Brute Island (Silent) (DVD)

Harvard grad Bruce McVeagh has fled San Francisco for the South Seas, where he rules as a king on a remote island. With his half-crazed first-mate "Pearly" Gates, he keeps the natives subjugated with gin. Any who dare disobey him find brutal punishment on his dreaded torture rack. But his kingdom threatens to crash down around him when his lost love, Nancy Darrell, is shipwrecked on the island, just as the aroused natives rise up against their tormentor in an armed rebellion.

Three years after Brute Island was released, Harry Carey appeared as "Cheyenne" Harry Morgan in a series of hit Universal westerns by director John Ford that would raise him to legendary status. By 1925, Carey was one of Hollywood's highest paid superstars. Although well into his 50s at its outset, the sound era saw him go on to deliver powerful performances in classic motion pictures including Trader Horn (1931), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), for which he received a best supporting actor Oscar nomination, and Howard Hawks' Red River (1948) with John Wayne.

• silent