This short traces the history of sound in the movies, beginning with French scientist Leon Scott's experiments in 1857. Featured are snippets from early sound pictures.

Just before the scheduled electrocution of stockbroker Kenneth Avery for the murder of Mazie Lawrence, Nan Perry makes one last plea to the governor for a stay of execution and relates the incidents that led to Mazie's death. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

Vacationing in the Canadian Northwest, a playwright and a songwriter both fall in love with Marie Cleste and take her back with them to New York when her father and her sweetheart apparently die in a forest fire. (The father did perish; the sweetheart escaped, crippled, with his blinded Indian guide into the forest to hide his infirmities.)

Eddie is conned into fronting a speakeasy for a local gangster who intends to frame him for the murder of a cop.

The Devil's Skipper was based on Demetrios Contos, a seafaring yarn by Jack London. Effectively cast against type, Belle Bennett plays a wronged woman who becomes the most brutal and feared slave-ship captain on the Seven Seas.

This is a farce, concerning itself with a young husband and a wife who are becoming stranged over money matters. A stenographer, Vera, overheats her bosses’ client say she cannot stay in Reno the necessary three months to get a divorce, offering $1,000 to the one who will impersonate her there. Vera takes the job - but the woman’s husband, not knowing, also comes...

Pertio, an Argentine dancer, has a severely scarred face that has kept him from succeeding in his chosen career. He is persuaded by Caricia, an Argentine dancer who has become a star, to have a plastic surgeon repair his face. The surgery is successful and the two dancers team up both professionally and personally. However, the doctor who performed the operation has fallen madly in love with Caricia, and his determination to have her leads him to perform a procedure on Pertio that makes his scars reappear.

A two-reel version of 1925's Pampered Youth. Included on Criterion's Blu-ray release of Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons.

The second of Thomas Meighan's three 1927 vehicles, We're All Gamblers was also the first of two collaborations between Meighan and director James Cruze. Based on Lucky Sam McCarver, a play by Sidney Howard, the story concerns a refugee of the Lower East Side who rises to the uppermost rungs of the nightclub world, all for the sake of a "dame." Boxer Sam McCarver (Meighan) falls in love with society girl Carlotta Asche (Mariette Mische).

Part of a 7-part series exploring all aspects of Hollywood.

Cullen Landis starred in this silent Western melodrama about a prizefighter accused of cowardice who toughens up on a Western ranch.

Cullen Landis stars as rookie fireman Danny Grogan. Though well-liked by his colleagues, Danny is openly despised by one of the smoke-eaters, who has a yen for our hero's sweetheart.

When her circus-performer parents die in an accident, Christine (Pauline Garon) is raised by other circus-performers, including Hagan, a balloon-vender, and Pete Barman as her guardians. When she grows up, she asks to also become a performer, and Barman agrees. Bob Hastings (Cullen Landis) joins the traveling circus as its doctor, and he and Christine fall in love. This angers Barman, who is also in love with her.

Silent film of the events of The Alamo

The railroad is building a new line, but the workers are unhappy. That's because one of the board members, hoping to oust the man in charge of the project (Rapley), has a saboteur on site. Rapley's daughter, Rose, sneaks out to the project to become their telegraph operator and, with the help of the supervisor, "Sunrise" Smith, eventually discovers the plot and helps catch the bad guys amid several thrilling train chases.

The story that inspired Albert Chevalier to write his immortal Costermonger song, 'My Old Dutch', is the story this picture tells of London's quaint and sturdy tradesmen - her humble vegetable peddlers

When Buffalo Bill Cody learns that the Union Pacific railroad is making its way through Kansas, he and other heroes of the Wild West join forces to build a town along the route.

The speed of lightning; the roar of thunder; the thrills of an earthquake; it's "The midnight flyer".

After the death of her brother, "Tommy" Carlton makes the acquaintance of a neighbor, Harold Graypon, who invites her to a party. Tommy, who is a bit of a hoyden, attends the party in overalls and shocks the guests. Tommy is later ejected from her home and takes refuge in a shack in the mountains, where she makes rustic furniture for a living. Despite the interference of Grace, Tommy and Harold finds happiness with each other.

