Otto Matieson

In the years before World War I, a love affair takes place between an American pilot named Jack Ames and a French spy named Madeleine Aubert. Madeleine leaves her American fiancé to join her father, another French spy, at an estate in Germany. Her father instructs her to accept the invitation of a Prussian officer, Eric von Coburg, to live at his estate for a month.

A lovely dame with dangerous lies employs the services of a private detective, who is quickly caught up in the mystery and intrigue of a statuette known as the Maltese Falcon.

An American joins the French Foreign Legion in order to rescue a boyhood friend.

In this entry in the Lone Wolf series, the first to have a soundtrack, the jealousies of the King and the coquettish Queen are chronicled. When His Majesty learns that his wife has given the ring he gave to her to her lover, the King plans a large ball and demands the she wear the token. As her lover is a military attache, he is not in the palace, and the queen must send her lady-in-waiting to bring it back. En route, the lady meets a thief and they team up. She does not know that he has been dispatched by the King to steal ring from the attache.

Margaret Holt and her brother Victor set out to smash a narcotics ring responsible for their father's death. Young reporter John Howell and eccentric mystery writer Winthrop Clavering help unravel the truth about the murder.

A 1930 musical tableau presented by Joe Schenck. Based on patriotic hymn by Fay Foster.

Golden Dawn (1930) is a musical operetta released by Warner Brothers, photographed entirely in Technicolor, and starring Walter Woolf King and Noah Beery. The film is based on the semi-hit stage musical of the same name by Oscar Hammerstein II and Otto Harbach. Beery's extraordinarily deep bass voice registers particularly well in the songs.

The film takes place in the 18th century Austria and revolves around Prince Christian, commonly known as General Crack. His father had been a respectable member of the nobility but his mother was a gypsy. General Crack, as a soldier of fortune, spent his adult life selling his services to the highest bidder. He espouses the doubtful cause of Leopold II of Austria after demanding the sister of the emperor in marriage as well as half of gold of the Empire. Before he has finished his work, however, he meets a gypsy dancer and weds her. Complications arise when he takes his gypsy wife to the Austrian court and falls desperately in love with the emperor's sister.

Prisoners was released as a part-talking, part-silent feature. An Austrian showgirl working in a cabaret moonlights as a thief. When she is caught in the act, a young lawyer offers to defend her. Unfortunately, he loses the case, causing her to spend several months in jail. Fortunately, the two have fallen in love, and he promises to wait for her.

On board a yacht sailing from India to Britain, the owner of the vessel is murdered by one of the passengers. (This film was produced both in full sound and silent versions, the latter for theaters that had not yet been wired for sound.)

Behind the doors of a foreign government's embassy in Washington D. C., a group of royal loyalists is attempting to raise funds to aid a counter-revolution and restore the deposed emperor in a new republic. They are led by an unknown leader called 'The Eagle."

Arthur Caesar's classic about the barber who held the fate of France in his hands, has been produced on lavish feature-film scale by John Ford, the man who made The Iron Horse and Four Sons.

A silent film directed by Ludwig Berger.

Silent film drama...

Captain Maurice de Florimont, a French Army intelligence officer, is captured by Arab nationalists while on an espionage mission. His sweetheart Diane Duval is also taken prisoner. Both are tortured by Kassim Ben Ali, leader of the Arab nationalists, but they refuse to divulge any information. They are finally rescued by French troops who storm the fortress and kill Kassim.

A man drowns himself in lake. As he is dying, he recalls the crucial moments of his life and the incidents that led to his final, fatal decision.

An insane man first loves then grows to hate his neighbor, an old man whose penetrating gaze unnerves the insane man. He plans a perfect crime and executes it one night. The next day, two officers knock on the insane man's door, investigating a shriek heard in the night. The insane man invites them in, answers their questions, and submits to an examination of his eyes by one of the officers, who proclaims him innocent. The insane man invites them to stay and relax awhile, then regales them with his theories of crime. His heart begins to beat louder. Angles on the set are skewed to suggest the man's internal disarray.

The beautiful Serafina is captured by Balthasar's pirates on an island near Cuba, but the redoubtable José Armando arrives from Spain to effect her rescue.

In San Francisco, a villainous landowner with underworld connections seeks to steal the property of an old Spanish family.

Too Many Crooks is a lost 1927 American comedy silent film directed by Fred C. Newmeyer, written by E.J. Rath and Rex Taylor, and starring Mildred Davis, Lloyd Hughes, George Bancroft, El Brendel, William V. Mong, John St. Polis, and Otto Matieson. It was released on April 2, 1927, by Paramount Pictures.

François Villon, in his lifetime the most renowned poet in France, is also a prankster, an occasional criminal, and an ardent patriot.

Lea Lyon, the daughter of a rabbi, lives happily with her father in their Gulicinu village, but there are rumblings of war. Soon, the village is overrun with the Imperial troops of the Russian Czar, with Constantine in Imperial command. He is attracted by the beauty of Lea and commands her to come to his quarters. She refuses and he is outraged. He orders the townspeople barred behind their doors and the village burned. Though she loves her honor above everything else, she can not bear to see the villagers suffer, and makes the lonely walk through the village to the Inn.

