Silent Movies on Russia

When Count Peter Turgeneff, his daughter Nadia, and his generous-hearted son Paul came to live in the Governor's palace in the Russian province of Valogda, there was rejoicing among the oppressed race whose home was in the Ghetto. Turgeneff was known as a just and merciful man who had done much to make the hard lot of the Jews bearable in the districts under his charge. Hence his coming was hailed with joy by Isaac, prophet of Israel, and his people. Quite other feelings did his arrival create in the breast of Michael Orzoff, the grim Prefect of Police of Valogda, who sat in his office in the fortress and received the reports of the secret agents of the Czar. It was known that Orzoff was the secret power behind the dreaded "Yellow Jackets," the dire organization whose avowed object was the extermination of the people of Israel. There seemed no help. The Prefect's influence reached far, even into the high places in far-off Petrograd. Even women, provided they were fair to look upon, found their sex no protection from his infamy. For all these reasons the coming of Count Turgeneff to Valogda was not at all to Orzoff's liking. Soon after his coming Orzoff learned two things: one was that the new governor had pledged his help to the Jews, and the other that his daughter Nadia was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen and quite as ardent as her father in her support of the oppressed race. To think was to act with Orzoff. The governor was strong, but not more strong than he. In the high places in Petrograd, whence both received authority, the Prefect held the more power. In Russia the police are all powerful. The Count menaced Orzoff, for already word had been brought to the Governor, as Orzoff well knew, that the Prefect was the secret driving force behind the evil "Yellow Jackets." So Orzoff laid his plan. With his countless agents provocateurs and secret minions in the "Yellow Jackets," daring as that plan was, he felt it could not fail. On the night of the grand ball at the Governor's palace, the plan was consummated. Thither had come, at Nadia's urging. Isaac, chief of the Jews of the Ghetto, and Leah, the lovely daughter of old Samuels the cobbler, whose honor had been stained by the rude lust of Orzoff, with many others, there to accuse the Prefect face to face of the wrongs with which he had burdened them. But they did not reckon with the Prefect's plan. Suddenly there had been a cry without a rush of many feet and a frenzied mob had burst in among the guests of the Governor. "Death to the Jews," was their rallying cry. Then came Orzoff's own uniformed men and dispersed the rioters, but not before an assassin's bullet had found a resting place in the heart of Count Turgeneff. Nor did Orzoff stop there. Secure in his influence at Petrograd, he directed his men to seize the weeping Nadia, her brother Paul, and Isaac the Jew, and imprison them in the fortress under a charge of treason. And there on the day following he found a way to wreak his evil will upon the girl. The Prefect came to her in the cell, where she passed the night. He bent over her menacingly as she sat on the stone seat that had formed her couch. "You will give yourself to me," he said abruptly, "or your brother shall suffer the torture by fire ere he goes to Siberia." The as Nadia, in contempt and loathing, struck at him in the half-darkness he added, "Listen, and you shall hear for yourself; only your promised work can stop this pain."

Vania, the daughter of Russian revolutionary Serge Ostowski, escapes to America when her father is blown up by one of his own bombs. There she marries Clifford Howard, a drug-ridden man whom she comes to despise. One night while in a drunken rage, Howard attacks her, and Vania shoots and kills him. Her attorney, Hugh Mason, believing her innocent, falls in love with his client. Vania does not tell him the truth for fear of losing his love. Meanwhile, revolutionaries have pursued Vania to America to obtain her father's papers. In defense, Hugh hires detectives to protect her. One night, a revolutionary breaks into her house and is shot by the detective. Before dying, he confesses that it was he who fired the shot that killed Vania's husband, thus freeing her to accept Hugh's love.

