paid. Slip goes with him down to the detective's office to demand payment, but finds the office empty. A woman enters the office and mistakes Slip for the detective and convinces him to take on a case to find her sister after offering a $50 retainer.

Film about the early days of the Pony Express and the crooked businessman who opposed it.

The Devil arranges for a deceased gangster to return to Earth as a well-respected judge to make up for his previous life.

A shipwreck victim washes up on a homicidal big-game hunter's Caribbean island.

A policeman's family helps to exonerate him of murder charges in the death of a man he had under interrogation.

This historical drama tells the story of the first class to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. In the early 19th Century, Congress appropriated the money to build the school, but opponents who believed it to be an illegitimate expansion of the powers of the federal government decided to sabotage the school. They put the hard-as-nails Major Sam Carter in charge of the academy, and he ruthlessly put the recruits through grueling training -- until only ten prospective soldiers remained. They include Dawson, a patriotic farm boy and Howard Shelton, a selfish playboy who has come to West Point only because of its prestige. The two vie for Carolyn Bainbridge, while they, along with the other eight, try convince Carter that the school is worth keeping.

Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book is given the full treatment in this lavish retelling filled with huge sets, exotic animals, a large cast and the incomparable Sabu, starring as Mowgli, the young orphan boy raised by wolves. Curious to reconnect with his human village, Mowgli returns only to find disappointment in the greed and treachery of man. Over time, Mowgli and the village members do grow to trust one another, but not before the village finds itself under siege. It's up to Mowgli and his jungle friends to save the day.

A fugitive doctor (Lionel Atwill) tries to raise the dead for South Sea Islanders.

A shy horticulturist becomes involved with a local criminal in the old west.

A young South Seas native boy is sent to the U.S. for his education and returns to his island after his father dies to try to stop a revolution.

In this comedy, the marital conflicts between a meek banker and his nagging wife are chronicled.

Stranded in Africa, Chuck and his pal Fearless have comic versions of jungle adventures, featuring two attractive con-women.

Banished from various U.S. protectorates in the Pacific, a saloon entertainer uses her femme-fatale charms to woo politicians, navy personnel, gangsters, riff-raff, judges and a ship's doctor in order to achieve her aims.

Texas Ranger Dusty Rivers ("Isn't that a contradiction in terms?", another character asks him) travels to Canada in the 1880s in search of Jacques Corbeau, who is wanted for murder. He wanders into the midst of the Riel Rebellion, in which Métis (people of French and Native heritage) and Natives want a separate nation. Dusty falls for nurse April Logan, who is also loved by Mountie Jim Brett. April's brother is involved with Courbeau's daughter Louvette, which leads to trouble during the battles between the rebels and the Mounties. Through it all Dusty is determined to bring Corbeau back to Texas (and April, too, if he can manage it.)

While Sam Houston in in the nation's capital trying to get Texas into the Union, his aide is trying to impose a self-serving tax on the use of the Santa Fe trail. The lady owner of a wagon train is using the trail, and a Texas Ranger comes to her assistance.

After intrepid working girl Mary Carter becomes the new owner of a reputedly haunted mansion located on Black Island near the Cuban coast, a stranger phones warning her to stay away from the castle. Undaunted, Mary sets sail for Cuba with a stowaway in her trunk—wise-cracking Larry Lawrence, a radio announcer who helps Mary get to the bottom of the voodoo magic, zombies and ghosts that supposedly curse the spooky estate.

A group of adventurers head deep into South American jungle in search of an ancient Incan treasure.

Albany, New York, 1776. After marrying, Gil and Lana travel north to settle on a small farm in the Mohawk River Valley, but soon their growing prosperity and happiness are threatened by the sinister sound of drums that announce dark times of revolution and war.

South western Pennsylvania area of colonial America, 1760s. Colonial distaste and disapproval of the British government is starting to surface. Many local colonists have been killed by American Indians who are armed with rifles supplied by white traders.

