A montage of 13 remarkable short films recently digitized by the Library of Congress, whose themes echo the program of the Domitor 2022 conference, entitled "Copy/rights and early cinema"

Dan Matthews (Richard Arlen), a young parson, is in love with Hope Strong (Charlotte Wynters), the daughter of James B. Strong ('FRederick Burton'), a man who controls the town with his real estate and business interests. Strong is an upstanding citizen who has fallen into the hands of a clever racketeer, Jeff Hardy (Douglass Dumbrille), who acts as Strong's manager of some innocent-appearing amusement places that are really secret dens of vice.

A disparate group of people meet as passengers on a superspeed train crossing the U.S. Aboard are a seductive blackmailer and the stage director he intends to frame, a woman chasing her husband who is running away with the blackmail victim, and the stage director's feisty leading lady.

A publisher bets an author that he won't be able to write a romantic adventure novel while on a walking trip from New York to San Francisco.

A reporter sets out to provide how unreliable circumstantial evidence is by faking a murder and then taking the rap for it. However, the "fake" murder victim turns out to be really dead

"Chick" Thompson is a puppet-master in a traveling carnival whose wife dies in childbirth and leaves him with an infant son he names "Poochy." His father-in-law and the baby's grandfather sues him for custody of the baby and Chick takes his son and hides out for a couple of years. He joins his former assistants, Daisy and "Fingers", in a circus act only to find that the persistent grandfather is still on his trail.

A naive farmer encounters a beautiful burlesque dancer on the streets of New York and agrees to pose as her husband during her mother's visit.

A parade highlights the Screen Actors Guild's Film Stars Frolic, hosted by Walter Winchell as Master of Ceremonies.

A man who wants to join the circus against the wishes of his ex-circus clown father.

A beautiful chorine marries a handsome rich socialite, but her idyllic life ends when she visits a dying old beau and is charged when he commits suicide.

A lovesick fool bumbles into espionage and finds a stolen plane.

A wealthy recluse dies in her New York mansion, leaving an estate worth $50 million. Shortly after, various people turn up claiming to be the rightful heir to her fortune.

When Mark 'High Gear' Sherrod (Murray) looses his nerve, the race car driver takes a job driving a taxi, but when he befriends a cute reporter and the young handicapped son of a deceased driver, he attempts to return to the track.

Joe Tomasso is an Italian-American bookmaker and gambler who, outwardly, is hard but soft-hearted inwardly. He becomes fond of a homeless waif, Jackie Curtis, and begins to look upon him as the son he never had. But when Jackie's mother appears, Joe has a hard decision to make.

An ex-con makes for a backwoods town intending to rob the bank, and becomes involved in protecting three orphans from land swindlers instead.

A small-town girl schemes to get to Hollywood only to run into the man she left behind.

A young writer saves a desperate young woman from committing suicide. They eventually fall in love and marry, but their marriage faces some serious roadblocks.

When a movie actor is shot and killed during production, the true feelings about the actor begin to surface. As the studio heads worry about negative publicity, one of the writers tags along as the killing is investigated and clues begin to surface.

Jack Oakie plays Eddie Doyle, a gumball machine salesman who marries Pat Smith (Shirley Grey) knowing full well that the girl is on the rebound from a failed romance with aspiring Jewish doctor Max Silver (Leon Ames). But when Pat is nearly killed in an effort to protect her husband's gumball machines from hoodlums and is in need of a lifesaving operation, Eddie calls on Dr. Max

A reporter runs into a pretty young girl who has inherited her father's failing business. She wants to give it up, but he tries to convince her to make a go of it.

On her first night as a dockside dancer, Mary Foster loses her job when she tries to fend of the advances of first mate Groder. On the street and being pursued by a Policeman who thinks she is a prostitute, Mary seeks shelter on an old freighter. She is soon discovered by second mate Tommy and they quickly fall in love, but with first mate Groder lurking around will their lives work out in the end?

