While not part of the box set at the heart of this marathon, the recent release of a DVD from the same people involved in the box set of two newly restored Lois Weber films justifies a revival (and a reminder to myself to finish the box set).
A Chapter in Her Life (1923)
This is a charming film, based on the novel Jewel by Clara Louise Burnham, where the head of an estate takes on the care of his granddaughter, the daughter of what is presented as a prodigal son who married below his class. She enters into a home filled with negative energy, a cross housekeeper, an alcoholic groom (as in tending the horse), and the widow of the other son, and her adult daughter from before that marriage. Jewel is an angelic figure, with a religious tolerance trained into her by her mother. In notes hidden from mother to daughter to help through this period when her parents are away, we get certain perspectives that have become memes now, about realizing that people being mean to you are likely that way because of their own pain, and nothing personal. And so over the hour her goodness, and occasional bits of sass heal the household.
Sensation Seekers (1927)
If the prior film is more generically religious, this one is much moreso. We open on a meeting between the new, handsome reverend and a prominent society gal, nicknamed Egypt, at the beach. In that setting the bathing suits might put them in the same milieu but in fact they represent two parts of a divide in the 1920s between a more traditional Christian culture and the prohibition-skirting jazz age. But in some respects, that initial meeting was true to these two in that they do have in common a decency that we don't find as broadly among either of the groups to which they are members. In keeping with her early work in Hypocrites, the film calls out many of the reverend's flock as compromised in their Christianity, while also showing flaws among the jet set partiers, both in their way condemned as sensation seekers. The name Egypt and certain other aspects here reference the Moses story, while the perception of the interactions between her and the reverend have a bit of a Jesus and Mary Magdalane aesthetic. Ultimately it is a captivating romantic story with some social bite.
Having watched the early films in Black cinema for the other box set marathon, there is definitely cross-over here. This film, like a number of those films, very much shows this jazz bar scene as a sinful one, and roots salvation in a religious vein. It is a useful lesson to modern times that these pioneering filmmakers, progressive by not being white men, have plenty of conservative messages and aesthetics at times. We have a tendency to impute a whole range of radical views upon people whose identities are themselves made radical, when it doesn't actually reflect their desires. It is worth noting that this film does have an integrated cast, with Black performers/waiters at the jazz club, which combined with a story told on the commentary about Weber's desire to adapt Uncle Tom's Cabin, but ultimately not because the project she had originally signed onto planning to use people in blackface, she still had some measure of progressiveness.