A woman's dubious past proves to be a stumbling block when she becomes engaged to marry.

Aspiring young Scottish politician John Shand enters into an unusual agreement with the wealthy Wylie family -- if they fund his education, he must marry their daughter, Maggie. Staying true to his word, John weds Maggie and begins a successful career, thanks largely to his savvy wife. The couple's relationship is placed in jeopardy when John faces temptation in the form of the lovely aristocrat Lady Sybil Tenterden.

In czarist Russia, a princess falls for a dashing bandit leader, but their romance proves a stormy one.

Romantic biography of Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind and her famous affairs.

An escaped convict and the detective tasked with hunting him down end up working in parallel to clear the convict's name and nab the gangsters that framed him.

A housewife divorces her self-centered husband. Years later, she attends a party where her ex is pursuing another woman. Unbeknownst to him, she is the same ex-wife he'd neglected, now transformed into a fashionable socialite.

Billy, after shooting down land baron William Donovan's henchmen for killing Billy's boss, is hunted down and captured by his friend, Sheriff Pat Garrett. He escapes and is on his way to Mexico when Garrett, recapturing him, must decide whether to bring him in or to let him go.

A chic American jewel thief falls in love with one of her marks, an English lord.

Stephen Ashe, a famous criminal lawyer, lives in San Francisco and is adored by his free-spirited daughter Jan.
One day, Stephen, a freethinker who drinks too heavily and hates everyone in his family except for Jan, is invited by Grandma Ashe to a family dinner. After extending the invitation, the snobbish Grandma Ashe warns Jan not to let Stephen drink that evening. As feared, Stephen does not heed her request, and she and the rest of the family are shocked when he arrives with Ace Wilfong, an underworld character whom Stephen is defending in a murder trial. Soon after Stephen introduces Ace to his family, he is appalled at their lack of hospitality, and he leaves with Ace. Jan, also upset with her family's reaction to Ace, follows them, leaving her stolid fiancé, Dwight Winthrop, behind. While driving home, Jan tells Ace that he is the first truly exciting man that she has met. Their drive is interrupted when their windshield is sprayed by bullets from the Hardy mob, who want to kill Ace. Ace and Jan begin a romance which results in Ace asking Stephen for permission to marry his daughter. Stephen denies Ace's request, but Jan continues to see him regardless. When Stephen comes home drunk from a casino bust one night, he and Jan make a pact to rid themselves of their vices. While Stephen promises to stop drinking, Jan swears off the troublesome Ace. Father and daughter then take a vacation in the mountains to get away from the temptations at home, but as soon as they return, they fall into their past habits. Jan's romance with Ace turns violent when he scolds her for leaving him. After attacking her, Ace demands that she marry him. Jan refuses and returns to Dwight, who has been attending Grandma Ashe on her deathbed. When Dwight witnesses Ace manhandling Jan, he becomes outraged and shoots him. Dwight then calls the police himself and, in order to protect Jan, tells them that he shot Ace over a gambling debt. At his trial, Dwight's defense flounders until Stephen arrives and takes over. Stephen immediately calls the killing a result of temporary insanity, and then declares that it is not Dwight who should be on trial, but he himself. Stephen argues that were it not for his allowing Jan to see Ace to begin with, the whole tragic affair could have been prevented. After calling Jan to the witness stand, Stephen becomes so impassioned that he collapses, suffers a heart attack and dies in his daughter's arms.
The jury subsequently finds Dwight innocent, and he and Jan leave for New York, where they plan to begin life anew.

Dynamic Alan Gaskell captains a ship bound from Hong Kong to Singapore. Gaskell tries to turn over a new leaf from his hard-drinking lifestyle after becoming re-attached to a refined high class English lady, Sybil Barclay. His former girlfriend Dolly is extremely jealous of the budding relationship and tries hard to get the Captain back. He is apparently unimpressed with her loud, obnoxious, and uncivilized manners, even though she is extremely beautiful. After a temporary takeover of the ship by gold-seeking Asian pirates, Captain Gaskell must deal with the fact that Dolly and her drinking pal, Jamesey MacArdle, are implicated in the crime.

A Chinese wife returns to the American family she left behind in Southeast Asia and then moves in on her daughter's (Lupe Velez) beau (Lloyd Hughes).