A crippled puppeteer rescues an abused young boy and turns the boy into a great ballet dancer. Complications ensue when, as a young man, the dancer falls in love with a young woman the puppeteer is also in love with.

A pair of hapless half-wits get into continuous mischief during the occupation of Germany after WW I.

Ted is riding for Pa Martin against Cooper in the big race. When Cooper has his men capture Ted, Peggy overhears them and sets out to free Ted in time for the race.

Bill is a hot shot dancer who partners with Jazzbo, until he sees Molly at the dance. He enters the Waltz with Molly and wins first prize - and they wind up being married that same night. Now they are free of their parents nagging and their own bosses. 24 hours - no dancing as in-laws are visiting. 24 days - the Apartment is finished so off to the Hoffman's Parisian Dance Palace. Molly can only dance the Waltz and not the hot new jazz dance so she leaves and Bill follows. They are both unhappy, Bill has two left feet when it comes to romance.

A young girl falls in love with a member of a gang of crooks. She determines to bring the rest of the gang to justice so she can save the man she loves.

A bootlegger on the run from the law hides out on a college campus. He disguises himself as a student and soon becomes the school's star athlete and the most popular man on campus.

Misadventures of a bogus flyer.

A dance trophy winning young couple is temporarily split up when a playboy aviator leads the girl to believe he's in love with her.

In this romance set in Russia, a fisherman's daughter is jilted by her true love and instead marries a baron. Time passes and the two men meet each other in Siberia where they have both been exiled. When the poorer man has the opportunity to come home, he changes places with the baron so that he can return to his wife. Unbeknownst to him, she has gone to the frozen wasteland to search for him.

Three Broadway chorus girls seek rich husbands.

With unpaid actors and staff, the stage show Phantom Sweetheart seems doomed. To complicate matters, the box office takings have been robbed and the leading lady refuses to appear. Can the show be saved?

A young woman is shocked to discover that her mother, who she always believed was a stylish and successful member of upper-crust society, is actually a dance-hall "hostess" at a low-class nightclub. Wanting revenge on her mother, she marries a brutal bootlegger, which causes her mother to do something that turns out to have dire consequences for everybody. This is reportedly a lost film.

She sought to conquer...but found Cupid her master! This is one of many lost films of the 1920s, no prints or Vitaphone discs survive, but the song with the same title and the trailer survives.

No Defense is a 1929 romantic drama directed by Lloyd Bacon and starring Monte Blue. It was a silent film with part talking and sound-effects by the Vitaphone Company. It was distributed by Warner Brothers.

A crime caper featuring the 'first family of Hollywood' - the Watsons.

Outcast is a 1928 silent film drama produced and distributed by First National Pictures. It was directed by William A. Seiter and stars Corinne Griffith, often considered one of the most beautiful women in film. This story had been filmed in 1917 as The World and the Woman with Jeanne Eagels. In 1922 a Paramount film of the same name with Elsie Ferguson reprising her stage role was released. Both films were based on a 1914 play, Outcast, by Hubert Henry Davies which starred Ferguson. The Seiter/Griffith film was an all silent with Vitaphone music and sound effects. In the sound era, the story was filmed once again as The Girl from 10th Avenue starring Bette Davis.

The lookout girl for the notorious Mowbray gang tries to leave her gangster past by marrying a wealthy doctor, but her past catches up with her very quickly when the gang finds her.

An aspiring dancer fakes her own kidnapping as a publicity stunt. Her new found fame causes trouble with her boyfriend.

A theatrical troupe from the west end of London loses its leading lady when she goes off to marry a rich young man from the other side of town. The rest of the play deals with the budding romance and trials and tribulations of their love, as well as the changing face of late-19th-century theatre.

Kelly's employer, Waters, is such a keen golfer that he asks Kelly to help him improve his game at an exclusive country club.

Minor silent action hero James F. Fulton starred in this low-budget melodrama distributed by Poverty Row company Hi-Mark. Fulton, who would later play The Air Mail Pilot and direct the airborne serial The Eagle of the Night (both 1928), here starred as a lumberjack whose thrill-seeking girlfriend (Ruth Clifford) is kidnapped by a romantic rival (Robert McKim).

