The Vengeance of She (1968)

A beautiful young European girl, Carol, is taken over by the spirit of mysterious Ayesha, queen of the lost city of Kuma. Carol is taken to Kuma to succeed the almost-immortal Ayesha as empress of Kuma.

One Million Years BC (1966)

Tumak, a member of the Rock Tribe, is expelled from their cave after running afoul of their leader Akhoba, who also happens to be his father. After several days of wandering, he meets stumbles upon several female members of the Shell Tribe, a group that lives on the coast. Loana, the daughter of the chief, sees that he is in terrible shape from his ordeal and nurses him back to health. This causes her betrothed to become jealous and eventually the two of them get into a major fight and Tumak is expelled as a result. However, Loana decides to join him and follows him back to the caves of his people. While there Loana teaches the Rock people civility and this causes Tumak to become the new leader (Akhoba was severely injured while Tumak was away). This doesn't sit well with Tumak's brother Sakana who begins to plot to have Tumak overthrown.

Counsellor at Law (1933)

Crackerjack lawyer George Simon is a workaholic, and a successful one, at that. Having just gotten a woman acquited of a murder charge, he is juggling cases ranging from breaking a will to quashing the disorderly conduct charges against the son of a woman he knew in the old neighborhood, before he became a hot shot counsellor. He adores his wife Cora, who feels she married a bit below her station. His step-children think so, too. His secretary Rexy adores him, although he is oblivious to the fact.

Cavalcade (1933)

A cavalcade of English life from New Year’s Eve 1899 until 1933 seen through the eyes of well-to-do Londoners Jane and Robert Marryot. Amongst events touching their family are the Boer War, the death of Queen Victoria, the sinking of the Titanic and the Great War.

Retour de Flamme (6 Volume Early Cinema Anthology)

For 12 years now, archivist-restorers Serge Bromberg and Eric Lange of Lobster Films have organised screenings in original venues throughout France to share their latest discoveries and restorations from the world of early film. The programmes are completely unclassifiable and delightfully varied with newsreels, slapstick comedies, animation, serials, promotional reels, documentary-dramas and more. Many of the films have lain unseen for years and all are restored as completely as they can be from the original nitrate film (hence the name of the series, nitrate film being highly flammable).

Asphalt (1929)

From its amazing opening sequence of human and vehicular traffic sweeping through a nighttime cityscape entirely created inside the Ufa film factory, Asphalt marks a late addition to the eye-catching, mind-bending artistry of the German Expressionist cinema of the '20s.

Released in March 1929, when silents were on the way out, until recently it was just a title, and the source of a few grabby stills, in the film history books. In this most complete restoration yet, it stands as the ultimate "street film," a genre prized for bravura artifice and potent allegory. In such urban symphonies, the cinema was simultaneously defining and reimagining the essence of modernity in images both hypnotically dark and ablaze with shattered light.

Spione (1928)

Newly restored to its original length, Fritz Lang's penultimate silent film, Spione [Spies], is a flawlessly constructed labyrinthine spy thriller. Hugely influential, Lang's famous passion for meticulous detail combines with masterful storytelling and editing skills to form a relentless story of intrigue, espionage, and blackmail.

An international spy ring, headed by Haghi (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), uses technology, threats, and murder to obtain government secrets. As master spy, president of a bank, and music hall clown, Haghi leads several lives using instruments of modern technology to spearhead a mad rush for secrets — secrets that assert his power over others.

The Vampire Bat (1933)

In the small village of Kleinshloss, the locals are scared with a serial killer that is draining the blood of his victims, and the Burgomaster Gustave Schoen is convinced that a vampire is responsible for the deaths. The skeptical police inspector Karl Brettschneider is reluctant to accept the existence of vampires, but the local doctor Otto Von Newman shows literature about cases of vampirism inclusive in Amazon. When the apple street vendor Martha Mueller is murdered, the prime suspect becomes the slow Herman Gleib, a man with a mind of child that loves bats. The group of vigilantes chases Herman, while Dr. Von Newman's housemaid Georgiana is attacked by the killer.