Irene, a young girl from a small town, arrives in New York City determined to make it on the Broadway stage. She meets up with Cookie, a worldly chorus girl who takes Irene under her wing. When Irene falls for young Ronald, his rival Crane sets out to break up the pair so he can have Irene for his own--and he doesn't much care how he does it.

An silent adaptation of Booth Tarkington's "The Magnificent Ambersons."

Refusing to join his family in their new social life when Henry Dillingham suddenly becomes wealthy, Donald Dillingham causes even greater disapproval by marrying chorus girl Ardell Kendall. Learning that famous sculptor Gustaf Borgstrom wishes to use Ardell as model, the Dillinghams suddenly welcome Donald and Ardell to their estate. Donald surrenders to both the jazzy pleasures and the attentions of Maybelle Wescott, but Ardell remains aloof and in order to pay off Maybelle threatens Mr. Dillingham with exposure of his infatuation with a chorus girl.

When a wealthy young lady leaves the US to visit her aunt in France, her husband falls in love with a "flapper". When the wife returns home, she finds out about her husband's affair. In order to make him jealous, she leads him to believe she has fallen for a jazz musician. However, instead of making him jealous it drives him into depression and he takes refuge in booze and even more affairs.

A naive youngster is sold a phony mine.

Southerner Tom Rumford was sent up north to be raised by relatives who happen to be Quakers. As a result, he returns home a passive, peace-loving young man, completely out of place in an area where men kill over issues of honor.

The Man Life Passed By (1923)

Shortly after being made the executor of a wealthy man's estate, a man murders his benefactor. He then makes a play for the widow, who rebuffs him. To escape his arduous pursuit, she takes her little daughter on a trip but dies in an auto accident. The daughter is rescued but disappears. Her grandparents spend years looking for her, as does the executor who killed her father--if she's found she'll inherit the estate and he won't get a penny. He aims to see that she's never found, and if she is he plans to see that she doesn't live long enough to make a claim to the estate.

This northwoods comedy-drama, by way of a circus drama, was directed by John Griffith Wray for Thomas H. Ince, and stars Madge Bellamy.

Jack is orphaned as a young child when his wagon train is ambushed by Indians. Twenty years later, he rescues Rose from a runaway stagecoach. The two fall in love, much to the displeasure of Blaney. To put him out of the way, Blaney kills Jack's adoptive mother and frames Jack for the crime.

Crashin' Thru is a silent Western

A silent film drama based on the Broadway play of the same name by James Forbes..

Silent World War I (WWI) romantic melodrama (based on the novel by William Dudley Pelly) .

Jealous of her son Oliver's interest in Penelope Mason, Mrs. Newell takes him to a resort where he is easy prey for designing Enid Morton. After some near-disastrous situations with Enid's suspicious husband, Penelope comes to Oliver's rescue at Mrs. Newell's request.

Although he graduated from that time-worn university, the college of hard knocks, the tireless efforts of John P. Grout have paid off. He owns a number of department stores and his wife and children are well provided for. However, his family is completely ungrateful and takes him -- and his money -- for granted. Grout's attempts to keep them all happy are driving him to bankruptcy and he eventually becomes seriously ill. Eventually his wife and kids come to realize how badly they've treated Pops.....

Doris May plays Fanchon Browne, a poor girl about to enter into a marriage of convenience with wealthy old Peter Armitage (Otis Harlan). When she falls in love with Armitage's handsome nephew Peter (Cullen Landis), Fanchon is in quite a quandary.

Elmer Slocum has just served a jail sentence for speeding. On his first day of liberty he encounters a physician whose car has broken down and offers to take him to his patient; he is pursued by motorcops for speeding, wrecks his car in a closed street, and knocks down and believes he has killed a policeman. Elmer boards a freight train and makes his way to a small town in Iowa, where he meets Margaret Andrews.....

Garry Beecher, forgetting his mother and sweetheart, Lorna, falls in love with Veronica, a chorus girl, and heads for the city; finding her with a millionaire, he returns home and robs his former employer, then returns to Veronica and begins a career of reckless spending. When he is unable to pay for a diamond necklace, Garry is threatened with arrest and is betrayed by Veronica.

