Films with: Shepard, David

Battling butler

Keaton plays Alfred Butler, a fragile young man sent into the country by his wealthy father to become a man, but who ends up being mistaken for the renowned prizefighter, "Battling" Butler, as a result of a charade to impress a young lady. The haunted house: Buster takes refuge in a mansion rigged with a series of frightening booby traps. The frozen north: This satirical parody of William S. Hart's melodramatic films finds Buster in the frozen north and mistaken identies cause all sorts of trouble. This film only survives in fragmentary condition and was reproduced from the best available copy.

DVD 9127

Before Hollywood there was Fort Lee, N.J. early movie making in New Jersey/

Describes the formative years of the silent screen in Fort Lee, New Jersey film production using actual silent films made in Fort Lee. Includes still photographs, film productions from 1907-1917, and footage from 1935 of the studios in ruins to show the rise and fall of silent filmaking in Fort Lee.

DVD 2821

Bride of Frankenstein

Baron Frankenstein is blackmailed by Dr. Praetorious into reviving his monster and building a mate for it.

DVD 33

Cameraman's revenge and other fantastic tales the amazing puppet animation of Ladislaw Starewicz /

As the world's first great puppet and stop-motion model animator, Starewicz was best known for his insect stories. Starewicz's grasshoppers, dogs, frogs, dolls, and other creatures portray heroics and follies with an exuberance of humor and invention.

DVD 3599

Carmen

[Carmen] A beautiful gypsy girl uses her irresistible charms to seduce a faithful military guard so that a band of smugglers can penetrate his stronghold. [The cheat] Depicts an impulsive, social climbing woman who gambles away Red Cross funds entrusted to her. She seeks the help of an Asian merchant to save her reputation and in return becomes his property.

DVD 1749

Chaplin's Essanay comedies.

A collection of Chaplin's films at Essanay Studios. Shanghaied: Hired to shanghai a crew, Chaplin is himself shanghaied and becomes assistant cook aboard a rolling boat. A Night in the show: Chaplin appears in a dual role as a playboy seated in the orchestra and as an obnoxious workman on a night out seated in the balcony. The latter closes the theater down by turning a fire hose on the fire-eating act. Police: The Tramp released from prison meets a former cell-mate and sets out to rob the home of a young woman. Charlie Chaplin's Burlesque on Carmen: Parody of the popular Cecil B. DeMille film Carmen. Triple trouble: Charlie works in the home of an eccentric inventor from whom some German spies are attempting to obtain a formula.

DVD 1081

Chaplin's Essanay comedies.

A collection of Chaplin's films at Essanay Studios. The tramp: Charlie saves a farmer's daughter from some thieving toughs, but soon learns that her heart belongs to another. By the sea: Charlie's stroll by the sea finds him making enemies with a drunk, a husband and the police. Work: Charlie plays a paper hanger's assistant who is hired to paper a home where peace is replaced with anarchy, culminating with a massive explosion. A Woman: Charlie disguises himself as a woman in order to be near Edna after her father has forbidden her to see him. The Bank: Charlie, the janitor loves Edna, the pretty bank secretary, but her sweetheart is another Charles, the cashier. His regeneration: Chaplin makes a guest appearance in this "Broncho Billy" Anderson drama, as the tramp in a dance hall sequence.

DVD 1082

Chaplin's Essanay comedies.

A collection of Chaplin's films at Essanay Studios. His new job: Charlie applies for a job as an actor at a film studio. A night out: Charlie and Turpin are drunks about town, starting at a cafe and ending in a risque hotel room mix-up with a pretty girl. The Champion: Pint-sized Charlie defeats the bone-crushing champion prizefighter with the able assistance of his bulldog. In the park: Charlie interferes in the lives of two star-crossed lovers. A Jitney elopement: Charlie rescues his sweetheart from an arranged marriage by posing as Count Chloride de Lime. The film ends with a car chase featuring the Ford automobile.