At a meeting of the Hop Sing Tong, a Chinaman chooses the red bean and is destined to kill one of his countrymen. Later this Chinaman kills his condemned countryman, and the gang manage to throw the officers off the track of the murderer. However, the police suspect that it is the work of the Hop Sing Tong and are instructed by the chief to arrest Charley Sing, as one Chinaman is as good as another. Big Tom Hogan, the Tammany leader, is visited by Buck Mahoney, a gang leader, a friend of Charley Sing's, who has come to get Hogan to have the Chinaman released, for he knows he is innocent. Hogan forces the Governor to pardon Charley Sing. Samuel Savinsky, the keeper of a pawnshop, is thought much of by his wife and family, who never suspect his affair with Neva Sacon. He gives her money and jewels, and becomes jealous of Harvey Wilson, a reporter. Paul Rasnov, a sculptor and a dope fiend, pawns valuable trinkets at Savinsky's store to buy opium at the store of Ah Wong, the leader of the Three Brothers Tong. Tea Rose, Ah Wong's wife, consents to run away with Paul. Buck meets Harvey and says he will show him secrets of Chinatown if Harvey will expose the Boss in his paper. Buck guides Harvey into the building of the Hop Sing Tong. Harvey is enthusiastic over a silver flower, and Buck, seeing no one is looking, tells him to keep it. That evening Harvey gives Neva Sacon, the café dancer, the poppy, the Flower of Doom. The next day Harvey and Neva go to Chinatown and stop at Ah Wong's store to eat. The proprietor sees Neva and makes plans to kidnap her. While Harvey is in another room, a panel opens behind her and she is pulled through the opening. When the reporter returns a servant tells him that the lady has just left. He hurries to tell Buck about the strange disappearance. The Chinamen leave Neva in a small room. Left alone with a Chinaman at one time, the girl offers him a curious ring which Savinsky has given her, if he will deliver a message to Harvey at the newspaper office. The Chinaman is informed that the reporter is not in, and thus satisfied, the Chink goes to Savinsky's pawnshop to get rid of the ring. The pawnbroker recognizes the ring and forces the Chinaman to tell now he got it. With a policeman Savinsky starts for Ah Wong's, but when the officer threatens to break down a door, Savinsky is frightened, and hurriedly leaves the place. Buck appeals to Charley Sing to find Neva, and following Charley's suggestion, Tea Rose is kidnapped while a letter written in Chinese is sent to Ah Wong telling him of Tea Rose and offering her in exchange for Neva. Ah Wong consents, and that evening Neva is restored to her people and Tea Rose to her husband. Savinsky, seeing Neva again in the company of Harvey, realizes he has lost and goes to her to demand the jewels he has given her. Harvey returns with Neva, and when Savinsky begins to quarrel about his rights, the reporter throws him out. Harvey proposes to Neva who accepts his offer. Warned by a spying Chink that Tea Rose and Rasnov are going to run away that evening, Ah Wong plans to spoil their party. He hides in the place where the girl is expecting to meet Rasnov, and springing on her drags her into a room and strangles her. Rasnov waits for Tea Rose, and Ah Wong rushes in at him. They fight, and the Chinaman lifts Rasnov up to hurl him against the wall when his foot slips and his skull is crushed against the stone steps of the grating. Having lost Tea Rose, Rasnov consoles himself with opium.

A poor Russian girl's beauty leads her unscrupulous uncle to bring her to the United States. There he is going to sell her into a marriage with a rich old man she has never met. But her lover, an returning immigrant visiting Russia from the U.S., sails on the same ship. When they arrive he learns, to his surprise, that the American police, unlike those of his native country, are not oppressors of the poor, but friends that will aid in securing the release of his beloved Maria.

Society melodrama about a wealthy father who purchases an island to prove to his son that communism won't work.

Vera Souroff, a young Russian girl, is seized on the street and dragged into a room where three officers of the Czar's guard have been dining. The lights are turned out and the girl is outraged. The crime is brought to the attention of the Czar. Vera cannot tell which of the three officers is the guilty man. The Czar orders Count Nicho, the eldest of the three officers, to marry the girl, and makes them all turn over their fortunes to her. They are then sent to prison. The revolution breaks out. Vera saves her husband at the risk of her own life, as she wishes to wring from him the name of the man that violated her. Nicho, now honestly in love with his wife, admits that he was her assaulter, and the couple clasp each other in a fervent embrace.

A French violinist saves his beloved princess from the Russian revolution, of which his former tutor is the leader.

The revolution causes Sasha Boroff's wealthy family to lose its fortune; and her lover, Count Michael, is sentenced to death by Rogojin, the Boroffs' former coachman. Rogojin's sudden death saves Sasha from marriage to the despot, and the Boroffs escape to the United States, where Sasha marries Dr. Godfrey Luke to please her family. Later Sasha discovers that Michael survived, fled to the United States, and married Helen, an American. When Helen has a love affair with Dr. Luke, Michael challenges him to a duel. Sasha is wounded in the exchange of gunfire, the shock prostrates Michael, and Grishka cures him with a radio-vibration device. At the end, Sasha and Michael are still happily married to their respective American spouses.

