Day Seven of the festival and the mood on campus is very much “Thank God it’s Friday”. Not because anyone is glad the Giornate is nearly over (perhaps apart from the festival team perhaps who have worked tirelessly to ensure everything has run beautifully, as usual), but because today’s lineup is especially toothsome. More Norma! A Frances Marion-directed feature! And Ivan Mosjoukine and Brigitte Helm smouldering opposite each other! That’s before we even get to tonight’s Ruritanian romp – the 1924 adaptation of the silent era touchstone that is Elinor Glyn’s Three Weeks. Hold on to your string of pearls, we are going all-in.

First, an especially timely effort from Team Talmadge. In Within the Law (Frank Lloyd, 1923), Norma plays a shop girl who fights back. Exploited under capitalism, and imprisoned for a crime she didn’t commit, young Mary finds “going straight is a tough proposition”. Instead she teams up with a pretty blonde cellmate to take revenge on the moneyed male establishment with a breach-of-promise scheme that exploits men, cashes the big and stays strictly “within the law”.