Rudolph Valentino in "The Conquering Power" (1921)

Charles Grandet (Rudolph Valentino) is spoilt and pampered and leads a hedonistic existence in Paris. His father, Victor (Eric Mayne), has speculated heavily, is in deep financial distress, and plans to kill himself. He writes to his brother, Monsieur Grandet (Ralph Lewis), begging him to look after young Charles and treat him as a son.
After the death of his father , young playboy Charles is taken under the care of his miserly uncle, Monsieur Grandet (Ralph Lewis), the village miser. Despite being the wealthiest man in his province, forces his family to live in poverty and schemes to cheat his nephew out of his inheritance from his father, and steal it for himself.
The miserly Grandet is a wine grower, has orchards and owns half the town but lives in a sparsely furnished dwelling. The villagers despise him. He keeps an eye on all household expenses, even doling out the flour for Eugenie's birthday cake. Every year, on her birthday Grandet's daughter Eugenie (beautiful Alice Terry) is given a sovereign but she must not spend it, she must keep it safe.
Young Charles, along with his poodle, is an unexpected guest at Eugenie's birthday. He is appalled at the miserliness of his uncle. When he hears of the death of his father he draws closer to Eugenie for comfort.
Charles falls in love with Eugenie but Grandet condemns their love. When Eugenie finds out Charles wants to go to the West Indies to make his fortune, she gives him all the money she has saved, as she says she has no use for it. When Charles is away, Monsieur Grandet realizes what his daughter has done. He goes mad and attacks Eugenie, dragging her to her room and locking her in, and tries to arrange a marriage more to his liking (and profit!).
Eugenie's mother (Carrie Daumery) dies of the shock. All the villagers are horrified at his treatment of Eugenie and now the secret is revealed that Eugenie is not really Monsieur Grandet's natural daughter; she is his step-daughter, not his biological daughter. If she finds out then she could force him to divide his property and reclaim half of all of the gold that originally belonged to her mother, leaving her father penniless, so says the Notary (Edward Connelly), who wishes his son (George Atkinson) to marry Eugenie.
Eugenie is let out of her prison and then Monsieur Grandet has a violent argument with Eugenie, after she finds hidden letters sent by Charles that her father had hidden, which prove her father has cheated Charles out of his inheritance, and also declaring his love for Eugenie.
Monsieur Grandet accidentally locks himself in his small counting room where he keeps his gold. He starts hallucinating, and goes mad after having hallucinations about his gold, and is eventually killed after becoming frantic.
Eugenie is now left an extremely wealthy young lady, which only intensifies the pressure put on her by two competing families to marry one of the suitors.
Years later, Eugenie still hasn't married, and finally announces her engagement. But shortly after, Charles returns to visit the old garden where they used to meet, and hey are reunited.
A 1921 American silent romantic drama directed by Rex Ingram and starring Rudolph Valentino, Alice Terry, both fresh from their triumph in Ingram's "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" (1921), and Ralph Lewis (unforgettable as our hero's miserly uncle), and bearded Eric Mayne (the hero's well-bred but impecunious dad, later to become a standard figure in the roster of Hollywood extras). The film was based on the 1833 novel "Eugénie Grandet" by Honoré de Balzac. Its sets were designed by Ralph Barton.
Rex Ingram was one of the best "silent" directors, and he proves his skill yet again in this powerful, and often frightening film about love and greed. Evidently a strong influence on Erich von Stroheim's "Greed" (1924). Ingram, was tolerated at Metro because, although his films cost the studio a lot of money, that money was handsomely recouped at the box office. Ralph Lewis gives a commanding performance as the father, and the scene in which he is locked in a room with the ghosts of the people his greed destroyed, and even the ghost of gold itself, is utterly terrifying. Valentino convincingly moves from dandy to enlightened youth, and Terry is sublime as the suffering daughter. And through it all is Ingram's uncanny ability to catch the beauty in a face, the stream of light into a room, the thrill or the terror of a touch! A beautiful, powerful and totally absorbing stylish love story. Silent film-making at its very best.
Tagline: Enter Romance-a young blood from Paris, into the life of Eugenie Grandet -a life of chintz and candle-light.
Opening Title Card: In the story of Eugenie Grandet, Balzac, master word-painter of human emotions, gave us all the elements that control man's destiny. Wealth, extravagance, passion, failure, greed, dishonesty, poverty, patience, fear, faith and love. The greatest of these is love - - the all-conquering power.