An investigator checks into the rumors of harsh working conditions on an Amazon rubber plantation.

The newly-named emperor Maximilian and his wife Carlota arrive in Mexico to face popular sentiment favoring Benito Juárez and democracy.

One of the last bills signed by President Lincoln authorizes pushing the Union Pacific Railroad across the wilderness to California. But financial opportunist Asa Barrows hopes to profit from obstructing it. Chief troubleshooter Jeff Butler has his hands full fighting Barrows' agent, gambler Sid Campeau; Campeau's partner Dick Allen is Jeff's war buddy and rival suitor for engineer's daughter Molly Monahan. Who will survive the effort to push the railroad through at any cost?

In the midst of the Civil War, Lassiter has a plan to get control of California. Working out of St. Joseph, he plans to send forged messages to the troops on the west coast via Pony Express. First he attempts to bribe Pony Express ride Roy Rogers. When Roy refuses he turns to the outlaw Johnson and his gang and this leads to trouble.

An expedition arrives on an uncharted jungle island to rescue the local natives, led by a jungle boy, from a volcano that is about to erupt.

The Japanese detective rounds up a league of assassins for Scotland Yard.

The sons of a disgraced British officer try to clear his name.

Cornell employs clips from 1931's jungle melodrama East of Borneo – more specifically, clips of its lead actress, Rose Hobart – to disquieting effect. Through Cornell's collage editing, Hobart becomes a singular object of desire and dread, trapped in an exotic paradise.

Wheeler & Woolsey comedy about two moronic ditch diggers, recruited for an archaeology expedition, getting mixed up with jewel thieves and an ancient Egyptian "curse."

Two men escape from the French penal colony but not from their jealousy over a woman.

Leo Vincey, told by his dying uncle of a lost land visited 500 years ago by his ancestor, heads out with family friend Horace Holly to try to discover the land and its secret of immortality, said to be contained within a mystic fire. Picking up Tanya, a guide's daughter, in the frozen Russian arctic, they stumble upon Kor, revealed to be a hidden civilization ruled over by an immortal queen, called She, who believes Vincey is her long-lost lover John Vincey, Leo's ancestor.

In the Northwest Frontier of India, the 41st Bengal Lancers leaded by the harsh Colonel Tom Stone are having trouble with the rebellious leader Mohammed Khan. After two casualties, the experienced but insubordinate Lieutenant Alan McGregor receives as replacement, the arrogant Lieutenant Forsythe and the immature son of Colonel Stone, Lieutenant Donald Stone. With the intention to prove that he will not have any privilege in the troop, the reception of Colonel Stone to his son is absolutely cold, but he becomes the protégé of McGregor. When Lieutenant Stone is kidnapped by Mohammed Khan, McGregor and Forsythe disobey the direct order of their commander, disguise as Indian peddlers and go to Khan's fortress to attempt to rescue their friend

Author/explorer John W. Vandercook conceived the character of Bertram Lynch as an investigator for the League of Nations. He is Trinidad's Port o' Spain trying to track down the leader of a gang of diamond smugglers. A trail, littered with murders, leads him to a crocodile-infested swamp.

Beleaguered adventurer Carl Denham returns to the island where he found King Kong.

Adventurous filmmaker, Carl Denham, sets out to produce a motion picture unlike anything the world has seen before. Alongside his leading lady Ann Darrow and his first mate Jack Driscoll, they arrive on an island and discover a legendary creature said to be neither beast nor man. Denham captures the monster to displayed on Broadway as Kong, the eighth wonder of the world.

A doctor searches for the cure for nagana, the sleeping sickness caused by the tsetse fly.

When legendary hunter Bob Rainsford is shipwrecked on the perilous reefs surrounding a mysterious island, he finds himself the guest of the reclusive and eccentric Count Zaroff. While he is very gracious at first, Zaroff eventually forces Rainsford and two other shipwreck survivors, brother and sister Eve and Martin Towbridge, to participate in a sadistic game of cat and mouse in which they are the prey and he is the hunter.

