Colleen Moore

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).

Before the G, PG and R ratings system there was the Production Code, and before that there was, well, nothing. This eye-opening documentary examines the rampant sexuality of early Hollywood through movie clips and reminiscences by stars of the era. Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Marlene Dietrich and others relate tales of the artistic freedom that led to the draconian Production Code, which governed content from 1934 to 1968. Diane Lane narrates.

In the seventeenth century, in Massachusetts, a young woman is forced to wear a scarlet "A" on her dress for bearing a child out of wedlock.

A young man ruthlessly climbs the corporate ladder only to attempt suicide when the stock market crashes.

Chorus girl Patsy Shaw crashes a high-society party, meets playboy Charlie Breen, they fall in love, and are on their merry way to wedded bliss. However, Charlie's snobbish, ever-loving mama doesn't think that Patsy is worthy and sets out to prove it.

A man's life is retold just after his funeral. Beginning as a track walker, Tom Garner rose through all sorts of railroad jobs to head the company. In the meantime he lost touch with his family. When he saw what was happening it was already too late.

Moore plays the "dual" role of a French singer in America who was originally an American chorus girl in France to acquire a new persona.

A 1929 film directed by William A. Seiter.

A flapper unwittingly falls for the boss' son.

A young woman impulsively marries a young playwright who whisks her away to New York promises her a role in his next production. Unfortunately the production is a disaster and her husband proclaims her unfit for the role. Rather then return home in defeat, she stays in New York and accidentally gets involved with some vicious gangsters.

In France during World War I, a charming farm girl keeps a squadron of English pilots in good spirits as best as she can. She falls for a handsome newcomer who is already engaged.

On the eve of her wedding Lady Kay Rutfield runs off aboard her sloop. A storm carries her out to sea and she is rescued by a passing rumrunner bound for the Long Island Sound. Once they arrive in the States, Kay makes her escape and hides in the deserted mansion of Jimmy Winter. Jimmy is due to marry the following day. He comes home to the mansion unexpectedly, and finds Kay, who persuades him to let her pose for a night as his wife.

Happiness Ahead is a persumed lost 1928 silent film drama directed by William A. Seiter and starring Colleen Moore and then husband and wife Edmund Lowe and Lilyan Tashman.

In this feature comedy, silent film star Colleen Moore plays a woman who owns a small lunch wagon and falls for a duke’s son, played by Larry Kent, who is pretending to be his own chauffeur. With her savings, she pursues him to a resort hotel, only to be mistaken for a duchess. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in partnership with Národní filmový archív in 2007.

Part of a 7-part series exploring all aspects of Hollywood.

Naughty But Nice was based on The Bigamists, a story by Lewis Alen Brown. Gawky country girl Berenice Summers (Colleen Moore) is catapulted head-first into High Society when her Uncle Seth (Burr McIntosh) strikes oil. Shipped off to a fancy boarding school, Berenice suffers at the hands of her snooty classmates, but the last straw comes when she's publicly humiliated by local wise-guy Paul Carroll (Donald Reed).

Set in New York City, flapper Pink Watson works a telephone operator at a cement factory who dreams of marrying rich. Her constant daydreaming of wealth annoys her fellow workers, and ruins the heart of one of her worshiping colleagues.

"Twinkletoes" Minasi wants to be a great dancer like her deceased mother. Twink meets Chuck Lightfoot, a noted prizefighter, who falls in love with her at first sight. She tries to avoid falling in love with Chuck, whose wife, Cissie, is a drunken harridan and more than a little bit spiteful. Meanwhile, Twink has secured a job in a singing-dancing act in a Limehouse theater, under the auspices of Roseleaf, who has more than just a protective interest in the girl. The jealous Cissie discovers that Twink's sign-painting father also has a night job as a burglar, and she turns him into the police. While a big success dancing on the stage, the arrest of her father has left her somewhat down in the dumps, and she decides to toss herself into the Thames. Possibly, the now-free Chuck, since Cissie has been killed in an accident, might come along and rescue her.

