Voices of the City(1921)

The Ransom(en)

Young Janet Osborn finds herself stuck in a loveless marriage, her only source of pleasure being her daughter. Janet has always dreamed of a career on the stage, but never had the chance. One day she meets Geoffrey Allen, a theatrical agent, and decides to try her luck at becoming an actress. However, when her husband Mark finds out, he orders her out of the house and keeps their daughter, Marcia. Moreover, her acting career sputters to a halt, and Geoffrey Allen takes advantage of her situation to make her his mistress. Years later she finds out that Marcia has become an actress--and that she, too, has become involved with Geoffrey.

Ruling Passions(en)

Millionaire John Walton hates the world and although he is suffering a nervous breakdown, he still manages to make the lives of his nurses miserable. They keep leaving, but one, Eveline Roland finds out what is eating away at him from his butler, Lew.

Melody of Love(en)

Historically significant as Universal's first 100% all-talkie, the production suffered from having a tight shooting schedule. Carl Laemmle was only able to rent the Fox Movietone sound-on-film recording system for one week, having to be filmed at night while the Fox Studio was closed down for the evenings.

Diamond Handcuffs(en)

In South Africa, a worker in a diamond mine is sentenced to death for stealing a huge diamond he found in the mine. Before he dies he passes the stone to a local girl, Musa. Known as the "Shah" diamond, it eventually winds up in New York City. Complications ensue, involving a wealthy society matron, her jealous husband, a gang of vicious jewel thieves and a brutal gangster who owns a nightclub. A lost film.

The Foundling(en)

Molly O, a young girl abandoned by her wealthy painter father, David King, after her mother's death; she endures an orphanage and a cruel boardinghouse before her father, remorseful and famous, unknowingly adopts the impostor niece of the orphanage matron instead, leading to Molly's return as a maid in his home, ultimately revealing her true identity and reuniting them. Version destroyed by fire.

Forever(en)

Architect Peter Ibbetson is hired by the Duke of Towers to design a building for him. Ibbetson discovers that the Duchess of Towers, Mary, is his now-grown childhood sweetheart. Their love revives, but Peter is sentenced to life in prison for an accidental killing. Mary comes to him in dreams and they are able to live out their romance in a dream world.

The Film Lost To Time(en)

A film buff's obsession with an elusive, possibly nonexistent film spirals into a dangerous descent, blurring the line between reality and madness.

Sin(ru)

Blackbirds(en)

Adventuress Leonie Sobatsky falls in love with a young man named Nevil Trask, and he with her. Trask doesn't know that Leonie is actually the head of an international smuggling ring--and Leonie doesn't know that Trask is an undercover Secret Service agent assigned to break up the ring and capture its head.

Love of Women(en)

Cynthia Redfield elopes with Ernest Herrick, against the wishes of her socially ambitious mother and an unscrupulous millionaire, Bronson Gibbs, who has courted Cynthia with his position. Four years later Gibbs plots with Veerah Vale, a Greenwich Village vamp, with whom Ernest becomes involved. Divorce proceedings follow with an interlocutory decree, but Cynthia and Ernest are reunited following a serious injury to their child.

Tarnish(en)

Her Maternal Right(en)

Actress Nina Seabury is primarily interested in her lovers' wealth. Nina begins a relationship with Emory Townsend, whom she mistakenly believes is a wealthy bank president. He is merely a bank cashier. Desperate to fund Nina’s expensive tastes and maintain the illusion of wealth, Emory steals $12,000 from his bank. Despite his sacrifice, Nina ultimately breaks up with him. Following the split, Emory finds true love with Mary Winslow.

The Painted World(en)

When burlesque dancer Elois Murree gives birth to her daughter Yvette, she sends to a fashionable boarding school away from the stage environment and her drunken husband. Yvette visits infrequently but during one sojourn Murree slashes Elois' left eye in an argument forcing Elois, now veiled, to perform billed as the Masked Queen. Yvette becomes attracted to her friend’s brother, Rex, she avoids him after she learns that he wants his prospective bride to come from a good family. Yvette becomes a burlesque queen, but a distraught Elois tries to kill her to save her soul and then commits suicide, leaving the bloodied knife in the hands of her drunken husband, who then is arrested. Later, Yvette finds happiness with Rex.