Megalomaniacal rancher is a law unto himself, until a Ranger is called-upon to bring him to justice.

In 19th Century Paris, a maniac abducts young women and injects them with ape blood in an attempt to prove ape-human kinship but constantly meets failure as the abducted women die.

An ancient Egyptian priest named Imhotep is revived when an archaeological expedition finds his mummy and one of the archaeologists accidentally reads an ancient life-giving spell. Imhotep escapes from the field site and searches for the reincarnation of the soul of his lover.

To avoid the rigors of the law, Gilda flees New Orleans and hides on a Caribbean island where the worst criminals can ask for asylum. Besieged by the scum of the earth, Gilda will soon find out that she has found refuge in hell.

An Indian jewel merchant goes from penniless to wealthy in this story about gratitude.

Mrs. Linda Randolph treks through darkened jungles to the land of Maradu to find her missing husband Allan, who'd left her years before when he believed she was in love with another. She finds Allan the drunken court physician to a devious prince-- Whose designs on the pair don't include a happy ending.

Four one-for-all and all-for-one privates in the French Foreign Legion are all in jail for disorderly conduct, but they break out and rejoin their regiment and fight off a band of marauding Arabs, and are soon in Casablanca getting decorated by the French Minister of War. Deucalion spots Eleanor, a spy who had done him dirt and after tangling with the local gendarmes, they take her and head back for Morocco where they are charged with desertion, and have to go out and defeat some more marauding natives, and dodge the machine-gun fire directed at them by the highly-displeased Eleanor, and one thing just follows another.

Herman Melville's mad Capt. Ahab (John Barrymore) spends years hunting the white whale that got his leg.

August Bolte, the richest man in a settlement in German East Africa in the period before World War I, is called "Mamba" by the locals, which is the name of a deadly snake. Despised by the locals and the European settlers alike for his greed and arrogance, Bolte forces the beautiful daughter of a destitute nobleman to marry him in exchange for saving her father from ruin. Upon her arrival in Africa, she falls in love with an officer in the local German garrison. When World War I breaks out, Bolte, unable to avoid being conscripted, foments a rebellion among the local natives.

Wing Foot (Richard Dix), is a Navaho educated in an otherwise all-white school. In the course of the story he experiences prejudice from both the whites (because of his race) and the Navahos (who disown him because of his upbringing). Thus, Wing Foot is looked upon as neither Indian nor white, but simply a "redskin."

A Chinese doctor vows revenge against the allied troops who killed his wife and child during the Boxer Rebellion.

An Englishman (Richard Arlen) fights in the Sudan after receiving white feathers of cowardice from his fiancee (Fay Wray) and friends.

A mad captain poses as a cleric to murder people aboard a fogbound ship.

A magician seeks vengeance upon the man who paralyzed him and the illegitimate daughter he sired with the magician's wife.

SAL OF SINGAPORE was nominated for an Oscar for achievement in Writing during the second year of the Academy Awards. The film, being a part-talkie, nearly disappared from view. However, a preservation print does exist at UCLA, although it is unavailable for public viewing, awaiting restoration.

The Biblical story of Noah and the Great Flood, with a parallel story of soldiers in the First World War.

Story of a a Texas Ranger whose foster-father has been falsely accused of a series of crimes.

John Griffith Wray silent South America romantic melodrama starring Dolores Del Rio, Walter Pidgeon, Anders Randolf, Lesle Fenton, and Noble Johnson.

Douglas MacLean stars as The Young Thief, who falls in love with The Girl, played by Sue Carol. Alas, the Girl has been sold into the harem of The Wazir (Albert Prisco), forcing the Thief to sneak into the palace to rescue her.

A nobleman studying for the priesthood abandons his vocation in 18th Century France when he falls in love with a beautiful, but reluctant, courtesan.