Voices of the City is a 1921 American silent crime drama film starring Leatrice Joy and Lon Chaney that was directed by Wallace Worsley. It is considered to be a lost film.

A romantic rivalry among members of a secret society becomes even more tense when one of the men is assigned to carry out an assassination.

A mother raises her six children and one by one lets them go out into the world. Their failures and successes fill her life, but she grows lonely without them. Then when one of the children has a surprise to announce, they all return home to be with their mother.

Hugh Garth hides from the law in the frozen Canadian northwest along with his young brother Pete and Pete's former nurse, Bella, who loves Hugh unrequitedly. When a lost and snowblind girl stumbles into their camp, Hugh falls in love with her and misleads her as to the age and relationship of Pete and Bella, in hopes of keeping the girl's attentions directed at himself. But when the girl's sight returns, she realizes the truth and discovers that Pete has fallen in love with her. But Hugh's cruel nature now threatens them both.

A woman named Bunty Bigger struggles to keep her family in line in a small Scottish village. For one, her brother Jeemy faces jail time for robbing a bank. Meanwhile, her father, Tammas, pays back the stolen money with funds given him by Susie Simpson, a woman who hopes to marry him. Susie gets angry, so Bunty borrows money to pay her back. Things turn out well when Bunty gets married in a double-wedding ceremony—during which her father not only gives her away but gets married himself. The movie is based on a play by Graham Moffat. The film is lost.

At a boys' boarding school, young Stoddard and his pal "The Wop" develop a scheme to get rich after "The Wop" finds a pearl in an oyster in a restaurant.

When Pinto reaches her eighteenth birthday, the five wealthy Arizonans who adopted her upon the death of her parents decide that ranch life will never make a lady of her. Their old friend Pop Audry, formerly of Arizona and now a member of New York society, agrees to provide Pinto with the necessary education. Accordingly, Pinto and her cowboy nursemaid Looey are dispatched to New York where they lose Audry's address. ...

The circus comes to town, and the town's orphans are treated to a day at the circus. The circus troupe's 'Jinx' girl causes so many problems for the performers and performances that, to escape punishment, she has to run away. She mingles with the orphans and runs away to join an orphanage.

A New England schoolteacher arrives in a small Southern town. He becomes the savior of several local people in time of emergency, including a young who is oppressed by the unwelcome romantic intentions of a local ne'er-do-well. The teacher pretends to marry the girl to fool the unwanted suitor, but then finds that the marriage was inadvertently legal....

While working as a dishwasher in a fashionable New York hotel, Elsie MacFarland often sneaks upstairs to enviously peek at the people dancing to jazz music. Seeing the attractive Elsie dressed in a boy's uniform, wealthy Lemuel Stallings wagers a friend that he can get Elsie onto the dance floor....

The owner of a gambling hall is entrusted with the care of a pretty young girl. He falls in love with her, but he must decide whether to let her go to his best friend, with whom he believes her to be in love, or to try to win her for himself.

William Russell plays Cliff Redfern, a hard-ridin' Westerner who takes a liking to Easterner Ned Caldwell (Cullen Landis), the dissolute son of a wealthy cattle rancher. Certain that all Caldwell needs to become a "real man" is a dose of frontier life, Cliff kidnaps Ned and brings him back to the wide open spaces.

Eleanor Field and Cullen Landis are in love, but her father, Billy Bevan, objects because.... hey this is a one-reel comedy and we don't have time for things like that. After he sneaks past Bevan, the young couple decide to force the issue. The pastor next door has small pox, so they paint marks on each other's face. Bevan catches on and with the aid of a cooperative beat officer, he does his best to scare them.

A Billie Rhodes comedy produced by Strand. Billy Bevan plays the farmer's son.

Mary's sweetheart, Jack, is in the village jail for speeding, and Mary's dad, who didn't like Jack, saw that he was kept there. Mary captured two burglars and forced them to liberate Jack and put dad in jail. They then proceed to smoke out father with a smudge-pot until he consents to the wedding.

A comedy in which the widow Mary makes a bet with her friends that she can win over a writer named Jack.

A silent 15-part movie serial.