Movies: Theda Bara

This film is a very loose film adaptation of the 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo and presumed lost: The wealthy girl Esmeralda is kidnapped by gypsies at birth and becomes, as one might assume, the darling of Paris. She is loved...

After Jeanette becomes the mistress of the ambitious Jean du Barry, he marries her off to one of his cousins so that she has an entre to the royal court. She soon becomes the favorite of the King and Jean du Barry becomes a regular around the court t...

The story of Cleopatra, the fabulous queen of Egypt, and the epic romances between her and the greatest men of Rome, Julius Caesar and Antony. Only a small fragment of this film survives....

An ambitious bank teller (Edward Jose) steals a large deposit and starts life over under an assumed name. While he is becoming a lawyer and making his way up the ladder of success with the help of a political boss, the wife he left behind (Eleanor Wo...

Palestine, under the rule of Rome. Salome, daughter of Herodias and both niece and stepdaughter of King Herod, becomes infatuated with the prophet John the Baptist, who publicly denounces the depravity of the royal family and proclaims the arrival of...

In this lost film, Theda Bara took the role of spoiled, deceiving nymphomaniac "vixen" Elsie Drummond. She wooed Wall Street businessman Martin Stevens (A. H. Van Buren) away from his interest in her sweet sister Helen (Mary G. Martin). She continue...

A Spanish soldier falls under the spell of a fiery gypsy girl named Carmen. His obsession with her leads to his ruin....

Theda Bara does her usual vamp turn in this picture, but this time she's a vamp who turns out to have a heart of gold. Her character, Blanchette DuMonde, is known as "the wickedest woman in Paris," and because of this sordid reputation, she is not al...

John Schuyler, a happily married lawyer, is appointed diplomat and sent to England. Due to an unfortunate accident, his wife and child can not come along with him. On the ship to England, Schuyler meets the notorious Vampire - a relentless gold digge...

A young man visiting Hollywood on family business gets into trouble when he sees a bank robbery in progress, and thinks it is a movie scene....

This picture is based on the same story that became D.W. Griffith's Orphans of the Storm in 1921. This version, made by the Fox Studios, stars famous "vamp" actress Theda Bara in the role that Lillian Gish later made famous...

A "March of Time" presentation of the evolution of movies compiled primarily from film clips of silent movies through the early sound pictures to the present (1939) date. Industry executives such as Jack and Harry Warner, Walt Disney, Cecil B. DeMill...

Among the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips fr...

Before the G, PG and R ratings system there was the Production Code, and before that there was, well, nothing. This eye-opening documentary examines the rampant sexuality of early Hollywood through movie clips and reminiscences by stars of the era. G...

Italian peasant girl deserts her fiancé for wealthy gangster and departs for America....

A scheme by a beautiful vamp to marry a wealthy young man fails, and the woman returns to her former lover, a sculptor. She is shocked to discover he has committed suicide, and the tragedy catapults her into insanity....

Fernande marries a man and schemes to get his wealth when his expected death occurs. But he dies before he can change his will. She next tries to kill the son who inherits, but he outfoxes her....

When she goes to tell her husband Hubert that she is expecting a child, Caroline Knollys finds him in the arms of another woman. Caroline leaves him and, not telling him of her pregnancy, runs off to Europe where she has her child and becomes the toa...

Theda Bara plays Princess Zara, who lives on a South Sea Island. A handsome young missionary (William B. Davidson) arrives and there is a romance, which is hindered by various complications including a typhoon....

A female secret agent has gotten ahold of a new type of explosive gas. She has to avoid the efforts of two men who are trying to steal it. They succeed in doing so, but the gas turns out to be not quite what they expected....