Shortly after acquiring the ailing Vitagraph studio, Warner Bros. set about remaking their 1914 melodrama A Million Bid for contract starlet Dolores Costello. Warners assigned the film to Hungarian émigré Curtiz, who needed a low-key follow-up to his ostentatious American debut The Third Degree. Costello loves a young surgeon, but is betrothed to a wealthy jerk (Warner Oland) who ponied up a million bucks for the privilege. Oland eventually forces himself upon Costello aboard his yacht, but a violent storm interrupts his plunder, causing the rapacious millionaire to develop amnesia in the aftermath. High seas hokum of the highest order!

Print courtesy of the Library of Congress | (Photo credit: Museum of Modern Art / Film Stills Archive)