Cinematic Era: 1912 Vintage

Edison short about a happy couple about to be married, but the guy's carelessness at their workplace leads to tragedy.

1912 film by August Blom

An early Gaumont short

Shoemaker Andersson has earned himself a minor fortune and is determined to give his children Fritz and Anna anything they want. But they don’t know to appreciate their dad, and begin to feel ashamed of his simple work while taking his money for granted.

A silent comedy in which a jealous woman wants to catch her husband in the act of infidelity.

Harald steals money in order to pay a personal guarantee. The crime is discovered and he is sentenced to imprisonment. After the penalty is served he travels to America to begin a new life.

Anna Q. Nilsson plays a shy telegrapher who foils a gang of train robbers in this vintage short subject directed by J.P. McGowan.

Una is the only child of a California prospector. When he dies, she goes to live with her aunt in the city. She explores her new surroundings with zest.

The creative yet debt-ridden inventor Fred must sell his beloved prototype of an aeroplane. Fred’s wife is ill and needs expensive medicine. The buyer is the usurer Frank, who doesn’t understand technology other than a status symbol. Thus, Frank needs a pilot, and Fred swallows his pride and takes the job. On the day of the test flight, a violent storm is brewing. Will Fred’s own invention seal his fate? (Stumfilm.dk)

Broncho marries a Mexican girl at the earnest entreaty of her dying father. Later a Mexican singer wins her love and, to get Broncho out of the way, she has him arrested and jailed on the charge of having assaulted her. In a frenzy of rage, Broncho secures the sheriff's revolver, escapes from jail and tracks the pair at his shack.

During the French Revolution, the Duke and Duchess of Bérac are captured by a mob. The Duchess agrees to marry one of their leaders in order to save her husband’s life. But her husband finds out about this, and forbids the Duchess to do so. The girlfriend of this leader takes revenge when she learns the truth, and stabs him. The two Béracs then proceed to the guillotine with their heads held high.

Bart Darrow, a young cowboy, is engaged to pretty Betty King and has put the engagement ring on her finger. Betty promises to always be true and Bart departs joyfully. In the town saloon he sets up the drinks in honor of the occasion.

There was Hersh Dubrown - a quiet, god-fearing, poor and virtuous scribe of holy books. And behold, his house became a battlefield between Good and Evil. The good was based on Hersz Dubrown's pure soul - and Satan reached for this soul. He lost her and corrupted her with money. . . Satan first appeared as a lottery ticket seller. He persuaded Hersz to buy a lottery ticket, let him win and get rich. And Hersz for winning the lottery - tempted by Satan - sets up a factory and produces mechanically. . . tallit. Satan, in the form of the merchant Uriel Mazyk, ruins the homeworkers who make tallits by hand. But Satan cannot defeat Hersh Dubrown. When he was up to his ears in sins, he punishes himself - he commits suicide.

According to Vachel Lindsay, "the best film fairy-tale the present writer remembers".

Early Balkan footage.

A woman destroys her kitchen and living room as well as the flat below trying to kill some spiders.

A group of tourists spend too long checking out the Indian Arts and Crafts at the station and miss their train. While waiting, Normand in a picture hat and black outfit, wanders off and takes an interest in Chief Evans, precipitating the usual chase, here by ax wielding Indian wives.

Marion, the telephone switch operator in a large factory, sticks to her post, notifying the different departments during the burning of the building. The fire department, of which Jack Watson, to whom Marion is engaged, is a member, received the alarm. Hastily the fire laddies get into their clothes and rush to the scene of conflagration. Everyone has escaped except Marion. Jack hears this, and tears himself away from his comrades, at the peril of his life, he dashes into the building and rescues his sweetheart. He drops with his precious and unconscious burden, exhausted, to the ground. They are each taken to their homes. When both are conscious, they are allowed to telephone each other, and their wedding day is set.

In the days long ago when knights were brave and venturesome, enchanted forests grew and mythical creatures lived among us.

