Alla Nazimova
Actor · 1879 – 1945 · Yalta, Taurida Governorate, Russian Empire
Alla Nazimova (Russian and Ukrainian: Алла Назимова; 3 June [O.S. 22 May] 1879 – 13 July 1945) was an American film and theatre actress, a screenwriter, and film producer. She is perhaps best known as simply Nazimova, but also went under the name Alia Nasimoff. She emigrated to the United States from the Russian Empire. In 1927, Nazimova became a naturalized citizen of the United States. She was signed up by the American producer Henry Miller and made her Broadway debut in New York City, in 1906 to critical and popular success. She quickly became extremely popular (a theatre was named after her) and remained a major Broadway star for years, often acting in the plays of Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekhov. Dorothy Parker described her as the finest Hedda Gabler she had ever seen. Due to her notoriety in a 35-minute 1915 play entitled War Brides, Nazimova made her silent film debut in 1916 in the filmed version of the play, which was produced by Lewis J. Selznick. A young actor with a bit part in the movie was Richard Barthelmess whose mother taught Nazimova English. In 1917, she negotiated a contract with Metro Pictures, a precursor to MGM, that included a weekly salary of $13,000. She moved from New York to Hollywood, where she made a number of highly successful films for Metro that earned her considerable money. She was influential in the film industry in the silent era and continued to play character roles until the end of her life. Between the years of 1917 and 1922 Nazimova wielded considerable influence and power in Hollywood. By all accounts she was extremely generous to young actresses in whom she saw talent and became involved with at least some of them romantically. By 1925 Nazimova could no longer afford to invest in more films; and financial backers withdrew their support. Left with few options, she gave up on the film industry, returning to perform on Broadway, notably starring as Natalya Petrovna in Rouben Mamoulian's 1930 New York production of Turgenev's A Month in the Country and an acclaimed performance as Mrs. Alving in Ibsen's Ghosts. In the early 1940s, she appeared in a few more films, playing Robert Taylor's mother in Escape (1940) and Tyrone Power's mother in Blood and Sand (1941). This late return to motion pictures fortunately preserves Nazimova and her art on sound film. She died of a coronary thrombosis, age 66, in the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. Her ashes were interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. Her contributions to the film industry have been recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Movies23
Movie6.6DramaIn 1943, several people enter, re-enter, and exit the difficult life of a Midwestern family whose patriarch has been called up to war, leaving behind his wife and two teen daughters.
Since You Went Away
1944 · 56 votes
Movie6.5DramaRomanceBullfighter Juan Gallardo falls for socialite Dona Sol, turning from the faithful Carmen who nevertheless stands by her man as he continues to face real danger in the bullring.
Blood and Sand
1941 · 67 votes
Movie6.8DocumentaryThis short documentary, presented and directed by MGM sound engineer Douglas Shearer, goes behind the scenes to look at how the sound portion of a talking picture is created.
A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound
1940 · 8 votes
Movie5.7DramaRomanceCamille 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 hope 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.
Camille
1921 · 24 votes
Movie6.3DramaFantasyBased on Oscar Wilde's play, the films tells the story of how Salomé agrees to dance for King Herod in return for the head of John the Baptist.
Salomé
1923 · 37 votes
Movie6.3DramaA rope bridge over a gorge in the Peruvian Andes snaps, sending five people plunging to their deaths. A priest sets out to find out more about the life of each of the victims.
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
1944 · 3 votes
Movie7.5DramaThrillerAn American goes to pre-war Germany to find his mother and discovers her in a concentration camp. With the help of an American-born widowed countess he seeks to engineer her escape.
Escape
1940 · 16 votes
Movie10.0DramaJane Goring, a ruthlessly ambitious actress, forsakes her life as a wife and mother for the stage. Returning home from a performance one night, Jane is disgusted to find her husband Robert McNaughton victimized by a tubercular cough and so banishes him and her young daughter to a sanitarium in Colorado. Years pass, finding Jane still estranged from her family. On the opening night of her new play, Jane finds herself upstaged and outperformed by Gloria Cromwell, a rising young actress, who, unknown to Jane, is her abandoned daughter. Returning home, Jane is haunted by visions of her husband and child and begins to sob. Looking up from her pillow, she is startled to see her husband with Gloria.
Madame Peacock
1920 · 1 votes
Movie7.0DocumentaryTV MovieA documentary of Hollywood's first great Latin Lover, the contradictions in his personal life, and his premature death.
The Legend of Rudolph Valentino
1961 · 1 votes
Movie7.0DramaA mother and her son's lives are upended by the arrival of a wealthy flapper to their small New England fishing village.
