Lure of Ambition

Lightning Romance

November 1924 •English

Jack Wade is the son of a wealthy father who runs a successful ship-building company. He uses his athletic prowess to defeat the villainous competitors who are out to financially ruin his father.

Revenge of an Actress

January 1929 •Chinese

At The Beauty's Altar

September 1917 •Russian

Second Choice

January 1930 •English

Vallery Grove is in love with Don Warren but her mother opposes the match because he is poor and has no social standing. Don decides to terminate his engagement to Vallery after attending a party where he meets a spoiled rich girl who is interested in him.

Kathleen Mavourneen

August 1919 •English

Kathleen, the daughter of a poor tenant farmer, dreams of her wedding with her beloved Terrence. The dream is interrupted when the Squire of the estate takes an interest in Kathleen and forces her father to allow him to marry her to forgive the father's debt.

A Weaver of Dreams

March 1918 •

Unrequited love rules the day as both wealthy Judith Sylvester and her invalid aunt pine for men who got away, but happiness lays ahead for one while hopeful dreams sustain the other.

The Wheels of Justice

April 1915 •English

Ralph Brooks, although engaged to Julia Dean, meets and becomes infatuated with Rita Reynolds. She gains his sympathy by telling untrue stories of her husband's brutality. They plan to run away together but while Rita is taking a large sum of money from her husband's safe, he returns early from a business trip and a fight ensues which results in her husband's death.

Dumb-bells in Ermine

May 1930 •English

In a small town in Virginia, Faith Corey, daughter of a socially prominent family, meets and falls in love with Jerry Malone, a prizefighter, though her straitlaced mother wants her to marry Siegfried, a spellbinding "missionary reformer." Though Grandma Corey promotes the romance with the prizefighter, Mike, the fighter's hardboiled, wisecracking manager, tries to keep them apart; following a quarrel, Faith reconciles herself to marrying Siegfried, but when he invites a group of "weak sisters" to a revival meeting, he is disgraced when one accuses him of her downfall. Finally, with Mike's advice, Jerry wins back Faith and they are united with the family's blessings.

Ramshackle House

August 1924 •English

Don Counsel, a New Yorker who is traveling through southern Florida, is being framed by Ernest Riever for a murder he did not commit. Riever is holding the real killer captive on his yacht while detectives are searching for Counsel. Pen Broome, who lives with her father (Henry James) on their rundown estate, tries to help Counsel out. Riever's men find Counsel and trap him in a ballast bulkhead, but Pen rescues him.

Runaway Romany

December 1917 •English

Press agent "Inky" Ames, in a quandary to publicize showgirl Anitra St. Clair, convinces her to paint a birthmark on her shoulder and pose as millionaire mine owner Theodore True's long-lost daughter.

Miss Peasant

February 1917 •Russian

Silent feature film by Olga Preobrazhenskaya and Vladimir Gardin based on Pushkin’s story of the same name. Considered lost. Directorial debut of Olga Preobrazhenskaya.

The Dictator

June 1915 •English

On the lam from the New York Police because of a false murder charge, playboy Brooke Travers escapes to a Central American banana republic.

Heart and Soul

May 1917 •English

Desperate to change her vixenish image, Theda Bara was called upon to play a sweet young thing (she was nearly 30) who sacrifices herself for the happiness of her sister (Claire Whitney).

Camille

September 1917 •English

Camille is a courtesan in Paris. She falls deeply in love with a young man of promise, Armand Duval. When Armand's father begs her not to ruin his hopes of a career and position by marrying Armand, she acquiesces and leaves her lover. However, when poverty and terminal illness overwhelm her, Camille discovers that Armand has not lost his love for her.

The Forbidden Path

February 1918 •English

Mary Lynde (Theda Bara) is an innocent girl who has grown up in New York's Greenwich Village. One of the artists there, Felix Benavente (Sidney Mason), uses her as model when he paints a portrait of the Madonna for a church. His friend Robert Sinclair (Hugh Thompson) corrupts Mary so that her father (Walter Law) casts her from his home. She goes to live with Sinclair in his mountain lodge, but after the birth of a child, he callously casts her aside. Subsequently, her baby dies and she sinks to the depths of despair.

The Clemenceau Case

April 1915 •English

This was Theda Bara's third starring film, and the first which she carried all on her own, with no other name actors in the cast. Based on the Alexander Dumas story, The Clemenceau Case involves Iza, a vampire-wife (Bara), whose wicked ways scandalize her husband, Pierre (William E. Shay).

La belle Russe

September 1919 •English

In this film, her next-to-last picture for Fox, it was Theda Bara's turn to tackle a double role. Bara's characters are twin sisters La Belle Russe, the wicked one, and Fleurette, the nice one. They're Parisian dancers, and Fleurette marries Philip Sackton (Warburton Gamble). However, Sackton is a member of Britain's snooty aristocracy, and his family disinherits him.

Heaven on Earth

March 1927 •English

Young Edmond Durand (Conrad Nagel) has been reared under the autocratic influence of his aunt (Marcia Manon), who directs a large silk mill in southern France. He revolts against a stifling career planned for him and leaves home with Marcelle, a Gypsy girl (Renée Adorée). They roam the countryside with a Gypsy caravan in romantic bliss; they are inadvertently separated but at the outbreak of war are reunited. When peace is restored, the lovers find happiness together.

The Greater Glory

May 1926 •English

A story of Vienna following World War I, in which the butchers became millionaires and the aristocrats became beggars, told against a background of mother-love and sacrifice.

The Big Party

February 1930 •English

Kitty Collins and Flo Jenkins, a couple of jazz-age cuties with bobbed-hair and rolled-stockings, go in search of good-times and whoopee-making. The party they find also includes some out-of-town, butter-and-egg millionaires whose definition of whoopee is not the same as the one Kitty and Flo have. The wives of the millionaires also have a different-and-dim view on the matter.