Shanghai Express (1932)

Many passengers on the Shanghai Express are more concerned that the notorious Shanghai Lil is on board than the fact that a civil war is going on that may make the trip take more than three days. The British Army doctor, Donald Harvey, knew Lil before she became a famous “coaster.” A fellow passenger defines a coaster as “a woman who lives by her wits along the China coast.” When Chinese guerillas stop the train, Dr. Harvey is selected as the hostage. Lil saves him, but can she make him believe that she really hasn’t changed from the woman he loved five years before?

Trouble in Paradise (1932)

High class European thief Gaston Monesque meets his soul mate Lily, a pickpocket masquerading as a countess. The two join forces and come under the employ of Mme. Colet, the beautiful owner of the Colet perfume company. Gaston works as Mme. Colet's personal secretary under the alias Monsieur Laval. Rumors start to fly as 'M. Laval' steals Mme. Colet away from her other suitors. When the secret of his true identity catches up to him, Gaston is caught between the two beautiful women.

The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

After surviving a shipwreck in reefs not signalized in the maritime charts, the famous hunter Rober “Bob” Rainsford is lodged by the Russian hunter Count Zaroff in his castle in an isolated island. Bob meets Eve Trowbridge and her brother Martin Trowbridge, also survivors of another wrecked vessel and hosted by Zaroff. Soon, Bob and Eve find that they are part of a hunting game plotted by the insane Zarof where they are the prey, and they have to escape and survive until the next morning to Zaroff and his hounds.

Number Seventeen (1932)

Detective Gilbert is searching for a necklace robbed by a gang of thieves. In the beginning, the gang is in a house in London, then they are running away from police. It will not be easy for the detective to recover the jewel.

Night After Night (1932)

A successful ex-boxer buys a high-class speakeasy and falls for a rich society girl, who doesn't know about his past. Complications ensue when some ex-girlfriends from his boxing days show up.

Freaks (1932)

In a side-show circus, where the greatest attractions are deformed people, the gorgeous trapeze artist Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova) is the lover of the strong Hercules (Henry Victor). She plays as if she liked the German midget Hans (Harry Earles), who is in love with her, to borrow his money and get expensive gifts he gives to her. When the jealous German midget Frieda (Daisy Earles), who loves Hans, asks Cleopatra to spare Hans from a great deception, she accidentally discloses that he is an heir of a great fortune. Cleo decides to get married with Hans to poison him and get his inheritance. In the wedding feast, Cleopatra openly flirts with Hercules and mocks the side-show performers.

Chandu the Magician (1932)

Megalomaniac and would-be world dominator Roxor has kidnaped Robert Regent, along with his death ray invention, in hopes of using it to degenerate humanity into mindless brutes, leaving himself as Earth’s supreme intelligence. Faced with revealing the machine’s secrets or allowing his family to die a horrible death at the hands of Roxor, Regent’s only hope lies with the intervention of his brother-in-law, the be-turbaned yogi and magician Chandu, who has the power to make men see what is not there ‘even unto a gathering of twelve times twelve’.

Michael - Carl Theodore Dreyer (1924)

 Danish master Carl Th. Dreyer (1889-1968) directed Michael (also known as Mikaël) in 1924 for Decla-Bioscop, the artistic wing of German production powerhouse Ufa. It was Dreyer’s sixth feature in five years and his second in Germany. Based on Herman Bang’s 1902 novel of the same name, Dreyer’s film is a fascinating fin-de-siècle study of a “decadent” elderly artist (Benjamin Christensen) driven to despair by his relationship with his young protégé and former model, Michael (Walter Slezak). With suffocatingly sumptuous production design by renowned architect Hugo Häring (his only film work), this Kammerspiel, or “intimate theatre”, foreshadows Dreyer’s magnificent final film Gertrud by precisely forty years.

 

Dr Mabuse the Gambler - Fritz Lang (1922)

Dr Mabuse The Gambler is a fascinating reflection of German society in the 1920s and all its criminal-ridden decadence. In Fritz Lang's epic tale of domination by terror, the power-crazed Mabuse (Rudolph Klein-Rogge) masterminds the world's most dangerous gang of counterfeiters, thieves and murderers, wielding hypnotic powers with an iron fist to obtain total obedience to his will! This double DVD set presents the complete 4 1/2 hour version of Lang's silent masterwork.