A spy poses as a captured lieutenant and steals a ship. The lieutenant escapes and bombs the ship from a monoplane.

Short comedy about a arguing couple in which the man is doing everything to make up with his girlfriend. Henri has a fight with his girlfriend, Dora. He tries to make excuses by phone and by mail, but his girlfriend wants to know nothing about him. Henry tries dressed as parcel delivery and as a woman, but even then it does not work. Eventually the opinion of his girlfriend changes, and the quarrel is over.

The reconstruction of Frederick Cook's alleged 1909 North Pole expedition.

Broncho Billy, a lawless western renegade, reels out of the Rawhide saloon one day and comes face to face with the town preacher. The good man tries to show Broncho the error of his ways, but Broncho laughs and goes on to the Rawhide dance hall where a crowd of young people are enjoying themselves.

Episodes from the life of Elizabeth I, Queen of England (1533-1603), focusing on her ill-fated love affair with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.

Suzie takes a cruise and finds a flirt behind her guardian's back.

A story of the early days of the Australian goldfields.

Juan leaves for Rawlins, Arizona, where he wants to find a job so he can marry his fiancee Juanita, because Juanita's mother says a man must have quite substantial savings before he can marry her daughter. Juan takes a job with the railways. When a former employee raids the money train on which Juan is working, he manages to escape with the aid of a trolley, as a result of which the attack can be thwarted. For his courageous act Juan gets two thousand guilders as a reward.

Dan Hart, a worthless good-for-nothing, takes the wedding ring from his wife's finger to pawn, and spends the money for drink, leaving a note saying he has given up all claim to her as his wife. Mrs. Hart takes her little girl and leaves for the west.

Named by historian Kevin Brownlow as “the first important suffrage film”, this melodrama follows suffragist May Fillmore in her fight to sway Senator Herman, whose vote could pass a key reform bill. After exposing him and his fiancée Jane Wadsworth to the dire living conditions of a motherless tenement family—unsanitary housing, child labor, and workplace exploitation—Jane turns against her negligent fiancé and joins the suffrage cause. Ultimately, both Herman and Jane’s father are persuaded to support reform, and the film ends with the characters proudly taking part in a suffrage parade. (Note: This silent narrative film is distinct from Edison’s Votes for Women (1913), a Kinetophone short that recorded real suffragist leaders delivering speeches.)

One of the last films Georges Méliès made. By now, he was under contract for his former rival Pathé, where he made a few of his most lavish productions, including this one. Here, Méliès performed in front of the camera as the Devil […]. His incarnation of Satan this time is a sprightly antagonist who kidnaps a princess by locking her in a cage and taking off through the sky in a dragon-pulled carriage. […]

The story involves a man who goes to a gambling den regardless of the protestations of his wife. He is extremely lucky and his luck attracts attention. Strangers become friendly with him and he being a "good feller," "sets up" the crowd. After the night's playing, he is advised by the owner of the den that it would be hazardous for him to attempt going home alone with so much cash on his person. Chance decides to remain over night. He is shown to a room. During the night, he not only finds that he has been trapped, but an attempt is made on his life. (Moving Picture World)

Max starts out at a costume store to get a costume for a party. He sees a suit of armor and purchases it. He wears it to the party and gets kind of drunk and passes out. In the meantime, a museum has a suit of armor ready for a new display. It is to be dedicated and some such. It comes up missing, so Max, passed out and still in his armor is put on display.

An aged miner finds a rich gold claim, stakes it out, fills a sack with samples of the gold ore and starts back across the desert to file his claim. His water gives out, and, after days of torture, he at last falls in a clump of sagebrush. In a nearby cabin Jim Durkin and Black, his partner, are about to sit down to supper when faint cries are heard.

The forceful reformation of a lazy scrounger.

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The Kostomarov family falls apart when a female relative joins the household.

While looking for work, Broncho Billy meets a girl and falls in love with her. Broncho is then accused of horse theft by a jealous lover of the girl. At the moment that he is to be hanged, Broncho’s beloved girl comes to his rescue.

