Best Drama Movies of 1924

Based on a play be Rachel Crothers, WINE OF YOUTH is a solid drama about "the modern young generation" and how they think they know it all. It's also a play about love and marriage.

Jean and Marise, young lovers forced from their homes, flee to Paris. Irrevocably separated there, their lives deviate into the slums and hard labor of low-class French society. All the while, the two desperately search for one another.

It is 1774, the eve of the American War of Independence. Janice comes from a Tory household. She cavorts with American and British alike, is pursued by Charles Fownes, patriot and friend of General Washington.

The Family Secret is an early film adaptation of a popular 19th century melodrama. The plot concerns the daughter of a wealthy man who has secretly married a man below her station of whom her father violently disapproves. The father, in an excess of parental concern, separates the lovers by sending his daughter away so that she might forget her inamorata, unaware of their married state; during this time, she gives birth to a daughter. After some months, the young mother returns to her family manor and presents her father with his new granddaughter, which causes a most unfortunate scene. Unbeknownst to the young woman, her enraged father falsely accuses his son-in-law of theft and has him incarcerated in order to separate the lovers in an irrational attempt to force his daughter to forget this "unworthy" young man.

By 1820, Edmund Kean is the most admired Shakespearan actor. But if his art is peerless, his free lifestyle is ill thought of, particularly by the high society. Kean has fallen passionately in love with Countess Elena de Koefeld, the wife of the ambassador of Denmark. Elena loves him too but hesitates to give up her rank in society and follow Kean. On the other hand, Anna, a rich heiress who refuses to marry Lord Mewill, the husband chosen by her parents, confesses her love for Kean and decides to become an actress like him... The aristocrats, outraged by Edmund's profligate ways, decide to boycott his performances and his career is broken. Kean does not recover from such a blow and, on a stormy night, dies in Elena's arms.

Renée (Mae Murray) is the heiress of a Mexican ranch, granddaughter of a woman known for her recklessness and frivolity at night. This first "Mademoiselle Midnight" is banished in the opening scene by Napoleon III at Empress Eugenie's insistence to Mexico. Renee is kept locked at the hacienda at night by her father to prevent her following in her grandmother's wayward footsteps. She falls in love with a visiting American (Monte Blue) but is also pursued by the craven outlaw Manuel Corrales. Miss Murray gets to do some of her trademark dancing, but this one isn't a comedy, despite comic relief provided by Johnny Arthur.

The story of a family caught up in the American Revolutionary War.

An orphan boy wins a prize for his drawing.

The Duke of Chartres is in love with Princess Henriette, but she seemingly wants nothing to do with him. Eventually he grows tired of her insults and flees to England when Louis XV insists that the two marry. He goes undercover as Monsieur Beaucaire, the barber of the French Ambassador, and finds that he enjoys the freedom of a commoner’s life. After catching the Duke of Winterset cheating at cards, he forces him to introduce him as a nobleman to Lady Mary, with whom he has become infatuated. When Lady Mary is led to believe that the Duke of Chartres is merely a barber she loses interest in him. She eventually learns that he is a nobleman after all and tries to win him back, but the Duke of Chartres opts to return to France and Princess Henriette who now returns his affection.