Fernie Schmidt (Colleen Moore) lives with her parents in the rear of their delicatessen. The smells of the business - cheeses, sausages, garlic and pickled herrings - repulses Fernie, who dreams of leaving this environment and moving into a life that's more rarified. Her father, Pop Schmidt (Jean Hersholt) has plans for his daughter to marry Peter Halitovsky (Arthur Stone), a sausage salesman, but Fernie is repulsed by the idea. At a dance, Fernie meets Jack Dugan (Malcolm McGregor), who tells her that he is in stocks, a paper-counter, and she falls for him. Because of her rejection of her father's chosen candidate for matrimony, Pop puts Fernie out of the house.

Poor Ella Cinders is much abused by her evil step-mother and step-sisters. When she wins a local beauty contest she jumps at the chance to get out of her dead-end life and go to Hollywood, where she is promised a job in the movies. When she arrives in Hollywood, she discovers that the contest was a scam and the job non-existent. But through pluck, luck, and talent, she makes it in the movies anyway, and finds true love.

Irene, a feisty Irish girl in Philadelphia, clashes with her family and walks out, heading to New York City to seek fame and fortune. She gets a job as a dressmaker's model and becomes involved with Donald, the scion of a wealthy family. Donald's mother doesn't approve of Irene and sets out to discredit her in Donald's eyes.

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.

A 1925 film directed by John Francis Dillon.

A mining camp girl attempts to reform a young derelict addicted to drink. Colleen Moore broke her neck in a fall from a moving handcar during the making of this rousing sagebrush melodrama. The pert Moore, an idol of her generation, quickly regained her mobility but was reportedly forced to sleep in a leather neck support for nearly ten years.

Sally is a 1925 American silent romantic comedy film starring Colleen Moore.

After graduating from a fashionable finishing school and touring Europe with her father, Selina Peake returns to the United States, where her father is accidentally killed after losing his fortune in a gambling den. Selina is reduced to teaching in a high school in the Dutch community at High Prarie near Chicago. She boards in the farmhouse of Klass Poole, a dull-witted market gardener, and finally marries Pervus DeJong, a poor and backward farmer. She shares the drudgery of her husband's futile life and finds happiness only in their small son, Dirk, whom she calls "So-Big."

When Wade Cameron, chairman of the Better Plays Society, stops the production of actress Gilda Lamont's first stage success, she attempts to revenge herself by affecting another personality and earning his confidence. He assigns her a role in an improvised production of a new play as an unknown actress, derails her attempt to expose him, and ends by winning her heart.

A 1924 film directed by John Francis Dillon.

A 1924 film directed by Clarence G. Badger.

Through the Dark is a 1924 silent mystery drama produced by Cosmopolitan Productions and distributed through Goldwyn Pictures. It is based on a short story "The Daughter of Mother McGinn" by Jack Boyle

When Mona Frentiss dies, she has her confidante "Doctor Bobs" watch over her family, especially her youngest daughter Patricia. The family has been raised in a most unconventional manner, with Mona having a much younger lover and the father Ralph keeping his own lover on the side. As Patricia grows older, she attracts the attention of her mother's former lover, the much older (than Patricia, who in the book is in her early to mid teens) Carey Scott. Patricia tempts fate with her wild ways, nearly loses her virtue to a musician aboard an ocean-going boat, and is saved in time by Carey. Realizing that he is the man for her, she settles down into an experimental marriage.

This silent romantic melodrama is believed to be lost.

Bela, reared by Indians, learns that she is a white orphan and runs away from the Indian village to avoid marrying a brave from the tribe. She determines to marry land prospector Sam Gladding, who resists her advances but later falls in love with Bela when an Indian sage gives him some advice.

The story of a young actress trying to attain stardom on Broadway.

The title is also the moniker of a renowned safe-cracker, Slippy McGee, who has always managed to evade capture until his latest job, when he is wounded. He escapes aboard a freight train, bound for parts unknown, and finds himself in the town of Appleborro. There, he is discovered and cared for by Father De Rance and Mary Virginia. His leg is amputated, and during his recovery in Appleborro, the town's influence causes him to reform.

