THE MAN WHO CAME BACK (1924)

Special Features: 4K Restoration | Intro by film historian David Stenn | Live musical accompaniment by Makia Matsumura

Dorothy Mackaill achieved stardom with her exceptional performance in this torrid melodrama. When the wastrel son (George O’Brien) of a rich businessman is cast loose to make his own way, he plunges into drink, violence and dissipation. When he meets a cabaret dancer (Mackaill), a fellow lost soul, she attempts to save him but is dragged down herself until they both hit rock bottom and reunite at a Shanghai opium den. The power of their shared love leads to a fragile chance at renewal, but she has to face the cold scrutiny of his respectable family. Alternately tough and deeply tender, the film presents the brutality of the human condition with an unusual emotional ferocity. Mackaill’s performance of a woman battered by degradation, yet slowly restored through love, is tremendously moving. DIR Emmett J. Flynn; SCR Edmund Goulding, from the novel by John Fleming Wilson and the play by Jules Eckert Goodman; PROD William Fox. U.S., 1924, b&w, 104 min. Silent with English intertitles. NOT RATED

Restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive; restoration funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Roger Mayer Legacy Program. Restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive from a domestic 35mm acetate dupe picture negative and a foreign 35mm tinted and toned nitrate print. Laboratory services by Roundabout Entertainment, Inc., FotoKem. Special thanks to the Národní Filmový Archiv, Prague.

Also part of the 2026 Silent Cinema Showcase.

Run Time: 104 Minutes

Opening Date: Saturday, November 14, 2026

Genre: Drama

View Series Page