Herself (archive footage)
Among the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips from such lost films as Cleopatra (1917), starring Theda Bara; The Miracle Man (1919), with Lon Chaney; He Comes Up Smiling (1918), starring Douglas Fairbanks; an early lost sound film, Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), filmed in early Technicolor, and the only color footage of silent star Clara Bow, Red Hair (1928). The program is rounded out with interviews of film preservationists involved in identifying and restoring these films. Also featured is a new interview with Diana Serra Cary, best known as "Baby Peggy", one of the major American child stars of the silent era, who discusses one of the featured fragments, Darling of New York (1923).
Elizabeth
A power-broker ward-heeler, Bill Grimes, wields more power than the elected politicians and has no problem in getting matters-of-the-city handled in which ever way is best for his needs. But when he tries to fix his adored kid brother's place on the school football team, he meets his match in school-teacher Anne Barry.
Rosette LaRue
Janie lives to dance and will dance anywhere, even stripping in a burlesque house. Tod Newton, the rich playboy, discovers her there and helps her get a job in a real Broadway musical being directed by Patch. Tod thinks he can get what he wants from Janie, Patch thinks Janie is using her charms rather than talent to get to the top, and Janie thinks Patch is the greatest. Steve, the stage manager, has the Three Stooges helping him manage all the show girls. Fred Astaire and Nelson Eddy make appearances as famous Broadway personalities.
Maizee
Florence Denny is Tommy Nelson's girlfriend and secretary at a clothing manufacturer during the Great Depression. In order to boost sales they have been using professional female entertainers to keep their clients very happy, but the clients are getting bored of them. Tommy convinces management to replace the professionals with "volunteers" from the pool of stenographers. Inevitably some clients expectations are greater than their "dates", boyfriends become unhappy, and the "voluntary" duty becomes less so over time. At first, Tommy prevents Florence from being a volunteer, but eventually the prospect of a bonus becomes too great and he encourages her to volunteer. Afterwards, Tommy considers Florence a loose woman.
Georgine Hicks
A young innocent falls for a compulsive gambler.
Doris Roberts
Director Lloyd Bacon's 1931 drama takes a different look at the Broadway arena by focusing on the owners of a theatrical costume shop.
Pat
A circus side show performer tries to discourage her younger sister from following in her footsteps.
Gertrude Dale
Early 30s pre-code comedy about a woman attempting to get her two ex-husbands to pay back alimony.
Winnie
Famous actress Norma Shearer's jewels are stolen… (Star-packed promotional short film intended to raise funds for the National Variety Artists Tuberculosis Sanatorium.)
Winnie
Winnie Lightner is the head of a health clinic and has Joe E. Brown as one of her employees. Brown is a wrestler named JoJo and he is forced to enter the ring and face down a musclebound masked opponent (Frank S. Hagney). Making matters worse, the masked marauder is convinced that his wife has been fooling around with JoJo. JoJo is knocked out early in the proceedings, whereupon he dreams he's a sultan surrounded by harem girls. A romantic subplot involves Paul Gregory and Claudia Dell. Gregory works for Dell's father and Dell asks her father to give Gregory a promotion so that she can spend more time with him. When Gregory refuses to be promoted without earning the position, she threatens to have him fired and Gregory quits his job. Gregory attempts to start a new career as a championship wrestler and is trained by Lightner and Brown. When Dell finds out about this, she attempts to stop him and asks for his forgiveness. She pleads with him to not fight but he has already promised...
Flo
Two gold diggers try a French dressmaker, two Mr. Smiths and Havana.
Self
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.
Toots Breen
A man is mistaken for a champion fighter.
A night club singer falls for a gangster.
Performer in 'Pingo Pongo' & 'Singing in the Bathtub' Numbers
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.
Mabel
Three Broadway chorus girls seek rich husbands.