A department store clerk decides to marry a withdrawing colleague with tuberculosis, over another dashing, ambitious suitor, leads to a life of hardship and struggle. Though The Nth Commandment survives incomplete, enough exists of director Frank Borzage’s last film while under contract with William Randolph Hearst’s Cosmopolitan Pictures for scholar Hervé Dumont to declare “it the first truly Borzagian work.”

Perla Quaranta, a half-starved "daughter of Little Italy," is given the place in Carlo Bruni's "Butterfly Act" that is vacated by a chorus girl who has become overweight. Although Perla becomes friendly with Krug, the wire-man, she rejects him as a suitor, and in revenge Krug causes Perla's wire to break.

Melodramatic thriller, presented in 9.5mm format

Jealous of her son Oliver's interest in Penelope Mason, Mrs. Newell takes him to a resort where he is easy prey for designing Enid Morton. After some near-disastrous situations with Enid's suspicious husband, Penelope comes to Oliver's rescue at Mrs. Newell's request.

A Colleen Moore film directed by Ward Lascelle which is now considered lost.

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.

The WAMPAS Baby Stars was a promotional campaign sponsored by the United States Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers, which honored 13 (15 in 1932) young actresses each year whom they believed to be on the threshold of movie stardom.

Shane O'Mealia leaves Ireland, promising to send for his sweetheart, Moyna. In the mean time the son of the old lady she lives with, takes them back to America without telling Shane, who then must explain a girl he's been seeing in New York.

Naive Jacques Lenoi marries money-hungry Madge Vance. When Madge realizes he isn't as moneyed as she assumed she turns a cold shoulder to him and he takes off on a balloon trip to China.

Shenanigans at a small town movie theater.

Arthur Moore, a missionary preacher, attempts to fit into the cowboy community so he can set up a church in the local saloon. Gwen, daughter of the "Old Timer," is injured in a stampede and loses her ability to walk. Though rejected by the townsfolk, the preacher's wisdom and love are needed if the young girl is to be healed. Shot in 'Vidor Village', Vidor's ill-fated studio property in California's High Sierra.

Dinty is a newsboy whose fight to care for his ailing mother leads him into conflicts with the other boys on the street and then with drug smugglers in Chinatown.

Harry Miller is a "natural-born mixer" while his wife Grace is a homebody, distressed by her husband's errant ways. Grace finds a kindred spirit in Tommy Robbins, who lives in an adjoining bungalow and whose wife Letty is devoted to the cabarets. Harry admires Letty as much as Tommy admires Grace, and suggests to his neighbor that they arrange an exchange of wives. The wives overhear their husbands' plotting to obtain divorces and, still in love with the men they married, conceive a counter-plan of a week of platonic trial marriages. Over the seven-day period, the wives make life so miserable for each other's husbands that the two men gladly return to their respective spouses.

A Persian novelist living in New York throws aside the woman who loves him, and she gets an American woman to help get him back. Meanwhile, the novelist's current novel is in progress, and it's dramatized for us as he writes.

A doctor serving the slums questions his faith after transitioning to a position with more prestige and wealth.

Mary, a bride-to-be, has a troublesome wedding day.

A Tale of The Canadian North-West Mounted Police

Mary refuses a marriage proposal, in order to devote her life to "the stage." Hilarity ensues.

Russian Paval Pavlovitch is married to an American woman when a decree is handed down that nationalizes women between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five as common property of the state for the use of its citizens. Passports are refused for Pavlovitch's family. His old servant takes out a certificate claiming Pavlovitch's wife Anna, and the son of the village priest claims Pavlovitch's daughter. Matters appear bleak for the Pavlovitch family, but a troop of American cavalry arrives and battles the Russian mob in the streets of Saratov.