Two Women(en)

Geological expert John Leighton naïvely introduces his flirtatious wife Emily to his boss, W. G. Griggs. Griggs sends John to the Graypeak district to prospect for quarries and is soon involved in an affair with Emily. While in the mountains, John rescues Enid Arden from an attack and she falls in love with him. Returning home John discovers the affair and leaves Emily. Emily and Griggs go to Europe to avoid a scandal and while there start divorce proceedings. But Griggs’ philandering ultimately costs him his life and Emily tracks John to Graypeak. Although she tries to win John back a fateful train ride clears the way for John and Enid to face a happy future together.

Diane of the Green Van(en)

An heiress takes a road trip in a green van. Unbeknownst to her, she has four pursuers.

All's Swell on the Ocean(en)

Homesick for America, Jack and his pals get aboard a ship U. S.-bound disguised as entertainers. As entertainers they're flops, but evoke considerable mirth among the passengers by their efforts. Jack arouses the jealousy of a Frenchman, who is keen on a young French girl, and is challenged to a fight. The Frenchman fights a la Savatte (the French method, including kicking, bucking, etc.) and is getting the better of Jack, until the latter dons a pair of hobnailed brogans. He consents to remove these if his adversary will put boxing gloves on his feet. The Frenchman gets seasick and is counted out as he leans over the rail, where he is soon joined by Jack.

Jack(en)

Jack is just a cowboy on the Gilman cattle ranch. Born and bred of the west, he is broad-mined and easy going. In direct contrast to him is Frances, a girl of the east, who comes to the west with Gilman's daughter. Frances has been born and brought up in wealth and culture and does not understand the cowboy who refuses to cater to her whim but who tries to dominate her. Later, when he proposes to her, she accepts him. She leaves for the east, promising to marry him when her course at school is finished. Jack sets about to build a cabin for their home. While at her home in the east, Frances is constantly being urged by Raymond Welton, a club man, to forget the rough cowboy, and to marry him.

That Gal of Burke's(en)

Tommie Burke is a tomboy, and she can braid a hackamore, rope a steer, ride a broncho, or do any of the things cowboys usually accomplish. Arnold Blake, son of the wealthiest cattleman, is her companion on many wild rides and innocent escapades. Away back in the back bay district of Boston, Charles Percival is starting for the west, with out the farewells of an uncle and two stern maiden aunts, who feel that he has disgraced them forever by his reckless habits. About the time he arrives at the Burke ranch, the latter receives his New York sister and her daughter Mabel.

The Forgotten Prayer(en)

Mojava Matt realizes that he is slipping away from God, when one Sunday morning he cannot even remember the Lord's prayer. He goes as far as "give us this day our daily bread," and stopped there in self-abasement. Packing his burro, he deserts his camp and starts back toward civilization, to find somebody who can tell him the next words.

The Volcano(en)

Ruth Carroll, a schoolteacher in New York's Lower East Side, meets Bolshevist Alexis Minski at her grandfather's bookstore. After Ruth complains to her superintendent about undernourished schoolchildren, Minski's ravings cause her suspension, and she joins the Reds. Meanwhile, Captain Nathan Levison, returning from the Argonne, is assigned by the Secret Service to investigate New York's radicals. While visiting the Carrolls to announce the imminent arrival of Ruth's brother Davy, who saved Levison's life but lost his foot, Levison falls in love with Ruth. Chagrined, Minski convinces Ruth that Levison plans to arrest her and her grandfather, whereupon Ruth furiously requests that Levison be killed. After Governor Alfred E. Smith signs a bill making it illegal to display the Red flag, the Bolshevists plot to assassinate him, the Mayor of Seattle, and Attorney General Alexander Palmer, but Davy, with other soldiers, break up the meeting.