When Tom Brown, a wealthy young bachelor with a reckless penchant for speed, wrecks his car in an accident, he is assisted by Mr. Smithfield… When he meets Ethel, Mr. Smithfield's beautiful daughter, Tom falls in love with her at first sight…

Susan Adams, who works as a pianist in a Broadway music store, has ambitions for a stage career. Arthur Bennett, famous theater producer and successful star-maker, calls her into his office to complain about her loud piano under him, and she haughty replies that if he gives her a chance on stage, she will do it.

Tom Eggett, with the help of his pals, Dick and Van, loses the last cent of his inheritance, is evicted from his apartment, and is rejected by Gwen, his fiancée. A codicil to his uncle's will, however, stipulates that he shall inherit the Eggett department store provided that he operate it for 3 months at a profit. Cyrus Crabb, manager of the store, is determined to gain possession of the business and arranges for the company's credit to be canceled during Tom's management, though Grace Gordon, a stenographer, has evidence of his perfidy.

Beautiful Dot Walker is part of a ring of crooks in San Francisco, who use her to lure impressionable young men into a crooked card game. Young Johnny has come to the big city to sell his grandmother's hotel back in his home town, but he falls under Dot's spell, gets suckered into the game and loses all his money. He asks his newfound "friends" to come back to his hometown to buy the hotel. They accept but are actually planning to swindle Johnny's grandmother out of her hotel. It turns out that Granny isn't quite the easy mark they thought she would be.

Aspiring author Prudence "Prue" Severn leaves her staid home for the wild life in New York's artistic Greenwich Village community. Her concerned family hires two thrill-seeking ex-doughboys, bow-tied Bartley "Bart" Greer and his trigger-happy buddy Lee, to look after her and, hopefully, persuade her to come home. They move into Prue's apartment building, where she lives with a sculptress pal. Although interested in Bart, Prue senses he is being paid to watch over her-- so she decides to elope with the handsome Rolf.

A young man gets engaged to a business competitor's daughter.

A young woman marries a rich young man. However, he doesn't trust her with money and won't let her have any of her own. Desperate, she turns to gambling and finally forgery. Complications ensue.

A model in an expensive clothing shop quarrels with another model, and an expensive gown is ruined. In order to pay for it, she asks her father, an artist, for the money. In order to get the money, the father gets mixed up with art thieves

"Lee [Moran] is a city chap who loves to go to the pace and is chagrined when an uncle leaves him his money provided he engages in farming. He has an inspiration and starts a farm on the roof of his apartment house, with a barn, farm vehicles, a donkey, a got and a lot of chickens." - Synopsis from Moving Picture World

Miss Devore plays Tommy, a young woman who runs a boarding house for her father, an inventor of eccentric devices, and the boarders are the usual collection of neurotics in such an effort.

Marjorie Stockton is a fickle flapper who has loads of suitors. She won't give any of them the time of day, however, until she meets her match in the equally fickle Monte Covington.

Roxbury asks his friend Terry to assume his identity and go on vacation with his wife, Edith, and their daughter. When Terry falls in love with Edith's sister, a scandal erupts at the resort.

Bank clerk Vincent Forrest loses his savings in a gambling den run by Madame Zoe and her provider, Van Merton. Forrest's wife Ann begins an affair with Merton when she discovers that Forrest is infatuated with Madame Zoe. Ann loses heavily gambling, but Vincent soon realizes what is happening in time to save his wife and to restore her happiness.

On the eve of the marriage of her daughter, Alita, Mrs. Allen, unhappily married for 25 years, advocates writer Fannie Hurst's widely publicized mode of living with her husband: only two breakfasts a week together and complete freedom otherwise.

William Harcourt loses all his money in a business transaction and is forced to dismiss his servants. Mr. and Mrs. Harcourt are about to entertain Richard Thayer and his fiancée, Bessie Lane, at dinner when there is received a message announcing the arrival of Montana millionaire Bill Bradford, a client of Harcourt's. Anxious to make a good impression, Harcourt and his wife disguise themselves as servants, while Thayer and his fiancée take the part of the Harcourts.

