The Spaniard Madariaga (Pomeroy Cannon) has made a fortune as a landowner in Argentina, but the paterfamilias of the Pampas can scarcely keep his clan intact, as his two daughters wed French and German suitors and eventually move back to the continent. Only Madariaga’s playboy grandson, the part-time tango instructor Julio (Rudolph Valentino in his star-making turn), embodies the family spirit. But soon an assassination in Sarajevo echoes the prophecy of St. John, cousins take up arms against each other, and the Four Horsemen — Conquest, War, Pestilence, and Death — gallop across the sky. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was confidently adapted from Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s best-selling novel, an epic production that credibly recreates an estate in Bueno Aires and a castle on the Marne in the wilds of Southern California. While dozens of films had cheered on the war as it unfolded, Four Horsemen became one of the first Hollywood films to reflect upon the human, social, and cultural abyss of World War I — and was ably rewarded as one of the major blockbusters of the silent era. No small amount of credit goes to director Rex Ingram and cinematographer John Seitz, who developed an extraordinarily sophisticated aesthetic for the film. “I wanted to get away from the hard, crisp effect of the photograph,” suggested Ingram, “and get something of the mellow mezzotint of the painting … to picture not only the dramatic action, but to give it some of the merit of art.” Critics obliged, and reached for new superlatives, assuring a restive public that movies really could (and should) be treated as art.