DVD 1083

D. W. Griffith's Biograph shorts

The two-disc set compiles one and two reel films directed by Griffith during his six-year position with the American Biograph Company, 1908-1913. Having made over 450 shorts before leaving Biograph to make feature films, these works showcase Griffith's early steps towards developing a cinematic language for narrative cinema.

DVD 1916

General The playhouse ; Cops /

The General (1926): A locomotive is beloved by its engineer, who sets out to win the Civil War single handedly. The Playhouse (1921): A comedy in which Keaton plays a stage manager, an actor, a monkey and other parts. Cops (1922): A comedy of errors in which Buster Keaton attempts to win his sweetheart's hand in marriage by becoming a successful businessman. His exploits climax in a chase with an entire police precinct.

DVD 924

Georges Méliès first wizard of cinema (1896-1913) /

Arranged in chronological order, this comprehensive thirteen hour collection gathers for the first time nearly all surviving films of Georges Méliès from his first (Card party, 1896) to his last (The voyage of the Bouririchon Family, 1913), bracketing more than 170 others. Beautiful new music has been prepared by ten leading practitioners of silent film accompaniment.

DVD 9194

Go West

A hapless young man, heeding the expansionist call of Horace Greeley, idealistically hops a freight train to meet his destiny. The scarecrow. Follows the unhealthy competition between roommates vying for the attentions of a young lady. The paleface. Buster helps a Native American tribe defend their land from greedy developers.

DVD 9131

Intolerance love's struggle throughout the ages /

Comprised of four separate interwoven stories, intended to show how hatred and intolerance have battled against love and charity through the ages.

DVD 945

Landmarks of early Soviet film 4 disc DVD collection of 8 groundbreaking films /

"This groundbreaking collection features eight seminal films from the Soviet silent era - all are new to DVD"--www.flickeralley.com. The house on Trubnaya: Comedy about a young peasant woman who travels to Moscow to start a new life. By the law: Tense drama about Alaskan gold-miners. Extraordinary adventures of Mr. West in the land of the Bolsheviks: The first Russian anti-American film both arrogantly mocks American ignorance toward the Soviet Union and enviously copies American cinematic methods. Old and new: In this early Soviet propaganda film, a poor woman persuades her fellow villagers to form a cooperative. Stride Soviet!: Documentary exploration of the various layers of Moscow society on the ten-year anniversary of the Revolution. The film reveals the continuing class-based nature of Soviet society through a series of montages of city life. The fall of the Romanov dynasty: Historical documentary which uses newsreel footage (some shot by Czar Nicholas II's own cameramen) to depict the tumultuous events of 1912 through 1917, as the leadership of the Czar and the Russian aristocracy crumbles and Lenin rises to power in the wake of the Soviet Revolution. Turksib: Soviet documentary on the building of the first railroad across the Asian continent from Turkestan to Siberia. Salt for Svanetia: Explores the Caucasus region of Svanetia, a remote, mountainous area where the Ushkul tribe still lives in a stone-age culture.

DVD 10327

Letze Mann The last laugh/

The story of a hotel doorman who is demoted to washroom attendant because of his age. Humiliated, he considers suicide. Then, by a strange twist of fate, he becomes a millionaire. This silent film is told entirely by camera, without title cards.

DVD 1499

Love of Jeanne Ney [Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney] /

Jeanne Ney is the daughter of a French diplomat who is assassinated by Bolsheviks. She falls in love with a young Communist, Andreas and they have a brief interlude of happiness in Paris until her uncle is murdered and the crime pinned on Andreas.

DVD 2657

Monsieur Verdoux

In this dark comedy first released during WWII, Henri Verdoux, played by Charlie Chaplin, supports his family by first marrying, and then killing wealthy widows. On another level the film is an indictment of war in which mass murder is legalized, celebrated and paraded. "Killing is the enterprise by which your system prospers," Verdoux says. "As a mass killer, I am an amateur by comparison."

DVD 879

Movies begin a treasury of early cinema, 1894-1914 /

The genesis of the motion picture medium is recreated in this collection of the cinema's formative works. More than crucial historical artifacts, these films reveal the foundation from which the styles and stories of the contemporary cinema would later arise.

