Alice Joyce

A compilation of thirteen rare silent films digitized by the Library of Congress, selected for the 2022 Domitor conference theme “Copy/Rights and Early Cinema.” Drawn from nitrate and safety film, the program spans comedies, trick films, and dramas exploring censorship, invention, adaptation, and social rights. Titles include: Pruning the Movies (Nestor, 1914); Imperial Japanese Dance (Edison, 1894); Early Edison Camera Tests (Edison, c.1890s); Censorship and its Absurdities (Edison, 1915); In Wrong (Crystal, 1914, dir. Phillips Smalley); Tillie’s Tomato Surprise (Lubin, 1915, dir. Howell Hansell); Indian Land Grab (Champion, 1910); The Stolen Play (Falcon Features, 1917, dir. Harry Harvey); And the Villain Still Pursued Her (Vitagraph, 1906, dir. J. Stuart Blackton); The Doll’s Revenge (Hepworth, 1907, dir. Lewin Fitzhamon); The Disintegrated Convict (Vitagraph, 1907); The Mexican Joan of Arc (Kalem, 1911, dir. Kenean Buel); and Fads and Fashions of 1900 (U.S., 1940s).

Broken hearts in Ireland. Sean is a great tenor, in semi-retirement, living in a village close to Mary, the woman he’s always loved. Mary’s aunt convinced her to marry a man for his money; he has recently deserted her, leaving her penniless. She and her two children, Eileen and Tad, move in with the selfish and austere aunt. Eileen is falling in love with Fergus, a young man who’s off to Dublin to seek his fortune. Sean is drawn out of retirement and goes on tour in America. At his first concert, he’s nervous and out of sorts until the last song, when peace descends on him like a gift. What has happened, and can family life be set right?

An airplane carrying three Brits crash lands in the kingdom of Rukh. The Rajah holds them prisoner because the British are about to execute his three half-brothers in neighboring India.

A novelist has to choose between his wealthy patron and a penniless romantic.

A fiesty, sexy and manipulative gypsy disrupts the lives of a conservative farm family.

A major and his wife return from abroad and pose as servants to observe their adolescent children.

In this suspenseful silent crime drama, a hijacker proves his loyalty to his mother by killing his biological father, a blackmailing gangster who has been threatening to destroy the mother's happy marriage to the governor.

In this comedy, a wealthy matron is terribly upset when she learns that her socialite son is planning to marry a blue collar girl.

Stephen Sorrell, a decorated war hero, raises his son Kit alone after Kit's mother deserts husband and child in the boy's infancy. Sorrell loses a promising job offer and is forced to take work as a menial. Both his dignity and his health are damaged as he suffers under the exhausting labor and harsh treatment he receives as a hotel porter. But Sorrell thrives in the knowledge that his son will benefit from his labors. Sorrell has allowed the boy to believe his mother dead, but when the mother shows up, wanting to re-enter the young man's life, Sorrell must make hard decisions. Preserved and restored by the Academy Film Archive in 2004.

Gregory La Cava directs this comedy of errors, starring W.C. Fields as a hen-pecked, inebriated inventor who triumphantly creates unbreakable windshield glass while struggling to gain the respect of his social-climbing daughter and nagging wife.