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OPEN CLASSIC CINEMA · 504

Old San Francisco

192788 minUnited States
Drama
Video edition
YouTube
Original language
No spoken dialogue. Intertitles: English.
This copy runs
88:49
Subtitles
No subtitle track in this language

Languages and subtitles

No subtitle track in this language

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Synopsis

A ruthless businessman pressures a Spanish Californian family to surrender its land. The owner's daughter and a young lawyer resist, uncovering a secret that threatens the magnate's public identity. Their struggle reaches a crisis as the 1906 earthquake interrupts the city's existing structures of power and danger.

Cast

DirectorsAlan Crosland

Historical context

The historical melodrama combines early Vitaphone musical accompaniment with silent performances. Its villain's concealed ancestry and its treatment of Chinatown rely on anti-Chinese stereotypes, while the earthquake supplies a spectacular resolution to the invented family conflict.

Sources and availability

General references identify the work and its copy. A reference beside an editorial section is linked to the claims checked in that section.

Wikipedia — film referenceDuke Center for the Study of the Public Domain — US term reference

Work catalogued as public domain in the United States.

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Availability checked on September 10, 2026.

Photograph credit

Photographs cropped, resized and optimized as WebP, displayed in monochrome.

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