在好莱坞的日落大道边，有一个荒废的豪宅，院子进里的游泳池里发现了剧本作者乔·吉利斯的尸体，故事由此展开 ······过气演员诺玛（葛洛丽亚·斯旺森 Gloria Swanson 饰）已经将近50岁，曾经的风华绝代正在她居住的荒废豪宅里慢慢凋谢，身边只有好友马克斯（埃里克·施特罗海姆Erich von Stroheim 饰）伺奉。她没放弃重燃光辉的梦想，《莎乐美》的剧本正待编写，而逃避债务逃至此地的没落编剧乔（威廉·霍尔登 William Holden饰），正是这项事业的最佳候选。诺玛收留他住下，给他提供舒适的环境写作，并慢慢的倾心于他。他们二人都被对方所吸引。乔对大导演马克斯作诺玛的管家侍候诺玛大为不解。剧本完成后，为了要把这本剧本送给老朋友导演塞西尔，诺玛带了乔，叫马克斯开车到摄影场。塞西尔导演只对这部老爷车感兴趣，并不喜欢诺玛的剧本，马克斯和乔都不敢把真像告诉诺玛。这时乔对在摄影场剧本部工作的贝蒂（南希·奥尔森 Nancy Olson 饰）一见钟情，若玛知道这件事后决意要破坏他们的感情，乔非常生气， 现在乔已经不能接受这个青春已逝的妇人。他拒绝了她，并转过身和贝蒂相爱，打得火热。诺玛得知了乔的“背叛”，她卑微地哀求他，却动摇不了他渐行渐远的心，诺玛终于举起枪对准正要离开的乔。

影片以第一次世界大战为背景，讲述三名法国俘虏在德国集中营越狱的故事。
三名法国飞行员在一次任务执行中被德军击落，波迪奥、迈克和罗森塔尔三人被带到战俘集中营。波迪奥与德军监狱长罗芬斯坦都是贵族出身，有着共同的政治见解，二人在狱中成为朋友。三人随后发现狱友正进行越狱计划，他们挖出一条逃跑的通道。迈克和罗森塔尔也加入了挖掘行动。最后他们集体越狱，德军全力追捕，在逃亡中，波迪奥被罗芬斯坦击倒，两名法国俘虏迈克和罗森塔尔逃到一个德国农妇家中，在她的帮助下，二人经过种种波折逃到瑞士。
本片是最早的越狱片之一，被评为最伟大的“越狱电影”之一，同时也是导演让·雷诺阿的反战杰作。

德国移民的名导演埃里克．冯．施特罗海姆花费了一百三十万美元和十一个月的时间摄制而成的超级文艺片，原拷贝长达五小时，公开上映时浓缩成三小时半。由于耗资惊人，好莱坞大亨本来对埃里克颇有微词，后因本片获得意外的卖座成功而作罢。故事以1919年的蒙地卡罗为背景。埃里克扮演一个欺骗美国外交官女儿的白俄亲王，靠着剥削他的情妇----一个貌丑的女仆为生。由于性虐待狂的驱使，他强奸了一个不幸的白痴女子。最后，他被人杀死，他的尸首很有象征意义地被扔在臭水沟里。埃里克对自然主义情有独钟，希望把一切情史都在画面中表现出来。他特地在加州海边搭建起蒙地卡罗的赌场和雄伟宫殿的布景，并且在采光上有十分大胆的处理方式。影像上也富于感官刺激的煽情暴力场面，甚至劳烦电检单位剪掉了其中的一些镜头。在片中，埃里克用一种辛酸的悲观主义眼光来观察人类，对上层社会的腐朽和封建作出激烈的抨击，流露出一种愤而感伤的怜悯色彩。而对低下层的人物和被骗上当的女子，则寄予同情的关注，表现出独特的“埃里克式人道主义精神"。

邪恶教授Jacob ten Brinken（埃里克·冯·施特罗海姆 饰）通过结合妓女与杀人犯的基因创造出了没有道德观、天性放荡的人造人美女Alraune（海蒂嘉德·纳福 饰），某天夜晚，教授的侄子Frank Braun（卡尔海因茨·伯姆 饰）偶然遇到了Alraune，两人对彼此一见钟情并准备私奔，为阻止二人，ten Brinken教授将人造人实验的事情告诉了Frank，被吓到的Frank独自一人前往巴黎。失去Frank后，Alraune的性情变得越来越轻佻邪恶，她一方面设计陷害自己的情敌和家庭教师，另一方面在四个男人之间周旋：Frank的两个朋友Wolfie和Gerold、她的仆人Mathieu以及教授的雇员Mohn医生，就在她将一个又一个人送向死亡与毁灭的深渊时，Frank突然回来了。