Topsy is the main character in this movie. When the black girl who "jes' growed" is auctioned as a slave but nobody will bid on her, Little Eva purchases Topsy for a nickel. That's the one part of this movie that I found plausible: slaveholders often refused to buy children, since their upkeep in food usually exceeded any labour they performed. There's a gooey romantic subplot between Mariette (the niece of Simon Legree) and George Shelby, son of a prominent slaveholder.

Barbara Fiske, a beautiful girl of social standing, is about to be married to Lloyd Van Courtland. On the eve of their marriage, she foolishly pays a visit to a colorful steamship captain aboard his ship.

The King of Kings is the Greatest Story Ever Told as only Cecil B. DeMille could tell it. In 1927, working with one of the biggest budgets in Hollywood history, DeMille spun the life and Passion of Christ into a silent-era blockbuster. Featuring text drawn directly from the Bible, a cast of thousands, and the great showman’s singular cinematic bag of tricks, The King of Kings is at once spectacular and deeply reverent—part Gospel, part Technicolor epic.

Rafi arrives in the city in search of Pervaneh who was taken by the Sultan. He is joined by Hassan the confectioner. Rafi is captured by the Sultan, but Hassan leads a surprise attack on the palace and the lovers are united.

Bob Langdon, a young Pony Express rider, is given an appointment to West Point, but is forced to leave the academy as the result of political intrigue stirred up by enemies of his friend, General George A. Custer. Bob returns to the west and is made a scout for Custer's 7th Cavalry. At the Battle of Little Big Horn, Custer sends Bob with a message for aid, and Bob becomes the only survivor of the battle.

Erstwhile childhood friends, Judah Ben-Hur and Messala meet again as adults, this time with Roman officer Messala as conqueror and Judah as a wealthy, though conquered, Israelite. A slip of a brick during a Roman parade causes Judah to be sent off as a galley slave, his property confiscated and his mother and sister imprisoned. Years later, as a result of his determination to stay alive and his willingness to aid his Roman master, Judah returns to his homeland an exalted and wealthy Roman athlete. Unable to find his mother and sister, and believing them dead, he can think of nothing else than revenge against Messala.

David Sheldon owns a plantation in the Solomon Islands. Many of his field hands die of blackwater fever, and then he becomes sick himself. Joan Lackland, a female soldier of fortune, arrives by schooner in the islands. With the help of her Kanaka crew, she protects David from an attack by the natives who are led by Googomy. Joan nurses David back to health and becomes his business partner, protecting his mortgaged property from two avaricious moneylenders. Seeking vengeance, the moneylenders incite the natives to revolt.

Young Tony, unable to make a living in crowded and fast-paced London, goes to South America in search of his fortune. He soon becomes the owner of a saloon and dance hall. One of the dancers in his place, Maxine, falls in love with him, but Tony is still in love with his childhood sweetheart Una, although Una is now a "party girl" back in London and has forgotten about Tony. However, Tony comes into an unexpected inheritance, along with a title, and returns to London for Una. Although disappointed with Una's current lifestyle, he asks her to marry him despite her "indiscretions". However, the night before they are to be married Una confesses a deep, dark secret to Tony that could change their lives forever.

The wealthy and impulsive Rollo Treadway decides to propose to his beautiful socialite neighbor, Betsy O'Brien. Although Betsy turns Rollo down, he still opts to go on the cruise that he intended as their honeymoon. When circumstances find both Rollo and Betsy on the wrong ship, they end up having adventures on the high seas.

Left an orphan by the death of his father, Mickey Hogan sails for Australia to live with relatives, but he is shipwrecked and stranded on an island inhabited by cannibals who worship him as a war god.

Wastrel son of a railroad magnate, Jack's father becomes frustrated with his son's wild ways. To prove himself, Jack goes to work in the railroad yard as a laborer. An escaped convict, Silent Bill Brachley, steals Jack's car, and the chase leads to a meeting between Jack, the engineer of the Midnight Express, and the engineer's pretty daughter, Mary. As he is led back to jail, Brachley swears revenge.

