Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1912
Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself.
Dr. Henry Jekyll experiments with scientific means of revealing the hidden, dark side of man and releases a murderer from within himself.
A messenger boy is wrongfully accused of stealing bonds worth $20,000. Luckily, a film crew is shooting a moving picture on the same street. The boy's accuser has the police convinced, until...
With her week's wash only half done, Diana drops her work to peruse the Paris fashion magazines. Poring over the beautiful fashions delineated in the highly colored pages of the publications, Diana falls asleep. She dreams that she is wealthy and a society leader in Washington. A short film (273 meters) which marked James Cruze's debut as director.
The lead Florence La Badie plays dual roles. Clever editing is used for the scene where her two characters meet. La Badie, however, does appear twice within a scene via superimposition, but that's in a flashback-within-a-mirror scene. There are a couple such scenes where La Badie's reflection in the mirror reflects her reflective melancholy mood.
A love story filmed in Long Island Sound with a stowaway and a shipwreck.
A rich man who finds that there is nothing in life worth living for, is worse off than is a poor man in similar circumstances, for the poor man may he stricken with ambition, and in a last effort to attain fame and fortune, redeems himself. But what is a man to do if he has wealth, health, all the fame he desires, and yet looks at life through blue spectacles?
In "The World and the Woman", Jeanne Eagels plays Mary, a prostitute (which is implied by her walking the streets and being hassled by policemen) who reluctantly takes a better position at a country lodge as a maid. In this woodland community, she attends church and the path to Salvation becomes clear to her. Through Mary's faith, the injured folk of the countryside are healed. However, her old employer, whose lustful advances she'd previously spurned, still has designs on her.
A one-reel crime drama with crooks, ruses, kidnapping, escape, and a twist, all wrapped in a coherent narrative.
Convicted in a revolutionary conspiracy, a man rashly states that he wishes never again to hear the name of the United States of America. The judge grants him his wish, sentencing him to life aboard a ship always at sea, aboard with sailors under orders never to let him hear of his homeland in any way. The punishment nearly destroys him, while changing him thoroughly.
Silent adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear
The Thanhouser Company's two-reel adaptation of Oscar Wilde's eponymous novel. “The plot is unusual, and even though none of the familiar epigrams of the author find their way into the subtitles there is an artistic flavor to the production. Dorian's picture shows evidence in the passing years of his selfish, dissipated life, though his own countenance remains unchanged. Harris Gordon handles the leading role effectively, and Helen Fulton was pleasing as the ill-fated young actress who won Dorian's heart." - The Moving Picture World, July 31, 1915.
Elaborately produced version of the well known George O. Nichols fairy tale interrupted by just a few summarizing intertitles, with Florence LaBadie and Harry Benham.
An indictment of the evils of child labor, the film was controversial in its time for its use of actual footage of children employed in a working mill.
Film realization of the Biblical story of Joseph, played here by future director James Cruze.
A kindly shop owner whose overwhelming gambling debts allow a greedy landlord to seize his shop of dusty treasures. Evicted and with no way to pay his debts, he and his granddaughter flee.
With The Old Curiosity Shop and David Copperfield, both released in 1911, and Nicholas Nickleby in 1912, Thanhouser established itself as producer of the best Dickens adaptations in American film.
A three-reel version of the famous stage production. Don Jose, the hero of the famous book by Prosper Merimee, and Bizet's celebrated opera, was born in the Basque Provinces of Spain. He was a young, good-looking peasant, devoted to his old mother, and greatly in love with his pretty sweetheart, Mercedes. The plans of Jose and Mercedes for an early marriage were rudely dissipated by the news that the young man had been drafted for service in the Spanish army. Jose comforted his mother and Mercedes, telling them that he would soon return and they would never be separated again.
A short adaption of the novel by Charles Dickens.
Edwin Thanhouser re-made The Vicar of Wakefield in 1917 as a eight-reel feature film providing us with a frame of reference for the maturation of film language and cinematic techniques over the ensuing eight year period.
A rather complex interweaving of romance and crime is squeezed into one reel. A "respectable" couple of city "card sharpers" invite a distant country relative to visit, then use her as a pretty, unwitting decoy to lure rich victims. They flee town a step ahead of the law. At a resort, the innocent girl falls in love with the latest victim, but they help expose and apprehend the guilty parties.