Theda Bara

Sin

Herbert Brenon

Theda Bara, William E. Shay

Italian peasant girl deserts her fiancé for wealthy gangster and departs for America.

Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films

Baby Peggy, Heather Linville

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).

The She Devil

J. Gordon Edwards

Theda Bara, Alan Roscoe

Lolette an exotic and spirited peasant girl lives In the small Spanish village of Juanguera . Although ardently courted by the native swains, and particularly a bandit called The Tiger, Lolette prefers Maurice Tabor, a French artist who has come to Juanguera to paint. Because he refuses to take her to Paris, Lolette accepts a gift of stolen jewels from The Tiger and follows Maurice to France.

The Film Parade

J. Stuart Blackton

Kent Stevenson, Charlie Chaplin

Pioneer filmmaker J. Stuart Blackton was intrigued by the idea of a film about the history of the movies as early as 1915. He finally released a 52-minute feature called The Film Parade that was shown in New York and favorably reviewed by "Variety" in 1933. He continued tinkering with the film for the rest of the decade, and later filmmakers and distributors used Blackton's footage for stock or to produce their own variously titled and truncated versions. -UCLA Film & Television Archive

The Woman with the Hungry Eyes

Hugh Munro Neely

Theda Bara

The true story of the life of the movies first femme-fatale, Theda Bara, who made over 40 films, only a handful of which survive. Born in America, her film producers insisted she was an exotic foreigner, born in Egypt. Her most famous film was "Cleopatra" (Fox, 1917).

The Galley Slave

J. Gordon Edwards

Theda Bara, Stuart Holmes

Francesca Brabaut, who married an artist against her father's advice, regrets her decision when her husband Antoine, in debt, sends her to his misanthropic uncle to plead for money.

Destruction

Will S. Davis

Theda Bara, J. Herbert Frank

Fernande marries a man and schemes to get his wealth when his expected death occurs. But he dies before he can change his will. She next tries to kill the son who inherits, but he outfoxes her.

The Soul of Buddha

J. Gordon Edwards

Theda Bara, Victor Kennard

Theda Bara plays a Javanese priestess who elopes with an English military officer (Hugh Thompson). Bara's Bavahari becomes a celebrated dancer but is murdered onstage by a vengeful Buddhist priest (Victor Kennard).

Romeo and Juliet

J. Gordon Edwards

Theda Bara, Harry Hilliard

Shakespeare's tragedy of two young people who fall desperately in love despite the ancient feud between their two families.

The Love Goddesses

Saul J. Turell

Carl King, Agnes Ayres

This insightful documentary features some of the major and most beautiful actresses to grace the silver screen. It shows how the movie industry changed its depiction of sex and actresses' portrayal of sex from the silent movie era to the present. Classic scenes are shown from the silent movie 'True Heart Susie,' starring Lillian Gish, to 'Love Me Tonight' (1932), blending sex and sophistication, starring Jeanette MacDonald (pre-Nelson Eddy), and to Elizabeth Taylor in 'A Place in the Sun' (1951), plus much , much more.

The Vixen

J. Gordon Edwards

Theda Bara, Herbert Heyes

In this lost film, Theda Bara took the role of spoiled, deceiving nymphomaniac "vixen" Elsie Drummond. She wooed Wall Street businessman Martin Stevens (A. H. Van Buren) away from his interest in her sweet sister Helen (Mary G. Martin). She continued to seek after rich men, eventually marrying young statesman Knowles Murray (Herbert Heyes) (again stolen from Helen) - but still willing to be unfaithful with Stevens who had since regained his fortune. (filmsite.org)

Madame Du Barry

J. Gordon Edwards

Theda Bara, Charles Clary

After Jeanette becomes the mistress of the ambitious Jean du Barry, he marries her off to one of his cousins so that she has an entre to the royal court. She soon becomes the favorite of the King and Jean du Barry becomes a regular around the court too. But all this is disturbed when Madame du Barry falls for Conte Brissac of the King's Guard. Jean du Barry's attempts to expose her affair only get him banished from the court.

Cleopatra

J. Gordon Edwards

Theda Bara, Fritz Leiber

The story of Cleopatra, the fabulous queen of Egypt, and the epic romances between her and the greatest men of Rome, Julius Caesar and Antony.

The Eternal Sapho

Bertram Bracken

Theda Bara, James Cooley

A scheme by a beautiful vamp to marry a wealthy young man fails, and the woman returns to her former lover, a sculptor. She is shocked to discover he has committed suicide, and the tragedy catapults her into insanity.

Under Two Flags

J. Gordon Edwards

Theda Bara, Herbert Heyes

The Legion's mascot, Cigarette falls for an Englishman, Bertie Cecil (Herbert Heyes), and when he is sentenced to a firing squad, she heroically takes the bullet herself.

Salome

J. Gordon Edwards

Theda Bara, G. Raymond Nye

Palestine, under the rule of Rome. Salome, daughter of Herodias and both niece and stepdaughter of King Herod, becomes infatuated with the prophet John the Baptist, who publicly denounces the depravity of the royal family and proclaims the arrival of a new messiah. (Film presumed lost.)