A recalcitrant thief vies with a duplicitous Mongol ruler for the hand of a beautiful princess.

Paul Bonard an artist, loses his memory when he receives a blow on the head from one of two apaches fighting over Wildcat, a sultry stepper in a cafe. He becomes an apache himself, falls in love with Wildcat and paints her portrait--his masterpiece. Wildcat learns Paul's identity and restores him to his family, though realizing that she will lose him. Surgery restores Paul's memory, but some subconscious force guides him back to the cafe and Wildcat's love.

The first part tells the story of Moses leading the Jews from Egypt to the Promised Land, his receipt of the tablets and the worship of the golden calf. The second part shows the efficacy of the commandments in modern life through a story set in San Francisco. Two brothers, rivals for the love of Mary, also come into conflict when John discovers Dan used shoddy materials to construct a cathedral.

First one stranger, then another, arrive at the presidio, each with a government pass and each claiming to have been robbed by the notorious Captain Fly-by-Night and his highwaymen. The soldiers and Señorita Anita believe the first to be Fly-by-Night and the second to be Señor Rocha, Anita's fiancée and emissary of the governor. But the first stranger, to whom Anita is drawn, proves to be on a government mission and exposes the second stranger as Captain Fly-by-Night.

Bert Lyons returns to the Grainger spread from the "outside world" to find his former employer dead and the ranch in the possession of Calvert, a narcotics smuggler, and Blackie Lopez, a rustler who has his eyes on Molly Grainger, Lyons' sweetheart.

An 18-part silent American adventure film serial now considered to be lost. Chapter Titles: 1. The Sea Raiders 2. Shipwrecked 3. The Cannibals' Captives 4. Hidden Gold 5. The Ship of Despair 6. Friday's Faith 7. The Swamp of Terror 8. Marooned 9. The Jaguar Trap 10. A Prisoner of the Sun 11. No Greater Love 12. The Island of Happiness 13. The Sword of Courage 14. The Buccaneers 15. The Jolly Roger 16. The Idol's Bride 17. When the Heart Calls 18. Back to the Primitive

In the Spanish town of Magdalena live María and her sweetheart, Pancho, son of the governor. When the town is captured by brigands led by Ramírez, the governor is deposed, and Don Domingo Maticas is appointed in his place. Ramón, son of the new governor, becomes infatuated with María. She repulses him, but he is encouraged by her mother.

In the 1850s, a young prince in India promises his dying father he will lead a revolt against the English colonial masters of India. However, since he is half-European himself, he can't bring himself to do it and flees to America, to live in obscurity. He finds, however, that he can't outrun his obligations

John Wesley Pringle, adventurer at large, returns home after making his strike and finds his old girl friend, Stella, engaged to Christopher Foy, who is running for sheriff. Pringle foils an attempt by incumbent sheriff Matt Lisner to kill Foy, but when Foy is accused of a murder, Pringle, in a clever ruse, captures Foy, holds the posse at gunpoint, and then releases him, explaining his motive.

Set in the years before and during World War I, this epic tale tells the story of a rich Argentine family, one of its two descending branches being half of French heritage, the other being half German. Following the death of the family patriarch, the man's two daughters and their families resettle to France and Germany, respectively. In time the Great War breaks out, putting members of the family on opposing sides.

An epic of passion, intrigue, and espionage set in the African Jungle.

When Sunset Sprague saves Calico Barnes from a bandit, the two men become friends. Barnes is heading out to protect his niece, Rose Loring, whose father was murdered right after his mine struck gold. Sprague goes to help and finds himself up against the villainous Mace Dennison.

Norma Dawn silent tropical island Fiji rubber plantation romantic melodrama starring Edith Roberts, Jack Perrin, Richard Cummings, Noble Johnson, and Dr. Arthur Jervis. This is a "lost" film which means that no surviving copies are thought to exist.