The Testament of Dr Mabuse - Fritz Lang (1933)

The Testament of Dr Mabuse is Fritz Lang's sequel to his flamboyant Dr Mabuse two-part epic of the 1920s, this time adding subtle use of sound to the creepy effects developed for the earlier film. Once a Moriarty-like mastermind, the haggard Dr M (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) has become an autistic asylum inmate who scrawls plans for daring crimes in his cell and exerts an unhealthy influence on his psychiatrist. Inspector Lohmann (Otto Wernicke), the jolly policeman from Lang's M, is puzzled by a series of daring crimes that bear the Mabuse signature, and a gang of thugs take instructions from a shadowy figure who claims after the doctor's death to be Mabuse reborn and is staging a reign of crime apparently designed to bring about the ruin of all law-abiding society.

Laurel and Hardy Definitive Collection (1916 - 1927)

A collection of 26 short films celebrating two of the great geniuses of silent comedy. Featuring solo performances from Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, all filmed prior to the birth of the greatest comedy team in motion picture history: "Laurel & Hardy". Beautifully restored, these films are packed full of absurd gags and satirical takes on life during the 1920s.

The Last Laugh - F. W. Murnau (1924)

A landmark work in the history of the cinema, Der letzte Mann represents a breakthrough on a number of fronts. Firstly, it introduced a method of purely visual storytelling in which all intertitles and dialogue were jettisoned, setting the stage for a seamless interaction between film-world and viewer. Secondly, it put to use a panoply of technical innovations that continue to point distinct ways forward for cinematic expression nearly a century later. It guides the silent cinema’s melodramatic brio to its lowest abject abyss — before disposing of the tragic arc altogether. The lesson in all this? That a film can be anything it wants to be… but only Der letzte Mann (and a few unforgettable others) were lucky enough to issue forth into the world under the brilliant command of master director F. W. Murnau.

Buster Keaton - The Complete Short Films (1917-1923)

Capturing Keaton’s first steps in front of a camera this box set charts his early association with ex-Keystone Kop Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle through to starring in, headlining, and directing his own box office smash hits. Using Chaplin’s old Hollywood studios in 1920, Keaton’s sophisticated technical inventiveness coupled with his haunted-yet-handsome ‘Stone Face’ persona, created a succession of the most timeless, classic comedy shorts ever realised.

Rich and Strange (1931)

Fred and Emily Hill lead a boring life in the London suburbs. They decide to escape from it all by writing to a rich relative and asking for their inheritance in advance. Using the money they go on a world cruise and get into a series of misadventures.

Dracula (1931)

After a harrowing ride through the Carpathian mountains in eastern Europe, Renfield enters castle Dracula to finalize the transferral of Carfax Abbey in London to Count Dracula, who is in actuality a vampire. Renfield is drugged by the eerily hypnotic count, and turned into one of his thralls, protecting him during his sea voyage to London. After sucking the blood and turning the young Lucy Weston into a vampire, Dracula turns his attention to her friend Mina Seward, daughter of Dr. Seward who then calls in a specialist, Dr. Van Helsing, to diagnose the sudden deterioration of Mina’s health.

Charlie Chan Carries On (1931)

Charlie steps in to solve the murder of a wealthy American found dead in a London hotel. Settings include London, Nice, San Remo, Honolulu and Hong Kong. Fast-paced with lots of wisecracking.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Based on the story by Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Henry Jekyll believes that there are two distinct sides to men – a good and an evil side. He believes that by separating the two man can become liberated. He succeeds in his experiments with chemicals to accomplish this and transforms into Hyde to commit horrendous crimes.

Mata Hari (1931)

Paris, 1917. Mata Hari, the notorious erotic dancer, appears here as an exotic, capricious, self-confident temptress who spies for Germany (when she feels like it). Russian General Shubin is besotted with her, knowing himself a traitor; her latest conquest, Russian courier Alexis Rosanoff, meets less encouragement, until she learns that he is to fly home with crucial dispatches. Will she remember that “a spy in love is a tool that has outlived its usefulness”?

