The best Lois Weber’s movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Lois Weber’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Lois Weber.
Suspense.
7.4/10
An isolated house is too remote for a lone servant, who leaves a note, quietly exits the back door, and puts the key under the mat. Left alone in the house is a mother and her infant. A tramp has watched the servant leave and begins to skulk. When the lady of the house sees him outside as he discovers the key, she's terrified and desperately phones her husband, who's at work in town. He jumps into a car that's idling in front of his office and races toward home, the car's owner, and police, in hot pursuit.
The Women Who Run Hollywood
7.1/10
The first talkie was directed by Alice Guy, the first color film was produced by Lois Weber, who directed more than 300 films over 10 years. Frances Marion wrote screenplays for the Hollywood Star Mary Pickford and won two Oscars, Dorothy Arzner was the most powerful film director in Hollywood. And what do all of them have in common? They are all women and they have all been forgotten. Incredibly, it also took until 2010 for the first woman, Kathryn Bigelow, to win the Oscar for Best Director. Even if underrepresented women have always played a big part in Hollywood and it is this part of the film history left untold that this documentary sets out to uncover.
The Merchant of Venice
5.8/10
A rich merchant, Antonio is depressed for no good reason, until his good friend Bassanio comes to tell him how he's in love with Portia. Portia's father has died and left a very strange will: only the man that picks the correct casket out of three (silver, gold, and lead) can marry her. Bassanio, unfortunately, is strapped for cash with which to go wooing, and Antonio wants to help, so Antonio borrows the money from Shylock, the money-lender. But Shylock has been nursing a grudge against Antonio's insults, and makes unusual terms to the loan. And when Antonio's business fails, those terms threaten his life, and it's up to Bassanio and Portia to save him.
Sunshine Molly
6.7/10
A woman known as Sunshine Molly gets a job in an oil field, and clashes with a belligerent employee named "Bull" Forrest. (Note: multiple reels of this film were damaged beyond repair. Only three reels remain, two of which are also heavily damaged.)
Idle Wives
5.5/10
Characters in the film attend a movie titled 'Life’s Mirror', where they see parallel, cautionary versions of their own lives. Only the first two of the original seven reels survive.
The Twins
5.1/10
The baby daughter of Mrs. Norton, a widowed seamstress, dies. The sorrow-stricken mother gazes at the empty cradle and decides to replace the departed soul with an orphan child upon whom she can lavish the love, the rightful object of which the Great Giver and Taker has taken from her. She goes to the orphanage and asks to be given a baby girl, and is given one of the twin baby sisters. Richard Golden, a wealthy shirtwaist manufacturer, has an only son, a little boy, who yearns for a sister and continually begs his father to bring him a little sister to be a playmate to him, and the father, to satisfy the child's persistent pleading, goes to the orphan home and brings home the other little twin sister. Years roll by and both girls have grown to young womanhood in their different stations in life. Jack Golden, now grown to manhood, and knowing that the girl is only a foster sister, asks her to become his wife.
Scandal
5.8/10
The lives of a stenographer and her boss are thrown into turmoil by reckless gossip.
The Rosary
6.5/10
Haunting and hypnotic, this artistic gem recounts the lyrics from a popular 1898 song of the same name. Weber’s stylistics, including circular matte shots, foregrounding of the cross and the rosary, and placement of the characters within each shot bring to the film an enormous emotional and spiritual range.
The Price
5.5/10
Pretty Ann, and Joe, the hostler, one day chance to meet. Strong is Joe, and simple, and Ann is shy and sweet. As man and maid have done before, they love, and marry, too. And live happy ever after? Ah, this tale is new to you! Yes, the tale is drear, prosaic; and so poetry won't do. A baby boy comes to bless the union. Joe is working in the stables when they tell him of his joy: his heart is gay and happy, and he tells the horses so. Then, it might be the angels were jealous of such mortal happiness; it might be the devil, seeing the stage so set, entered to play the leading role.
The Eye of God
Lost by a Hair
5.7/10
A group of jealous men conspire to defeat a romantic rival who has captured the attention of all of the ladies at a summer hotel. (Note: The majority of this film is considered lost. Only a fragment survives.)
Hop - The Devil's Brew
From Death to Life
5.4/10
A chemist named Aratus invents a concoction that will turn creatures to stone, but only realizes the dangers of his creation when his wife falls victim to it.
Fine Feathers
6.4/10
The Fine Feathers is a 1912 silent film dramstic short directed by and starring Lois Weber. It was produced the Rex Motion Picture Company and distributed six months before the formation of Universal Film Manufacturing Company.
On the Brink
6.6/10
A 1911 silent drama film written and directed by Edwin S. Porter and Lois Weber. Starring Lois Weber, Phillips Smalley, and Charles De Forrest.