At the start of the First World War, Marthe Richard sees her parents arrested by German soldiers, taken away and shot. When she loses contact with her fiancé, André, a soldier on the Western Front, the young woman hastens to Paris with one thought in her mind – to take revenge on the Germans by serving her country. She is engaged by Commandant Rémond to work as a spy. She is sent to Saint-Sébastien in Spain to make contact with two senior German officers, von Ludow and von Falken. Von Ludow is easily seduced by Marthe’s charms and offers her work as a spy. Having gained the confidence of her enemies, Marthe stands every chance of fulfilling her mission, to determine the whereabouts of a hidden submarine base. However, von Ludow’s mistress, Mata Hari, sees Marthe as a rival and sets out to thwart her mission...
Marthe Richard au service de la France is one of three films by director Raymond Bernard which were set at the time of the First World War. The other two were: Les Croix de bois (1932) and Les Otages (1938). The film is based on the memoirs of Marthe Richard who, as a young woman, worked as a spy for the French during WWI. Richard would later became a leading campaigner against prostitution in France, a staunch supporter of the law that would result in the closure of brothels in 1946.
The main attraction of this film is its cast. The part of Marthe Richard is played by Edwige Feuillère, an engaging and very talented actress who was one of the stars of French cinema in the 1930s and 1940s. Her co-star is the impressive Erich von Stroheim, who had established himself as an actor in Hollywood after an inspired but largely unsuccessful career as a film director. This was the first of around half a dozen French films which von Stroheim starred in before his return to the United States at the start of World War II. It was immediately followed by La Grande illusion, in which von Stroheim again plays a German officer during WWI, arguably the actor’s most memorable film role. At the time, von Stroheim could not speak French and had to learn his lines phonetically, but that did not prevent him from giving a powerful, intensely human performance.
Unlike most of Raymond Bernard’s films, Marthe Richard au service de la France has not aged well. This is partly to do with the quality of the special effects – the air-sea battle sequence at the end of the film was clearly too ambitious to be realised convincingly with the available resources and looks risible compared with comparable Hollywood offerings of the period. However, what most dates the film is its flagrant appeal to nationalism. In contrast to Bernard’s earlier WWI film (the excellent Les Croix de bois), it shows a grotesquely idealised view of war, with John Buchan-style heroes, bloodless conflict and no end of flag-waving crowds. Obviously, the film was an appeal to patriotism as a time when war in Europe looked imminent, when a more realistic approach would have been a much harder sell. It is interesting to compare this with Bernard’s next film, Les Otages, also set during World War I. Whilst this later film also takes a patriotic line, it does so in a far more subtle way, whilst giving a more honest and convincing portrayal of the horrors of war.
One of the main themes of Marthe Richard au service de la France is the question of identity, of people not realising who the real enemy is during a period of crisis. Bernard seems to be strangely prescient of the problems that would beset the French nation when it fell under German occupation in the early 1940s, a time when no one could know for certain who was a collaborator or who was a resistance supporter, a time when persecuted minorities and free-thinkers had to conceal their identities or face deportation to the Nazi death camps. This would provide the subject for Raymond Bernard’s Un ami viendra ce soir (1946), the first film he made after a period of obscurity during the Second World War, one of his darkest and most interesting films. ~ James Travers@frenchfilmguide.com

1941年的北非战场，英德两军激战正酣，英军节节败退。布兰保下士（Franchot Tone 饰）被坦克遗落，蹒跚进入埃及人法瑞德的女王酒店，而几乎同时，德意联军指挥部进驻此处。布兰保乔装酒店服务生达沃斯伺机逃脱，意外发现隆美尔元帅居然近在咫尺，而他所假扮的达沃斯更是德军间谍，布兰保决定留下以便探听德军补给计划的“五墓行动”详情，同时也对酒店的法国女招待姆丝（Anne Baxter 饰）产生情愫。
不久女王酒店又迎来了一批英军俘虏，布兰保与对方取得联系并最终打探到“五墓行动”的真相，然而一直对姆丝有所企图的德军军官施威格（Peter van Eyck 饰）对他产生了怀疑，布兰保情报在手，却因姆丝要面对国家命运与个人情感的沉重考验。

1941年6月学校刚刚放假，乌克兰一个村庄的五位年轻人步行去基辅旅行，途中正遇上德军大举入侵苏联，他们遭到德军飞机轰炸、扫射，村庄被占领。大部分男人逃到小山里参加了游击队，这几个年轻人在村镇上一边与德军周旋，一边冒着生命危险为游击队提供武器弹药...

