Theatrical
see all genres ›Plays, the traditional “theatrical production,” including musicals and radio plays, offer rich material for film adaptation.
Discover Theatrical Films
Genres / Adaptation / Theatrical
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Floria
Experimental filmmaker Roger Jacoby animates his muse, Ondine, as the villainous Scarpia in snippets from Giacomo Puccini's "Tosca." Freely mixing melodramatic gestures from his actors with a ruined soundtrack of static and full-on textural experiments that simulate decayed nitrate film bursting with color or fading to white,...Start your free trial to watch -
Hyenas
Twenty years after his astonishing first film, TOUKI BOUKI, Djibril Diop Mambety brings us a second feature, HYENAS, as provocative as his first. He adapts a timeless parable of human greed into a biting satire of today's Africa, betraying the hopes of independence for the false promises of Western materialism. Mambety has...Start your free trial to watch -
Inquest
In this courtroom drama, a young woman is suspected of killing her husband after a revolver is found in her attic. She enlists the support of a King's Counsel to help prove her innocence. It was based on a play by Michael Barringer which had previously been adapted as a film in 1931.Start your free trial to watch
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Joseph in the Land of Egypt
The second of “Thanhouser Big Productions,” a monthly schedule, Joseph in the Land of Egypt was a true “feature” film, a new class of film which came to dominate the market by the end of 1914. A feature was an hour or more, heavily advertised, with elaborate production values, often with higher ticket...Start your free trial to watch -
Julius Caesar
An innovative approach to a classic. One of the two "unofficial" films (the other being PEER GYNT) Charlton Heston appeared in before his 1950 "debut" film, DARK CITY. Independently produced in and around the Chicago area, it tells the familiar tale of the Roman leader. Heston is cast as Marc Antony, a role he would again...Start your free trial to watch -
Kathleen Mavourneen
An adaptation of Dion Boucicault's popular stage play "Kathleen Mavourneen; or St. Patrick's Eve," though with significant modifications. Much of Porter and McCutcheon's Irish melodrama was shot as if the audience could understand the absent dialogue. Likewise the collaborators used conventional theatrical...Start your free trial to watch
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King Lear
The King has left his kingdom in the hands of his two power-hungry daughters (Ina Hammer and Edith Diestel). Heartbroken over the behavior of his children, he retreats to a cave and his youngest daughter, the only faithful one, brings her armies to his rescue. There is a battle and the army of King Lear and his daughter are...Start your free trial to watch -
The Kiss
THE KISS revisits (and recreates) the kiss between actors John C. Rice and May Irwin from the play THE WIDOW JONES. However here it stars Fred Ott (arguably known best for his earlier sneeze) and an unknown woman. Romantic, in its way, but also coy. The film has been described elsewhere as an actuality but, as a dramatic...Start your free trial to watch -
The Kiss
May Irwin and John C. Rice enact the final moment from THE WIDOW JONES, a musical comedy then playing on Broadway. Initially, it was to be published as a series of photographs (via line drawings) in the Sunday edition of the New York World. The "risqué" scene had become a center of controversy during the 1895-96 theatrical...Start your free trial to watch
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The Little Death
An erotic thriller from the director of PSYCHOPATHIA SEXUALIS, THE LITTLE DEATH offers a peek into the seedy boudoirs of a Victorian-era brothel where a strong-willed reformer (Courtney Patterson) and a corrupter of innocence battle over the fate of a young woman (Christie Vozniak) who seems to be held...Start your free trial to watch -
Maddalena... zero in condotta
Before he created the postwar neo-realist classics SHOESHINE, THE BICYCLE THIEF and UMBERTO D., Vittorio De Sica had a very different career as a handsome leading man of stage and screen, starring in conventional romances and dramas. When he began to age out of such parts (though he never gave up acting),...Start your free trial to watch -
Marble Heart
This story, already a well-known English play of 1854 adapted from an earlier French play, casts the three most popular Thanhouser adult stars in a story of unrequited love, with a dream sequence that parallels the main story. Pale makeup is especially noticeable in some scenes, the answer to orthochromatic film’s...Start your free trial to watch
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Melvin Goes to Dinner
Melvin goes to dinner with three (almost) complete strangers. The frequently funny (but also heartfelt) conversation goes from dating to sex to religion to fetishes to ghosts and everywhere else in-between. The film is written and co-stars Michael Blieden, who adapted his stage play PHYRO-GIANTS! The film...Start your free trial to watch -
The Miller's Daughter
The sinful, decadent city is contrasted to the simple, honest countryside in this fascinating reworking of Steele MacKaye's ever-popular melodrama "Hazel Kirke" (1880). Events occurring off-stage are shown in the Porter film, including Hazel's suicidal jump and her rescue. And yet, while Porter and...Start your free trial to watch -
Mr. District Attorney
When Harvard Law School graduate P. Cadwallader Jones (Dennis O'Keele) bungles his first assignment in the D.A.'s office, he is next assigned the made-work job of reviewing the closed case of a crooked city official (Peter Lorre) who vanished with a stolen $100,000. The cold case suddenly gets hot when the...Start your free trial to watch