Rinty is a police-dog assigned to a young Scotland Yard police-officer who covers the Limehouse district of London.

A woman hears of a murder plot through a whispered voice on the telephone.

When her circus-performer parents die in an accident, Christine (Pauline Garon) is raised by other circus-performers, including Hagan, a balloon-vender, and Pete Barman as her guardians. When she grows up, she asks to also become a performer, and Barman agrees. Bob Hastings (Cullen Landis) joins the traveling circus as its doctor, and he and Christine fall in love. This angers Barman, who is also in love with her.

Ralph Ince stars as Brute Shane, a South Pacific trader who has adopted native girl Saina (Olive Broden). When Shane rescues English lass Nona Deering (Claire Adams) from white slavers, the jealous Saina begins plotting Nona's demise.

An American ship is wrecked off the coast of the Dutch East Indies, and little Faith Fitzhugh and her mother have washed ashore on a rocky island that supports only a lighthouse. Faith's mother lives only long enough to inform the three Dutch lighthouse keepers that her daughter is the heiress to a large fortune. Years pass and Faith grows to womanhood. Jacob Kroon and his son, Piet, then conspire to marry Faith to Piet's idiot son, Hans, in order to bring her fortune into the family. Dick Wayne, a sailor on an American cruiser that is repairing a damaged cable in the waters of the lighthouse, learns of Faith's captivity and comes to her rescue. Piet kills Jacob in a fit of jealousy, and Dick then kills Piet in a fight. Hans sets the lighthouse on fire and incinerates himself. Dick and Faith make it back to the cruiser.

Armand and Marie survive in the streets until charitable (and wealthy) scientist Pierre Marcel takes Armand in after a botched robbery. Marie, a fiery Apache, swears revenge on Marcel for taking her lover away from her.

Malcolm McGregor joins the circus and falls in love with Olive Borden but his life changes when he finds out he is a titled Lord.

Silent Drama

A hopelessly hopeful drifter, a bitter young woman, and a helpless child live on the docks, spending their days in poverty and listless wandering. Overhead, a dredge hauls up mud and trash from the nearby seabed-- the same mud and trash from the day before. They finally decide to leave for the city to seek fulfillment, only to encounter further privation, destitution, temptation.

This drama had two directors: Maurice Elvey handled most of the film, but the fantasy sequence was directed by Henry Otto. Newlyweds Alice and Robert are already having differences over money. He gets angry at her extravagances, especially when she spends more than they can afford on an imitation pearl necklace. Ridgeway, a client of Robert's, invites the couple to a party. Robert wants to decline, but Alice insists that they go. Ridgeway loans Alice a real pearl necklace, to "restore their lustre," and everyone heads for his yacht. Ridgeway pays Alice a lot of attention, while a young widow tries to vamp Robert.

Young Irish physician Peter Blood is exiled as a slave to Barbados, where he and his friend Jeremy are purchased by Colonel Bishop at the behest of his niece Arabella. With other slaves he captures a Spanish galleon and becomes the terror of the Caribbean privateers until offered a commission in the English Navy. He defeats the French at Port Royal, and as a reward he is named governor of Jamaica and marries Arabella.

Paul Granville becomes a famous painter for his portraits of great women as modeled by the beautiful Joline Hofer. When one of Paul's paintings appears to result in a miracle, Joline's life is changed forever. She leaves her previous life to live one of service and piety, a decision that ultimately saves Paul's life.

Barbara Winslow helps her rebel brother, Rupert, escape from the king's forces by disguising herself as him. Captain Prothero captures her, but he has fallen for Barbara's charms so he lets her go. As a result they are both arrested and imprisoned.

A law student becomes an outlaw French revolutionary when he decides to avenge the unjust killing of his friend. To get close to the aristocrat who has killed his friend, the student adopts the identity of Scaramouche the clown.

Boston Blackie is a former prison inmate campaigning to outlaw Warden Benton's infamous "Water Cross" torture. Benton, however, is successful in his attempt to have Blackie arrested and returned to the prison, but his evil schemes are ultimately thwarted by Mary Carter, Blackie's girlfriend, who manages to alert the governor.

Rod Norton is a lawman searching for his father's killer. Norton suspects saloon owner Jim Garson but is lacking evidence. Garson's henchmen, the Rickard brothers, kidnap Norton's sweetheart Dorothy, hoping to lure the sheriff into a trap.

At the Golden Trail saloon in Alaska, Dave Langdon meets chorus girl Faro Kate who reminds him of his long-lost love, Jane Sunderlin. Meanwhile, back in the States, Harry Teal, scheming to steal a mine claim, hires Jane's brother Dick to do his dirty work in Alaska. After Jane accompanies her brother up North, Teal, who has designs on Jane, begins to fear that she will go back to Dave and so plots to discredit him by igniting the jealousy of Kate's admirer, Jim Sykes. Teal succeeds, and in the violent fight that erupts between Dave and Sykes, Sykes is shot by an unknown hand. While pursuing Sykes' assailant, Dave discovers Jane, but their reunion is cut short when Dave is arrested for the shooting.