A truncated version of Wilkie Collins' popular mystery story.

Wanted outlaw Red Saunders shelters a young girl and her mother in his mountain hideaway after a house fire. The mother falls gravely ill and Red must sacrifice his freedom to go into town to find a doctor.

Instead of paying his landlady, a man invites a seamstress out for dinner. To tease him her colleagues appear uninvited at the restaurant. When the bill comes it is huge and costs the man all of his money, his watch and other belongings, while the seamstress doesn't even want him to walk her home. He goes home penniless and his landlady does not let him in: he has to sleep outside.

At the front, Bébé meets two Russian soldiers.

Winnie Allen, a pretty western girl, is loved by Dan Wild, whose father owns the Circle C Ranch. Broncho Billy, foreman of the Circle C, also loves Winnie and she favors his suit. Knowing this, and to make his way clear, Dan persuades his father to discharge Broncho. Broncho is unable to learn the cause of his dismissal from Wild.

Based on the novel of the same name by Mrs. Henry Wood (Ellen Wood).

Wholesaler Storm's spoiled son Axel wakes up with a severe headache. When the father enters, Axel blames the aches on too much homework. The father asks him not to overexert himself. Axel has signed a bill of exchange for SEK 5,000 that falls due on the same day. The father promises to help him. A little later, Axel's friends Jenny and Flottenberg come to visit. Together they go to the race track where Axel loses all his money.

Dick Lee, while hunting, meets James Gordon, an old rancher, who invites him to his cabin. Here he meets the rancher's daughter Mary. They soon become fast friends, and the girl's heart is almost broken when, at the end of the boy's holidays, he is to return to the city. Mary makes him promise to write. Back in the city, Dick tries to forget the country girl, and, as he is engaged to Lillian West, life is very gay indeed. Somehow, he cannot forget the little girl back on the ranch. The promised letter, however, is never written. Mary looks every day for the letter that does not come, and her father is very sad to see her pine away. At last he cannot stand it longer, and makes up his mind to go to the city and hunt Dick up.

Madam Berre, the widow of an African traveler, has a lion and two lionesses in her conservatory. Fred, a servant who abuses her beasts, is sent away by her. Under the pretense of haven forgotten his hat, he comes back while Mrs. Berre receives guests that evening and takes his revenge.

Survives only incomplete, but it nicely evokes the lost mining West. The steep hillsides of Bingham Canyon were divided into ethnic enclaves, and in the excerpt we glimpse the neighborhood known as Highland Boy, home to Italian and eastern European immigrants.

A Italian short comedy from the Società Italiana Cines company.

Things are going well for the young ship’s mate Willy. He has just completed his exams with excellent results and, what is more, he has become engaged to his great love, Lilly, a shipowner’s daughter. Her scorned suitor, Mr Bang, a merchant, whose proposal to Lilly was rejected shortly before, is incandescent with rage and hatches a malicious plan to get his rival out of the way. One evening, he lures Willy out to gamble and drink in an obscure harbour pub to get him shanghaied. The plan is to get Willy drunk, make him accept a loan from the pub landlord and sign a receipt which is actually a blank contract committing him to service on board a ship. Bang’s dastardly scheme succeeds, and before Willy realises what is happening, he has become a slave on a half-rotten wreck of a ship, ‘The Octopus’. (Stumfilm.dk)

Lieutenant John Miller, U.S.A., receives a note from his southern sweetheart chiding him for not getting through the enemy's lines to visit her. His pride determines him, and going to his general he asks leave of absence. The general tells Miller that leave of absence will be given him on condition that he purposely gets captured in his fiancée's home with a decoy dispatch on him.

About a young pretty bride, who cannot choose between all the grooms that circles around her...

Bébé's mother and her friends conduct a spiritualist session. They feel the presence of evil and get panic attacks, before they find the truth.

Shamus, humiliated at a Country Dance by Bridget leaves Kerry to travel to New York, where he meets with success. Bridget and her husband Terry read of his success and emigrate to New York, but finds it harder than anticipated