María Corda

Setting the standard for his later light-hearted biopics The Private Life of Henry VIII and Rembrandt, producer-director Alexander Korda steadfastly refuses to take any of The Private Life of Helen of Troy seriously. Maria Corda, wife of the director, plays the title character as a fetchingly underdressed coquette, oblivious to all the political turmoil she's causing when she allows the handsome Paris (Ricardo Cortez) to kidnap her. Meanwhile, poor King Menelaus (Lewis Stone), Helen's husband, stands by in stoic silence, just as he's done on previous occasions when his wife succumbed to the charms of various sexy suitors (one of whom is played by future cowboy star "Wild Bill" Elliot). Finally galvanized into action, Menelaus reclaims his bride, who seems none the worse for wear for her experiences.

A Modern Dubarry

Carmine Gallone and Amleto Palermi’s The Last Days of Pompeii 1926 stages in sumptuous colour tinting the epic fall of the ancient city buried by Mount Vesuvius’ eruption. Adapted from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s love story, the film was innovative in its special effects and an early major box-office hit. A beautiful tinted restoration print was prepared using photochemical processes by Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia-Cineteca Nazionale in the mid-1990s and the premiere screening of the restoration print was held in the amphitheatre in Pompeii, followed by a screening at the major restoration festival ‘Il Cinema Ritrovato’ in Bologna in 1998.

A Jewish slave girl falls in love with the Pharaoh's son during the Exodus.

During lunch break at the movie studio, the extras rush to the canteen Hans Adalbert Schlettow, Maria Paudler and Luis Trenker are chatting. Eva von Loe a beautiful young extra rushes past; she is looking for her fiancé, Paul Wessel, who is also an extra. She has to return to the set where the famous director Regisseur Hall is shooting a scen. He is dissatisfied with his star, Carla Marventa, who is wrong for the scene he must photograph. Hall notices Eva, but laughs at her desire to replace Marventa. At that moment Conrad Veidt comes on the scene and assumes that Eva is the star.

a silent movie by Robert Wiene

A drama based on the novel by Mór Jókai.

One of the first epic films made in Austria, as in some of the similar Cecil B De Mille entries, a fusion of a biblical story with a modern update.

Die Konkurrenz platzt

Der moderne Casanova

Madame Wants No Children

A famous Venetian opera singer marries a rich, but very jealous man. After moving to London with him, she misses the opera and all the attention she used to get. Once back in Venice, an old lover shows up causing trouble.

The luminous Maria Corda stars as the eponymous Tesha, a celebrated Russian dancer who marries an Englishman (Thomas). The couple long for a child but after five years of happy marriage, remain childless. On a trip to Southampton Tesha succumbs to a brief fling with a stranger (Cavanagh), unleashing a barrage of unforeseen consequences and emotional turmoil. The superb cinematography is by the great German cinematographer Werner Brandes who worked on dozens of prestige British productions in the 1920s. Originally shot silent, sound was added in 1929.

L'uomo più allegro di Vienna

Tragödie im Hause Habsburg

Heilige oder Dirne

A melodrama about a virtuous wife unjustly abandoned by her husband, who get him back with the help of a Hindu mystic.

Jedermanns Weib

Her Dancing Partner