Assistant to freight express agent Dave Haskell in the town of Pitt's Junction, Jim Kelly develops strong biceps lifting egg crates onto the daily train. Jim soon falls in love with Dave's lovely daughter Kitty, who, he worries, is interested in city slicker Perry Woods. When Woods steals $2,000 from the station safe, Jim, thinking that Dave took the money, confesses the crime and leaves for Chicago.

Two mysterious strangers arrive uninvited at the wedding of Sergeant O'Farrell of the Royal Mounted Police and Rosine Delorme, the daughter of an innkeeper. After O'Farrell receives a message that Rosine's wayward brother Louis has escaped from prison with the notorious devil-may-care outlaw Rossingnol, O'Farrell postpones the wedding to find the convicts.

Set in the Northwoods of Canada, Tom Mix stars as Donald MacTavish, the newly appointed head commissioner of the Hudson's Bay Company. This promotion infuriates MacTavish's rival Angus Fitzpatrick (Frank Clark) who wanted the job. Angus Fitzpatrick takes his anger and resentment out on MacTavish then sets out to get MacTavish fired.

A young baseball pitcher in the bush leagues is discovered by a big-league manager and given his chance in the major leagues.

Annie, left orphaned after the death of her mother, goes to live in an orphanage where she tells her fellow orphans stories of ghosts and goblins. The matron of the orphanage finds Annie's closest relative, the abusive Uncle Thomp. Her uncle who puts her to hard work doing hard labor on his farm, belittling her all the while. Big Dave, a neighbor and tough cow-poke sees this and comes to her aid. Dave becomes her protector. Eventually Annie goes to live with Squire Goode and his large family. There, she entertains the children of the household with her stories, but sees her abusive aunt and uncle as her chief tormentors. She tells stories of how the goblins will take away the children if they are not good. Each story she tells is illustrated. War breaks out and Dave, who Annie adores, enlists. Uncle Thomp, hearing that Dave has been killed in action, takes pleasure in telling Annie the news. Broken-hearted, Annie falls ill and dies in bed, surrounded by family.

Pretty Patience Thompson, a "girl with a singing soul," lives with her cold-hearted and avaricious father, Jeff Thompson, on their Indiana farm. Her life of drudgery is brightened by John, the hired hand, but when he asks for her hand in marriage, the old man flies into a rage and discharges him. Soon an aged but wealthy widower courts Patience, and although she still loves John, "Old Jeff" orders her to marry the widower, claiming that a father's will is the law.

When Marie Louise, the daughter of the town factor, returns home from school, Julio Sandoval, a reckless young half-breed ruled by his animal instincts, develops a passion for the girl, even though she is engaged to Captain McKeever of the mounted police. Meeting Marie when she is alone in the woods one day, the half-breed carries her to his cabin on the mountain top where he collapses from an attack of mountain fever brought on by overexertion.

A young American has her ship torpedoed by a German U-boat but makes it back to her ancestral home in France, where she witnesses German brutality firsthand.

A 1917 film directed by Tod Browning & Wilfred Lucas.

A 1917 film directed by Lloyd Ingraham.

Small town youth Jimmie Bates is a well-intentioned, but troubled youth. Jimmie is a rowdy boy who is always getting into trouble and playing pranks on his friends and neighbors. Although deeply in love with young Mary, he eventually spurns Mary's affection for the more outgoing and worldly young Ruth.

Graustark needs thirty million dollars to satisfy a Russian loan. The Prince of Dawsbergen, ruler of the adjoining principality, will advance the money if the young Prince of Graustark marries his daughter. Prince Robin, however, inherits an independent spirit, his father having been an American. He refuses absolutely to marry a Princess whom he has never seen. His councilors plead in vain. With the ruin of his country imminent, the boy ruler hastily sails for America to negotiate the loan, hoping at the same time to meet the girl of his dreams. The money is readily advanced by William W. Blithers, a self-made millionaire anxious to have his daughter marry into royalty. The daughter, however, avoids the Prince and he does not see her. He rescues a girl from drowning and falls in love with her. He believes her to be Blithers' daughter, but she does not reveal her identity.