French country girl Madelon falls for artist Larry, who leaves her after she becomes pregant. She finds help from jewel thief Carlo, but he commits sucide when the police try to arrest him. Madelon is arrested and receives a ten year term in prison for assisting him in his profession. To support her son, who does not know she's in person, she becomes a street walker, allowing him to attend medical school.

Amanda and Elyot are one another's former spouse. Elyot is remarried to Sibyl and Amanda married Victor. Unexpectedly, both honeymooning couples arrive at a hotel on the same day and are put in rooms with adjoining terraces. Things go well until Amanda sees Elyot on the adjacent terrace.

Three sideshow performers form a conspiracy known as "The Unholy Three" - a ventriloquist, midget, and strongman working together to commit a series of robberies.

Joe, a former sea captain whose wife died during the birth of their child at sea, is now a pockmarked, disreputable divekeeper in Singapore where he indulges in shady operations with Herrick, known as The Admiral. They ship for Mandalay, where Joe's daughter lives with a priest, Father James, and tends a curio shop, unaware that her father regularly sends money to Father James for her support. Although his daughter clearly finds him abhorrent, Joe determines to take her away until he learns that The Admiral has fallen in love with her and plans to marry her. He persuades Father James (actually his brother) not to perform the ceremony, and The Admiral is shanghaied by Joe's men. The girl, suspecting Joe, goes to his brothel in Singapore and is about to be assaulted by Charlie, a lecherous Chinaman, when Joe intervenes and is stabbed. The Admiral comes to her rescue and escapes with her on a boat.

It still doesn't cease to amaze me how some Silent Movies, dramas or comedies, catch my attention so much, getting me so immersed in the plot, thus making me forget I'm watching a silent, an antique, a piece of history, enjoying the movie as I'd do with any "talking" movie.
In this case, the images are so real (it was filmed on location) and so hauntingly beautiful, that make many later Hollywood films from the 1940's or 1950's, which depict "South Seas Life" look unreal, fake, notwithstanding their possible entertainment value.
There's so much truth in this morality photo-play about a white man, identified as a "derelict" of the South Seas, previously a doctor, who finds "Paradise on Earth" (peace, love & happiness), on a certain island of the Polynesia. Monte Blue is great as this "white man".
Most of the featured players of the film, one realizes, are real natives from the islands, and this adds so much truth to the storyline. Beautiful actress Raquel Torres, does not seem (IMHO) out of place at all as Monte Blue's native love interest. And Robert Anderson is a very nasty villain.
There are some awesome underwater sequences, featuring octopuses, sharks, pearl-diving and others featuring palm-climbing, dancing, etc. Notice the different tinting (reddish, blue, sepia ...) of the sequences of the film; only at the beginning and on the end, plain black and white is used.
Great Sound score for this late "silent film", the first used for a MGM film and the first time Leo-the-Lion roared! The original South-Sea Islands Film. Excellent.

Convicted of manslaughter for a drunken driving accident, Kent Marlowe is sent to prison, where he meets vicious incarcerated figures who are planning an escape from the brutal conditions.

An acclaimed actor and his equally acclaimed actress wife, who have been married for less than a year, are already showing signs of strain in their marriage. The actor believes his wife is capable of infidelity and sets out to prove this is so. Disguising himself as the kind of man he believes she fancies (a Russian military officer), the actor woos his wife while she believes her husband to be out of town.

As Europe looms on the edge of war in 1913, the family and members of the court of the Russian czar Nicholas come under the sway of a mysterious mystic named Rasputin. When Rasputin miraculously appears to cure the czar's son Alyosha of his hemophilia, the monk's reputation is cemented, particularly in the mind of the princess Natasha. Natasha's fiancé (and, later, husband) Prince Paul Chegodieff, however, suspects Rasputin is a charlatan who will cause the downfall of the royal family and perhaps of Russia itself.

An elderly Miss Morrison recounts her life as the once young and beautiful opera singer Marcia Morney-then the toast of Napoleon III's Paris. One evening, she encounters an American voice student, Paul Allison, and the two unexpectedly fall in love. Unfortunately for her, she has already accepted the marriage proposal of her mentor, Nicolai Nazaroff-more out of obligation than any feeling of love for him. As a result, she breaks off her relationship with Paul, and reluctantly marries Nicolai. After 7 years of marriage, Nicolai sets up Marcia for an engagement performance in the United States of the opera "Tsaritsa". Nicolai signs up Paul as her leading partner, not knowing of Marcia and Paul's past. When he realizes what he has done, Nicolai becomes enraged with jealousy...