Dr. Arthur Poole is paid $1,000 per week to treat the neurotic and spoiled Angelica Starr. Angelica is infatuated with her doctor, so Poole, afraid of losing his big fee, does not tell her that he is already married.

Plumbers William Wilson and Joe Blynn are partners who share quite different ambitions. Will aspires to wealth and glamour while Joe is content with their plumbing business. While fixing a leak in the Hoban mansion, millionaire Hoban overhears Will's grumbling and offers the pair a chance to participate in a business deal.

John Smith inherits two million dollars from his wealthy aunt on the condition that he divorce his wife Lucille, a former vaudeville performer. In order to qualify for his inheritance, John concocts the idea of divorcing his wife and then remarrying her.

Although the Hervey oil company is nearly bankrupt, owner Bill Hervey is unconcerned because he is about to be married to Helen Gray and can think of nothing else. One day, while visiting his newly purchased home in the suburbs, he meets his neighbor, newlywed Annabelle Eaton, who asks Bill for a ride to a nearby chicken farm. Bill agrees, but when they reach the farm, they are locked in a room by a lunatic and forced to remain there overnight.

The night that Eddie's girl announces her engagement to her friends she plans a slumming party, which does not meet with Eddie's approval but the others are so in favor of it he is compelled to go.

Eddie Lyons and Lee Moran race to guarantee that a bride has everything she needs for the wedding to happen.

Eddie Lyons and Lee Moran and their wives share a house. After a disagreement they decide to split the house by drawing a line down the middle

Lyons and Moran Star Comedy produced by Universal.

Because Reggie is prone to drink, father severely scores him, and his patience reaches a climax when he is presented with a bill for damages Reggie has inflicted on a poor, inoffensive restaurant.

A look behind the scenes at Universal Studios in 1915.

A 1915 Victoria Forde comedy. As Lizzie (Forde) has a beautiful voice, everybody in her tiny hometown encourage her to try a career in show business in the big city. As she arrives there, she discovers she’s too clumsy to even be part of the chorus. Her small town boyfriend, Jeb (Lyons) follows her.

Alice receives an invitation from her grandfather, who is the minister of a small country church, to pay him a visit, which invitation she accepts. Mandy is loved by Jed, but her affections are with the deacon.

Colonel Bunk, after seeing his first movie, appoints himself “supreme censor of the movies” and he and his Board of Censors set to the task of “pruning” a movie (in more ways than one).

A 1914 comedy starring Eddie Lyons and Lee Moran. Bob (Lyons) steals a necklace from the woman he loves, Victoria, in order to give it back to her as a hero. Victoria’s father hires a detective (Moran) to find the thief - and detective and thief have the same fake beards!

Thus far Sophie has failed completely as a motion picture actress. She has spoiled every scene, but through the general manager she is to be given one more chance. She is sent to the border to act in Mexican war pictures.

The boys are fagged with the long summer's work and are undecided where to spend their vacation. One day Eddie is idly looking over the paper when he sees that a young man has met and married a wealthy heiress at the beach; suddenly, nothing but the beach will suit them. Eddie sees the boss and they are given permission to take a vacation.

Two sisters inherit a ranch and choose to manage it without male help

Almost a Rescue is a 1913 movie starring Donald MacDonald and Roscoe Arbuckle.

Dad has three charming daughters who fall in love with three eligible young men and moreover, promise to marry them, each couple selecting a perfectly lovely place for the proposal. All this while Dad has been courting Jennie. He proposes, too, and likewise he is accepted. They arrange to keep their engagement a secret. The boys all arrange to beard the lion in his den. Dad simulates a terrible rage and banishes them forever. The boys leave. The girls are in despair. They send for the boys to come and say good-bye. The boys are interrupted by the entrance of Dad and Jennie and are astonished to learn that the lady is to be their new mamma. The boys are allowed to replace the rings upon the girl's fingers once more, and general rejoicing is in order.