Ilda Barosky, a Jewess whose father was killed by Russian soldiers, is a violin student in love with Alexis Nazimoff, a son of the Russian aristocracy. When Alexis' father arranges a marriage of convenience between his son and Olga Karischeff, the daughter of the ambitious minister of police, Ilda, asked to play "God Save the Czar" at the betrothal celebration, refuses, and is whipped before the entire assembly. Alexis rushes in and rescues her from his father's wrath and then writes a letter to the Karischeffs, terminating his engagement to their daughter. In retaliation, the minister of police, who is being forced to resign, sentences both Ilda and Alexis to ten years in Siberia as his last official act. In Siberia, the couple attempt to escape, but are caught and are facing a firing squad when Count Nazimoff, who has assumed Karischeff's position as minister of police, arrives with a pardon. Ilda and Alexis return home, and the count, penitent, finally grants them his blessings.

A dramatization of a wedding in 16th-century Russia, between members of two prominent boyar families (based on paintings by Konstantin Makovskii): Three matchmakers first visit the family of the prospective bride, and then do the same with the prospective bridegroom's family. Later, as the time of the wedding draws near, the bride is dressed with great formality and prepared for the ceremony, as the guests get ready to celebrate the upcoming wedding.

Based on an opera by Dargomizhsky, and other sources: A prince and a miller's daughter have been involved in a romance together, but now the prince tells her that he must break it off. After the prince leaves, the distraught young woman attempts to drown herself. When the prince's wedding day arrives, he is tormented by her image, which appears wherever he goes. Eventually, he is compelled to return and to try to find out what happened to her, regardless of the consequences.

A girl in the forest found a broken lily and brought it to her grandfather, who at that time thought about the horrors of the outbreak of World War I, and the broken lily reminds him of poor Belgium. In response to a granddaughter's request to tell a fairy tale - he tells her about the lily.

2 bugs fight over a beautiful female bug.

In order to allow another servant to go home to be with her children, Nastya agrees to serve in her place, as a maid in the household in which Nastya's grandfather is a porter. Soon afterwards, the woman who owns the house goes on a trip, leaving her son Pavel at home. Pavel is engaged to Ellen, but Ellen flirts openly with other men. Nastya and the servants quickly realize that Ellen is having an ongoing romantic affair with Baron von Rehren. This puts the servants, and especially the sensitive Nastya, in a painfully uncomfortable position.

Nekhludoff, a Russian nobleman serving on a jury, discovers that the young girl on trial, Katusha, is someone he once seduced and abandoned and that he himself bears responsibility for reducing her to crime. He sets out to redeem her and himself in the process.

An American corset manufacturer by the name of Cicero Hannibal Butts travels to Russia, where he has comic adventures involving a famous opera star and political intrigue.

A young girl is seduced by a Epicurean man, whom she later shoots. Acquitted from the crime, she falls into melancholy but a young doctor, who has loved her for a long time, gives her back to life and receives her hand.

When anarchist bombs disrupt the engagement ball of Princess Marie Pavlovna, her fiancé, Prince Michail Koloyar, helps her to escape in a carriage. Then Theo Kameneff, secretly in the pay of a foreign government, becomes dictator and, desiring the princess, issues an edict that all women between the ages of seventeen and thirty-two must register and become state property. Outraged, Marie, disguised as a shopkeeper, organizes women to refuse the order. After she is discovered by Orel Kosloff, Kameneff's henchman, Marie declines Kameneff's offer to repeal the edict if she will live with him. Kosloff then initiates mass brutality, killing women who do not register, including to Kameneff's dismay, his beloved sister, whom he tried to save. Meanwhile, Michail, who has infiltrated the Bolshevik ranks, is found out and narrowly escapes a firing squad. After he stops Kameneff's attack on Marie, Kameneff is shot by a potter, revenging his daughter's ravishment. Marie and Michail finally escape across the border.

Prince Kasatsky is a just and proud youth, shock and disappointment with the world bring him to church, he becomes father Sergius. It is a story of his piety and temptation.

At the time of the Russian Revolution, Princess Natalya falls in love with Julian Ross, an American of Russian descent who has been imprisoned for writing revolutionary tracts. She arranges his release, telling him that she is a governess in the home of Prince Andrei Rostoff, who is actually her uncle. Natalya's brother is killed in battle because of the treachery of Rostoff and his son Boris, allies of the German Kaiser, who provided the Russian army with faulty ammunition. For this, Julian assassinates the Rostoffs, and Natalya shoots the American in revenge. Julian, only slightly wounded, produces a document proving the Rostoffs' connections with the Kaiser, whereupon Natalya forgives him and agrees to be his wife.

Katusha, a country girl, is seduced and abandoned by Prince Nekludov. Nekludov finds himself, years later, on a jury trying the same Katusha for a crime he now realizes his actions drove her to. He follows her to imprisonment in Siberia, intent on redeeming her and himself as well.

A series of newsreel films from Dziga Vertov, Elizaveta Svilova, and Mikhail Kaufman which document Russian Life in the early 1920s.