Macbeth 1916
Shakespeare's tragedy of the Scots nobleman whose ambition leads him to betrayal, murder, and damnation.
Shakespeare's tragedy of the Scots nobleman whose ambition leads him to betrayal, murder, and damnation.
John Howard Payne leaves home and begins a career in the theater. Despite encouragement from his mother and his sweetheart, Payne begins to lead a life of dissolute habits, and this soon leads to ruin and misery. In deep despair, he thinks of better days, and writes a song that later provides inspiration to several others in their own times of need.
When a stack of valuable bonds go missing from the Grant household, suspicion falls on little Carmen Grant's playmate Georgie, whose father is a poor ex-convict trying to go straight.
Harvy, the heavy, and Bella, the ingenue, of a cheap theatrical company are encumbered with an infant girl. The husband, a worthless, dissipated character, annoyed by the presence of the child and the care the wife is compelled to give it. deserts them both. The show then "busts" and the mother and the infant are left stranded in a small California town.
Jim Miller lives in a cheap tenement with his wife and his sister. They had been in a better position in other days, but Jim has developed into a morose half-drunken character, suspicious and high-tempered. The sister leaves her own husband and comes to live with Jim. However, she is jealous of her sister-in-law and goes out of her way to be mean to her, and to poison Jim's mind against the weak, pretty thing who is his wife. One day Jim gets out of a job and while he is out looking for work and the sister is away at her work in the factory, Mary, the wife, steals out determined to add to the common share, while her husband is in hard luck. She finds work painting clay figures, an art for which she shows some talent. But she is afraid of Jim's wildness and as soon as she collects money she secrets it for a rainy day. One day after she has worked hard and hoarded some money, the sister comes in unexpectedly upon her, and when Mary goes out of the room finds the money in an old vase.
Bud Walton, the village blacksmith, is big and strong physically, but he has not the courage to put his strength to good purpose. All the boys take a slap at him whenever they choose, and Bud makes no attempt to retaliate. This causes his sweetheart, June, to despise him.
Oliver and Elizabeth wed. He is a famous lawyer, careless of his personal conduct, but has implicit faith in Elizabeth. She is a woman of strong mind, a magazine writer of repute, and believes he should guide himself by the same code that governs her. Two of their associates are profligates, Charles, an artist, and Catherine. Oliver trifles with Catherine and this so embitters Elizabeth, that she pretends to receive the attentions of Charles, although it is made clear that she has remained pure. Nevertheless, she purposely permits her husband to believe otherwise. He has considered her like Caesar's wife, but his faith is shattered. A child is born to her and the father doubts its parentage.
Biff Dugan, the eldest son of a poor family living in a tenement on the squalid East Side of New York, leads a gang of hoodlums, among whose members is his brother Porky. Their sister Jess is a consumptive whose health was ruined in a sweatshop. During a melee in a mission run by reformer Henry Davis, the Dugan gang encounters Billy Drew and his sister Cora, newcomers to the city. Porky saves Cora from the unwelcome attentions of Biff's rival, Spike Golden, and the two fall in love. Later, when Spike is killed in a gang war, Biff is wrongfully convicted of the murder and executed in the electric chair. Porky, who served a short term in prison for his part in the crime, comes back to the city to find that Jess has died and Cora has returned to the country.
Our Mutual Girl was unique. Not quite a serial, not quite a newsreel and not strictly an advertisement, it combined elements of all three. In 52 weekly one-reel episodes, running from January 19, 1914 to January 11, 1915, the Mutual Girl outwitted villains, saw the sights of New York, met with theatrical and political celebrities (who frequently helped her out of trouble) and tried on fashionable outfits in chic stores. The fashions were an early example of product placement, although apparently not paid placement.
A 1914 silent Western short
Helen and Joe are in love. He receives a letter from his uncle offering him a good position in his law office. He shows Helen the letter and she shows him one from the Standard, also a check for a short story. They have a quarrel over a slight thing and he leaves for his uncle's place. Six years go by and Helen is now a very successful writer on a large daily.
A 1910 short directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Marion Leonard.
When the Civil War was declared, it caused great consternation in the home of John Wilson, as he was of Southern birth, while his wife was a Northern woman, and she favored the Federal cause.
The Old Man is a 1914 film short
William Rock, assistant cashier in a business concern, has a sick daughter. The doctor urges that she be taken immediately to another climate, and Rock, unable to get an advance on his pay, is desperate. He has been in the habit of taking the deposits to the bank every Saturday, and then going direct from the bank home. He determines that week to steal the money. On Saturday Rock is followed on the street by a couple of crooks. He goes into a telephone booth to phone his daughter May and her fiancé, a young physician, that they can start south with the younger sister at once. Taking the money out of the bank satchel, he stuffs it in his inside vest pocket and leaves with the empty bag in his hand. He goes down an alleyway to get rid of the satchel, but is assaulted by the gunmen and the bag taken from him.
This picture tells how a boy is cared for all his life by his mother, when he is well and when he is ill.
A dead child's broken doll reunites an estranged husband and wife.
Marie is a village girl, very religious. Her mother, fearing some man will make her unhappy (as she had been made by a man) made her promise on her deathbed that she would enter a nunnery. Marie considers that promise sacred and will allow nothing to interfere with her keeping that promise.