The captain of a sailing ship has an affair with the wife of one of his passengers, and gets mixed up in a mutiny at sea and a revolution.

Two prospectors, one the father of Skye "Lightning" Bryce and the other the father of Kate Arnold, find a large gold deposit belonging to an Indian tribe. They head for home but each sends a note to their respective off-springs advising them of their good fortune. One of the fathers conceives a plan of taking a dagger and wrapping a piece of string around the blade, after which he prints on the string with a lead pencil, the exact location of their find. If something happens to them, the string goes to the son and the knife to the daughter. That night an Indian approaches their camp and blows some mysterious wolf powder which causes a man to see wolves in place of human beings. Lightning's father see his partner as a wolf and stabs him to death; later he is brought into town in a dying condition but before dying, hands the knife and the string over to the sheriff with instructions to deliver to Lightning and Kate.

Bob Gilmore, a young clubman, is called by telephone to his home, where his parents are giving him a birthday party. He overhears one of the men guests make a slurring remark about his mother's appearance, and proceeds to punish him then and there, throwing the entire gathering into an uproar. Later in the evening he assumes guilt for a check which had been in reality forged by his foster father, in order to save the mother's feelings, but obtains a written confession from the guilty man for future use if necessary. Learning that he had been adopted from a foundling asylum in infancy, Bob decides to go to New York to see if he cannot learn his real name, which he understands begins with "Mor."

Lure of the Circus is a 1918 American adventure film serial directed by J. P. McGowan.

Helen is a strong-minded, upright, two-handed gunwoman and the protector of a younger brother who has fallen under the evil influence of unscrupulous companions. The climax of the story comes when Helen learns that her brother is to take part in a stage hold-up. To save him she dons male attire and holds up the stage at a point several miles in advance of her brother's attempt.

The Branded Man is a 1918 Western.

Billy Brooks, who exhibits an effeminate personality, leaves his Wall Street magnate father and goes on the road as a perfume salesman. In an effort to cure his son of his womanly ways, Brooks, Sr. wires Nebeker, an old rancher friend, to kidnap Billy from the train and "make a man of him."

After his defeat at the hands of "Spider" Flynn, the welterweight champion of Europe, boxer Jimmie Dolan and his trainer, Thomas Jefferson Jones, leave for a principality near Paris. Having lost all their money on the fight, Jimmie accepts Count Conrad's offer to impersonate Prince Frederick in return for a large sum of money.

Gunman Chuck Connelly is hired to silence the new district attorney who has been pounding the graft organizations. Chuck goes to the D. A.'s home to threaten him, but is taken off guard when his victim's little daughter leans trustfully on his knee and looks up at him with a smile. The D. A. ignores Chuck's warning, and the gang orders the gunman to execute him. Chuck breaks into the house, but sees the little girl again and is unable to complete his task. Instead, he seeks out his girl friend, Annie Mangan, a Salvation Army reformer, and swears to end his life of crime.

Jack Calvert bets four friends that he can travel from New York to Constantinople without a cent.

Two cowboys, Jim and Johnny Little Bear, discover a rich mine and decide to spend some of their money traveling. Their travels lead them to the kingdom of Queen Sylvia, who is being warred upon by the neighboring monarch Ferdinand because she will not marry him. Sympathetic to the Queen's plight, the cowboys wire to America for the rest of the gang, who arrive just in time to rout Ferdinand's attack.

A black U.S. Army cavalry unit in the early 1900s mounts an expedition against the forces of a renegade Mexican general along the Texas-Mexico border, leading to a full-scale battle.

Determined to maintain her status as a star detective, Nellie Gleason goes after Jim Kinkaid, who has fled to Mexico after robbing real estate magnate George Arnold.

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

A junior Negro oil engineer rescues a white woman and earns the chance to succeed in the oil business.

A junior Negro oil engineer rescues a white woman and earns the chance to succeed in the oil business.