在布达佩斯酒馆卖艺的扎拉（嘉宝 饰演）是一个得不到满足、沉迷于酒精的美丽女人。平日里，她被许多男人所追求，与小说家卡尔·索尔特住在一起。一天，一个陌生的男人托尼找上门来，宣称扎拉的真名是玛丽亚，是他好友布鲁诺的妻子。他还说，扎拉在十年前，也就是第一次世界大战的时候，失去了记忆。扎拉虽然对此毫无印象，但还是跟随托尼决定回去看看，这让索尔特大为光火。
布鲁诺现在是意大利的陆军军官，他竭尽全力唤起玛丽亚对昔日时光的记忆。不过，没有一个人真的能确认扎拉就是玛丽亚。而这时，索尔特又现身告诉庄园中的人玛丽亚其实另有其人。布鲁诺和所有人一起绝望的寻找着真相……

Two differences between this Austrian version and the generally available American version are immediately obvious: they differ both in their length and in the language of the intertitles. The American version is only 1,883 metres long - at 18 frames per second a difference of some 7 minutes to the Austrian version with 2,045 metres. Whereas we originally presumed only a negligible difference, resulting from the varying length of the intertitles, a direct comparison has nevertheless shown that the Austrian version differs from the American version both in the montage and in the duration of individual scenes. Yet how could it happen that the later regional distribution of a canonical US silent film was longer than the "original version"?
The prevalent American version of Blind Husbands does not correspond to the version shown at the premiere of 1919. This little-known fact was already published by Richard Koszarski in 1983. The film was re-released by Universal Pictures in 1924, in a version that was 1,365 feet (416 metres) shorter. At 18 frames per second, this amounts to a time difference of 20 minutes! "Titles were altered, snippets of action removed and at least one major scene taken out entirely, where von Steuben and Margaret visit a small local chapel." (Koszarski)
From the present state of research we can assume that all the known American copies of the film derive from this shortened re-release version, a copy of which Universal donated to the Museum of Modern Art in 1941. According to Koszarski the original negative of the film was destroyed sometime between 1956 and 1961 and has therefore been irretrievably lost. This information casts an interesting light on the Austrian version, which can be dated to the period between the summer of 1921 and the winter of 1922. Furthermore, the copy is some 200 metres longer than the US version of 1924. If one follows the details given by Richard Koszarski and Arthur Lennig, this means that, as far as both its date and its length are concerned, the Austrian version lies almost exactly in the middle between the (lost) version shown at the premiere and the re-released one.A large part of the additional length of the film can be traced to cuts that were made to the 1924 version in almost every shot. Koszarski describes how the beginning and the end of scenes were trimmed, in order to "speed up" the film. However, more exciting was the discovery that the Austrian version contains shots that are missing in the American one - shots/countershots, intertitles - and furthermore shows differences in its montage (i.e. the placing of the individual shots within a sequence). All this indicates that Die Rache der Berge constitutes the oldest and most completely preserved material of the film.

The setting is Vienna in 1914 before the outbreak of war. The aristocratic and somewhat jaded Prince Nicki, pursued by all the ladies, begins a flirtation with Mitzi, a crippled harpist who works in a suburban wine-garden, and who is in turn idolized by Schani, an uncouth and violently jealous butcher. Their first encounter significantly takes place in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral on Corpus Christi day, with Nicki among the emperor's cavalry regiment. Later, in the refracted light of falling apple blossoms in the wine-garden--scenes of a distilled, ethereal beauty--Nicki gradually wins her faith and love. Meanwhile, amidst the sumptuous and corrupt milieu of the family palace, Nicki is drawn into complicity against his will, as his unscrupulous mother informs him he must marry Cecelia, the daughter of a wealthy commoner, in order to revive the family fortune. Mitzi has a vision of The Iron Man (a symbol of the declining power and position of the Hapsburg dynasty) and falls before the crucifix in fear; but her love remains steadfast, and she protests her faith though abused by her mother and Schani. Infuriated by her rejection, Schani threatens to kill Nicki on his wedding day unless Mitzi agrees to marry him. Following the processional splendor of the cathedral wedding, Schani appears to carry out his threat, but Mitzi arrives in time to stop him; and through the downpouring rain Nicki sadly gazes on his true love in the crowd as he drives away with his bride.

斯特劳亨主演的早期歌舞片，讲述了一个粗暴的自我为中心的口技表演者Gabbo，他凡事都要依靠他的木偶Otto来表达，后来她爱上了一个心另有所属的舞者，木偶开始规劝他。
靠木偶操作者不动嘴唇说话来操作的木偶与其操作者的对话经常是恐怖片的喜欢利用的桥段，这次它用在还是作为新鲜玩意儿的有声片中自然主要是为了炫耀声音的目的。另外片中还有大段的歌舞段落。

Karl Heinrich is the heir to the throne of the small European principality of Rutania, but he's a lonely child, not allowed to play with other children and knowing little about life outside the castle. When he reaches maturity, he is sent to attend the University of Heidelberg, and finds fellowshi with classmates and a blossoming love with Katie Ruder, his only friend during childhood and the niece of an innkeeper. However, political turmoil in Rutania forces him to return. War is declared. Heinrich returns to Heidelberg one last time to bid a somber farewell to his beloved Katie.