DVD 1923

Nanook of the North

Presents a documentary on the life of an Eskimo family pitting their strength against a vast and inhospitable Arctic. Juxtaposes their struggle for survival against the elements with the warmth of the little family as they go about their daily affairs.

DVD 325

Our daily bread and other films of the Great Depression /

Our daily bread: A depression-era drama in which a young couple leads a group of unemployed people in making a communal farm succeed. Includes a prologue to the movie by David Shepard. California election: Two fake newsreels used as conservative propaganda to paint the End Poverty in California's supporters as sluggardly, indecisive radicals as opposed to the respectable intelligent idealists of Republican incumbent Frank Merriam's camp. Secretly produced by MGM and Irving Thalberg. The plow that broke the plains. A visualization of the settlement and landscape changes to the Great Plains. The river: A record of the Mississippi River. Power and the land: Designed to convince American farmers of the necessity for rural electrification through farm cooperatives. Shows a dramatization of a family on an Ohio farm revealing the hardships of life on a non-electrical farm contrasted with the benefits brought by electricity. The new frontier: Shows how pioneers create a new community.

DVD 1707

Robin Hood

When King Richard the Lion-Hearted leads a crusade to the Holy Land, his evil brother John claims the throne, and an era of corruption ensues. The Earl of Huntington (Fairbanks) is transfigured into the heroic Robin Hood, who leads his followers against Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham to reclaim England for King Richard. "A big-screen spectacle that ranks as one of the monumental accomplishments of the era, 'Robin Hood' is a timeless story of romance and intrigue, staged on a herculean scale. Its sets were erected by an army of 500 carpenters and towered 90 feet in the air, covering ten acres of land, historically accurate to the smallest detail"--Container.

DVD 490

Sally of the sawdust

Fields plays the role of Eustace McGargle, a carnival barker who has adopted young Sally, an orphaned waif. Juggling and conning lead to a climax complete with an automobile race-to-the-rescue chase scene.

DVD 500

Seven chances

Seven chances: A romantically jinxed young man must marry by 7 PM to inherit seven million dollars. While fate seems to thwart his efforts to woo the object of his true affection, public announcement of his strange predicament provides him with a throng of would-be brides. Neighbors: Buster tries to woo his tenement sweetheart in spite of the barriers that stand between them. The balloonatic: Buster and Phyllis endure a number of outdoor adventures trying to prove to each other their survival skills.

DVD 9128

Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Steamboat Bill, Jr.: An effete college student is forced by his crusty father to learn the ropes of riverboating during a feud between his father and the owner of a new steam packet. Convict 13: A young golfer is mugged by an escaped convict and finds himself in a prison where he foils a jailbreak. Daydreams: A sincere young man leaves his home to win his fortune so he can marry his home town sweetheart. Daydreams is reconstructed from footage segments, extra intertitles and still photographs.

DVD 9129

Three ages

Follows Buster's hard luck romance misadventures throughout world history: from the dawn of man in the Stone Age; through the gladiatorial arenas of Ancient Rome to the city streets of the American Jazz Era. The goat: A series of adventures begins when an accident during photographing causes Buster to be mistaken for Dead Shot Dan, the evil badguy. My wife's relations: When a large Irish woman falsely accuses Buster of breaking a window he is hauled before a Polish judge who speaks no English and assumes they are there to be married.

DVD 9130

Unseen cinema early American avant-garde film, 1894-1941 /

This seven-disc collection contains 155 avant-garde films, revealing hitherto unknown accomplishments of American filmmakers working in the United States and abroad from the invention of cinema until World War II. Offers an innovative and often controversial view of experimental film as a product of avant-garde artists, of professional directors and of amateur moviemakers working collectively and as individuals at all levels of film production.

DVD 6474

Vampires

Describes the achievements of Les Vampires, a secret society of criminals led by Irma Vep. The gang uses kidnapping, poisonous gas, heavy artillery, sexual domination and murder to gain power over the elite of Paris.

DVD 885