Mickey Mouse - Mickey's Orphans (1931)

Christmas; Mickey and Minnie are singing carols. Someone drops a basket on the doorstep that has what seems like hundreds of kittens; they quickly overrun the house. Mickey dresses as Santa, with Pluto as a reindeer, and brings gifts for the kittens. The kittens form a marching band, using kitchen implements; other kittens take saws, hammers, and other tools to the furniture. A kitten uses his toy steam shovel to drop a hot coal down Mickey’s pants; two more come up with a toy fire engine. Mickey unveils the tree; the kittens swarm over it and strip it bare.

The Maltese Falcon (1931)

Sam Spade is quite the womanizer. When his secretary tells him the new customer waiting outside his office is a knockout, he wastes no time before seeing her. It turns out she’s a knockout with money. And she wants to spend it on his services as a private detective. She has some story about wanting to protect her sister. Neither he nor his partner, Miles Archer, believes it. But with the money she’s paying, who cares? The job proves to be more dangerous than either of them expected.

Le Million (1931)

Michel, a Parisian artist, is being hounded by numerous impatient creditors. To make things worse, when he is embracing the woman whose portrait he is painting, he is surprised by his indignant fiancée Béatrice. Suddenly, Michel learns that he holds the winning ticket in the Dutch Lottery. But when he goes to retrieve the ticket from the pocket of his jacket, he finds that Béatrice has given the jacket to a stranger who was in need. Now everyone has a keen interest in finding that jacket.

Laurel and Hardy - Another fine Mess (1930)

The 1930 Laurel & Hardy 3-reeler Another Fine Mess is a remake of the team’s 1927 effort Duck Soup—which, in turn, was based on “Home from the Honeymoon”, a vaudeville sketch written in 1908 by Stan Laurel’s father. Escaping from an angry cop, Stan and Ollie take refuge in a posh East Side mansion. It turns out that this is the home of great white hunter Colonel Buckshot (James Finlayson), who has just gone on an expedition to Africa, leaving his butler and maid with instructions to rent the mansion in his absence.

The Bat Whispers (1930)

Despite advance warning to the police, who seal off the area, The Bat, a master criminal, steals a necklace from the safe in the house of a rich socialite. He leaves a note saying he is going to the country to give the police a rest. Pausing only to rob a bank at Oakdale, he proceeds to terrorise the occupants of a lonely country mansion, in a mixture of thrills, chills and laughs. At the end, an actor steps forward through a proscenium arch and asks the viewers not to reveal the Bat’s identity to their friends. A film noir shot in black and white, mainly at night in dimly lit scenes.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

This is an English language film (made in America) adapted from a novel by German author Erich Maria Remarque. The film follows a group of German schoolboys, talked into enlisting at the beginning of World War 1 by their jingoistic teacher. The story is told entirely through the experiences of the young German recruits and highlights the tragedy of war through the eyes of individuals. As the boys witness death and mutilation all around them, any preconceptions about “the enemy” and the “rights and wrongs” of the conflict disappear, leaving them angry and bewildered.

The Blood of a Poet - Le sang d'un poète (1930)

Jean Cocteau’s “the Blood of a Poet” is a very strange film. Even by todays standards, but I can’t imagine the response in 1930. The film was funded by the same producer of Bunuel/Dali’s “L Age D Or”(1930). Cocteau considered the film expressionism even though it feels like surrealism. His goal was to film a poem. In the beginning of the film we witness a chimney collapse. Then we are introduced to an artist. He is doing a sketch and erases the mouth. The mouth appears on his hand and starts to talk. Then when his hand touches the statue, it comes to life. He enters the mirror and it takes him to a strange hotel, behind each door is something bizarre happening. One room a boy is trying to fly, another room there’s a strange man with a spiral. Then the artist goes crazy and shoots himself.

Animal Crackers (1930)

Captain Spaulding, the noted explorer, returns from Africa and attends a gala party held by Mrs. Rittenhouse. A painting displayed at that party is stolen, and the Marxes help recover it. Well, maybe 'help' isn't quite the word I was looking for--this is the Marx Brothers, after all...

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

In this fable-morality subtitled "A Song of Two Humans", the "evil" temptress is a city woman who bewitches farmer Anses and convinces him to murder his neglected wife, Indre. After Anses comes to his senses - just as he is about to kill Indre - the married couple renew their love in the city.