Eddy and his chauffeur come to the rescue of Louise and her maid, Corinne, whose automobile breaks down. Lee soon puts matters right, and Corinne gets her fuzzy hair all mixed up with his as he tinkers about. Eddy naturally keeps Louise company and cards are exchanged. Arriving home papa puts a veto on the prospective call of the impecunious young lawyers, as he wants a titled man for a son-in-law. One evening papa goes to the club, and is introduced to Lord Chester, and asks his lordship to call. While papa is thus being entertained, Eddy has called and is enjoying a tête-à-tête with Louise. Corinne spies Lee and introduces him to the butler and the cook and they all have a good time. The following day his Lordship calls, Louise however, has no use for titled personages with Eddy outside honking his auto horn.

Lee rejoices, for has he not a holiday to-morrow? He meets Eddie, who is employed in a large dry goods emporium. He hears of Lee's luck and wants to join him. They plan.

Professor De Risque, anxious to escape for a time the too solicitous attention of Madame De Risque, arrives at Roaring Gulch and, noting that the town numbers some very pretty girls amongst its population, he hangs out his shingle announcing the fact that he teaches the piano and violin. The professor is charming and the young ladies are impressionable, they readily desert the constant cowboys for the professor. The cowboys get their heads together and plan a counter-move.

In order to get a job as a cook on a ranch, a young girl disguises herself as a boy. Problems arise when several of the young women at the ranch fall in love with "him".

Violet De Ray opens up a barber shop at Roaring Gulch. Violet not only does a ripping good business, but she unconsciously has a hand in hurrying along several matrimonial affairs which have hung fire. This is notably the case with Si, who has loved bashfully and at a respectable distance for years. He is lured into Violet's shop, and after his chin whiskers have been clipped he emerges elated; and this coupled with Mandy's desire to protect him from such evil influences, cements a long drawn out romance.

Jane Carston was to return tomorrow from Ohio, where she had been for the past three years in school, and the ranch was all agog with expectancy and cleanliness. Bob Evans, head cowboy, was most eager and most anxious of the lot. Tomorrow finally became today and Pa had gone to the station in his best linen duster and the buckboard to meet Jane. Finally, in a cloud of dust. Bob discerns them on the brow of the hill. Arriving at the house Jane greets mother with a rousing smack.

Mabel Russell, on her return from Europe, is informed by James Leonard, administrator of the Russell Estate, that it was her father's dying wish that she should marry Billy Jones, the son of William Jones, her father's schoolmate and lifelong friend. Mabel, however, has ideas of her own and rather resents being disposed of like a parcel of goods, so when Billy calls upon her, she takes advantage of the fact that he has not seen her since she was a child, and induces her maid (a young woman who has a good figure and passable manners, but is extremely homely), to impersonate her, while she dresses up as the maid.

Dick Martin, foreman of the Circle E ranch, tells Colonel Gray that his mother is coming to visit them for a short time. The Colonel thinks it's a fine opportunity to invite his three nieces from the city, as Dick's mother could act as their chaperone.

Bess's pet donkey Sammy, has just died. Her three cowboy lovers call to propose, and as they all arrive about the same time, Bess is in a quandary. Her recent bereavement sharpens her wits. She tells them she would marry the first one that brings her a white donkey, just like her dead Sammy.

Dick Lee, while hunting, meets James Gordon, an old rancher, who invites him to his cabin. Here he meets the rancher's daughter Mary. They soon become fast friends, and the girl's heart is almost broken when, at the end of the boy's holidays, he is to return to the city. Mary makes him promise to write. Back in the city, Dick tries to forget the country girl, and, as he is engaged to Lillian West, life is very gay indeed. Somehow, he cannot forget the little girl back on the ranch. The promised letter, however, is never written. Mary looks every day for the letter that does not come, and her father is very sad to see her pine away. At last he cannot stand it longer, and makes up his mind to go to the city and hunt Dick up.