My Son
1925 · 1 votes
Movie10.0DramaNora Helmer has years earlier committed a forgery in order to save the life of her authoritarian husband Torvald. Now she is being blackmailed.
A Doll's House
1922 · 1 votes
Movie6.0ComedyPrincess Triloff, an emigrée from Czarist Russia, escapes to America where she becomes a patron of the arts. She falls in love with the verses of impoverished poet Owen Carey and becomes his anonymous benefactor. When Owen inherits a fortune from his rich Uncle Krakerfeller, he assumes his uncle's identity and confers his own upon an impoverished friend, Frank Manners. At a resort, Owen meets the princess and falls in love with her, but is chagrined to discover that she is enamored with Manners. The princess finally discovers Owen's real identity and the two fall in love.
Billions
1920 · 2 votes
MovieDocumentaryThe edition of Screen Snapshots celebrates 25 years of production. It looks at the content of edition #1, then a tribute to movie people who have died in those 25 years. Finally there are tributes to the Screen Snapshots series by Cecil De Mille, Walt Disney, Louella Parsons and Rosalind Russell.
Movie6.4DramaRomanceIt is early 1939 in Poland when Mrs. Bromley and Jennifer come to buy antiques for her business in London. Jennifer meets Count Stephen and they wine, dine and see the sights though out the city. He wishes to marry, but his family is against plain Jennifer. When she tries to leave, he catches her at the train station and they are married. To be self sufficient, they modernize the family farm with tractors and increase production, but then Germany starts the war.
In Our Time
1944 · 7 votes
Movie6.0RomanceDramaJoan is loved by a young man of the village and they are married. In a few weeks the husband, a soldier, is sent to the war-front along with his three brothers. Word is received that her husband has been killed in battle and Joan's first impulse is suicide by she is pregnant and her prospective motherhood makes her realize her new responsibility. The military authorities start a movement to get the young women of the country to marry departing soldiers, so that the empire may have another generation of fighting men. Word is received that the King is to pass through their village and Joan organizes the women in a general protest against the war. She leads them all, dressed in black, in a long procession to meet the Monarch. The soldiers threaten to shoot her unless she turns the women back, buy Joan comes face-to-face with the ruler and kills herself, as her message from the women that they refuse to make another generation victims of a ruthless militarism.
War Brides
1916 · 1 votes
MovieDramaA gypsy girl whose mother committed suicide after being seduced and abandoned by a rich man finds herself twenty years later being wooed by the same man.
Toys of Fate
1918
Movie7.0DramaSigrid, A French dancer, diagnosed with a weak heart, is ordered by her doctor never to dance again. But when her dancing skills are needed by her lover's father to help quell a native uprising on the East Indian frontier, she determines to dance whatever the cost.
Stronger Than Death
1920 · 1 votes
Movie9.0DramaA poverty-stricken Cockney girl rises through incredible adventures to become the wife of a nobleman.
The Heart of a Child
1920 · 1 votes
Movie9.0DramaRev. John Morton, who is determined to follow as closely as possible the teachings of Jesus, inherits a considerable fortune when his uncle dies. Shortly thereafter he succumbs to the wiles of Mary Carlson and marries her. To Mary's dismay, John uses his money for charitable work. When John learns that not only has Mary been unfaithful to him but she was also his uncle's mistress and became Mrs. Morton in order to share the inheritance she believed to be rightfully hers, he sends her away with his secretary.
Madonna of the Streets
1924 · 1 votes
Movie8.0DramaFaith’s life is shattered when her lover dies. Her brother Job locks her away in a lighthouse, but she jumps from the tower rather than be imprisoned. Faith's daughter, however, lives on. The girl Eve grows into her teens, sheltered from the world by her puritanical uncle. But Eve nevertheless manages to encounter a young man, Phillip Blake. When Phillip returns for Eve, he has to deal with her crusty, malevolent guardian….
Out of the Fog
1919 · 1 votes
MovieDramaRomanceJoline, a cabaret singer in Paris, models for her lover, painter Paul Granville. Paul becomes famous for his paintings of Joline in the guise of famous women like Cleopatra and Salome. But when he paints Joline as the Madonna, a miracle occurs which transforms her life and ultimately saves his.
Revelation
1918
MovieDramaAn unkempt chorus girl is arrested on a minor charge. In court, she is spotted by a novelist who is looking for someone of her type on whom to model a character in a book he is writing. He takes her into his home where she is looked down upon by his snobbish family. But the girl brings something to the family unlike anything they have known before.
The Brat
1919
MovieDramaRomanceThe daughter of an Arab sheik falls in love with a French naval officer, thus breaking the strict rule of social law of her people, as well as her religion.
Eye for Eye
1918