A Petal on the Current

Man Under Cover

Paul Porter and his swindler friend Daddy Moffat visit Paul's hometown and find an old friend, Holt Langdon, local bank cashier, in trouble over oil investments. Because of his friendship and love for Langdon's sister, Margaret, Paul resolves to help him by robbing the bank. Finding Holt a victim of suicide inside the bank, he makes it appear that Holt died defending the premises. Paul determines to reform, and he aids Margaret by buying a local newspaper. When two confidence men induce the populace to invest in a fake oil well scheme, Paul and Daddy Moffat, with the help of lawyer Colonel Culpepper, start another phony oil well and force the confidence men to buy it out at a high price. Paul returns the townspeople's money and tells Margaret the story; she then agrees to marry him.

The Unpainted Woman

Gudrun works in the American wheat country as a hired girl to Mrs. Hawes. Charley Holt, the son of a rich family, takes the Swedish girl to a dance where she is snubbed by his mother and sister. Furious by his elitist relatives, Charley marries Gudrun and gets a menial job as a mill worker.

Freaks

A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him for his inheritance.

The Unknown

On the lam, criminal Alonzo hides in the circus as The Armless Wonder—a performer who uses his feet to hurl knives. Alonzo keeps the arms he really has concealed to hide his identity. Meanwhile, ringmaster's daughter Nanon has a phobia of being touched by men, but is romantically pursued by not only Alonzo but the strongman Malabar. Alonzo's desperation to remain with Nanon will only end in tragedy.

The Big Parade of Comedy

Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.

Dracula

A British estate agent travels to Transylvania to meet the mysterious Count Dracula, who is interested in leasing a London castle. After Dracula enslaves the agent and drives him to insanity, the pair return to London together, where Dracula, a secret bloodsucker, begins preying on socialites.

Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.

Dollar Down

Just before he propelled the crime melodrama to new, macabre heights in The Unholy Three, Browning directed this partially lost morality tale pertaining to a different kind of horror: that of a middle-class family living beyond their means and falling prey to moneylenders. Produced by and starring Ruth Roland for FBO Studios, a small operation that later became RKO Pictures, Dollar Down follows Roland as the spendthrift daughter of a manufacturing firm’s general manager (Henry Walthall), who pawns a ring purchased on credit to throw an extravagant party and sends the family’s livelihood into a tailspin. Because its last reel completely disintegrated before it could be copied, the film remains an ultra-rare curio that nonetheless captures an important chapter in Browning’s career before his successful string of films made for MGM.

Drifting

In Shanghai, an American girl who helps run an opium ring meets an American agent disguised as a mining engineer. The two fall in love, and she has to determine where her loyalties lie.

Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces

Lon Chaney, the silent movie star and makeup artist, renowned for his various characterizations and celebrated for his horror films, becomes the subject of this documentary.

The Devil-Doll

Respected Parisian banker Paul Lavond is framed for robbery and murder by crooked associates and sent to prison. Years later, he escapes with a friend, a scientist who was working on a method to reduce humans to a height of mere inches (all for the good of humanity, of course). Lavond, however, is consumed with hatred for those who betrayed him, and takes the scientist's methods back to Paris to exact painful revenge.

The Unholy Three

Three sideshow performers form a conspiracy known as "The Unholy Three" - a ventriloquist, midget, and strongman working together to commit a series of robberies.

The Blackbird

Two thieves, the Blackbird and West End Bertie, fall in love with the same girl, a French nightclub performer named Fifi. Each man tries to outdo the other to win her heart.

The Road to Mandalay

Joe, a former sea captain whose wife died during the birth of their child at sea, is now a pockmarked, disreputable divekeeper in Singapore where he indulges in shady operations with Herrick, known as The Admiral. They ship for Mandalay, where Joe's daughter lives with a priest, Father James, and tends a curio shop, unaware that her father regularly sends money to Father James for her support. Although his daughter clearly finds him abhorrent, Joe determines to take her away until he learns that The Admiral has fallen in love with her and plans to marry her. He persuades Father James (actually his brother) not to perform the ceremony, and The Admiral is shanghaied by Joe's men. The girl, suspecting Joe, goes to his brothel in Singapore and is about to be assaulted by Charlie, a lecherous Chinaman, when Joe intervenes and is stabbed. The Admiral comes to her rescue and escapes with her on a boat.

Mark of the Vampire

Sir Borotyn, a prominent Prague resident, is discovered murdered in his home, with all indications pointing to a vampire assault. The victim's friend, Baron Otto, and the physician who analyzes the body, are certain that the vampire is the mysterious Count Mora or his daughter. Receiving little help from the law, Professor Zelen, an expert in the occult, is called in to assist with their investigation.

Iron Man

Prizefighter Mason loses his opening fight so wife Rose leaves him for Hollywood. Without her around Mason trains and starts winning. Rose comes back and wants Mason to dump his manager Regan and replace him with her secret lover Lewis.

Die Nibelungen: Siegfried

Siegfried, son of King Siegmund of Xanten, travels to Worms, capital of the Burgundian kingdom, to ask King Gunther for the hand of his sister, the beautiful Kriemhild.

Way Down East

A naive country girl is tricked into a sham marriage by a wealthy womanizer, then must rebuild her life despite the taint of having borne a child out of wedlock.

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

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.

Calle Malaga

Maria Angeles, a 79-year-old Spanish woman, lives alone in Tangier, Morocco, and enjoys her daily routine. However, her life is turned upside down when her daughter arrives from Madrid to sell the apartment in which she has always lived. Determined to stay, she does everything she can to get her home and her belongings back and, unexpectedly, rediscovers love and sensuality.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Set in the years before and during World War I, this epic tale tells the story of a rich Argentine family, one of its two descending branches being half of French heritage, the other being half German. Following the death of the family patriarch, the man's two daughters and their families resettle to France and Germany, respectively. In time the Great War breaks out, putting members of the family on opposing sides.

The Cameraman

A photographer takes up newsreel shooting to impress a secretary.

The Wind

When Letty Mason relocates to West Texas, she finds herself unsettled by the ever-present wind and sand. Arriving at her new home at the ranch of her cousin, Beverly, she receives a surprisingly cold welcome from his wife, Cora. Soon tensions in the family and unwanted attention from a trio of suitors leave Letty increasingly disturbed.