Pearl White

Cinema a century ago was a new, exciting and highly democratic form of entertainment. Picture houses nationwide offered a sociable, lively environment in which to relax and escape from the daily grind. With feature films still rare, the programme was an entertaining, ever-changing roster of short items with live musical accompaniment. 100 years on, this special compilation from the BFI National Archive recreates the glorious miscellany of comedies, dramas, travelogues and newsreels which would have constituted a typical night out in 1914. Our selection includes a comic short about a face-pulling competition, a sensational episode of The Perils of Pauline, scenes of Allied troops celebrating Christmas at the Front, and an early sighting of one of cinema’s greatest icons.

A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage and set to an original symphonic score.

An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.

A rollicking compendium of the greatest hits of silent-cinema chase sequences

Bob Monkhouse introduces the golden age of slapstick comedy.

Sally Marrio, neglected wife of a prominent shoe designer, has three wishes: to be a millionaire's wife, to be famous, and to have a child.

Various groups of people, both well-intentioned and otherwise, search for a buried treasure that is buried underneath a skyscraper.

In the hills of Kentucky, Alexander McGivens, known as "the girl in pants," is reared by her father as if she were a boy. When her father, Aaron, is wounded in a fight with Bud Sellers, the girl undertakes to get her father's logs to market with the help of a crew from the lumber camp. Her numerous suitors include a young Irishman, Jerry O'Keefe, roughneck Jase Mallows, and a wealthy young easterner, Jack Halloway. After delivering the logs, she entrusts her money to the repentant Bud Sellers, and on her return trip she is captured by Mallows and his followers. She finally reaches home, where she offers her hand to O'Keefe, the soft-spoken mountaineer.

Desperate because a wealthy man has reduced her father to thievery, Rhoda agrees to rob the poor box of the church, although she finds the act abhorrent.

Pearl White is a child living alone on a South Seas island after the death of her missionary father. By a stroke of luck, she becomes an heiress, and is transplanted into modern society.

No synopsis available yet.

When jealousy and envy lead Mary Vantyne to make a foolish decision and commit an impulsive act she sets off a series of events that nearly bring heartbreak to all those in her circle.

Warren Schuyler, a wealthy widower in a small Eastern town, is highly-respected until the citizens are financially ruined by devaluation of the oil stock he sold them. His daughter Ellen's New York socialite fiance' Roy Phelps deserts her after her father dies, but fellow townsman John Barrett comes to her aid, and she marries him out of gratitude. After three years of irritation from her mother-in-law, she again meets Roy and is persuaded to leave her husband and child, but on perceiving Roy's fraudulence, and following a serious illness, she reunites with John.

Ruth Hamilton, from a wealthy aristocratic family, cares little for society or its conventions and refuses the proposal of William Barton, a socialite of her parents' choice. While giving some poor children an outing on a beach, Ruth meets John Martin (Miles?), a young nouveau riche with no social standing who is snubbed by the aristocratic circles, and begins to visit him secretly. When Ruth visits John to show off a new costume, her father arrives to seek his financial aid. Ruth escapes, but she is observed by Barton, who informs her father. Hamilton insists that Martin marry his daughter, but Ruth refuses to be compromised by her father. Later, however, she consents to marry John, discovering that he really loves her.

A cabaret hostess falls for a young aristocrat, ignoring her friend's warning that the affair will end in heartache.

Terreur (Terror) is historically significant as Pearl White's last film.

The Perils of Pauline is a motion picture serial shown in weekly installments featuring the actress Pearl White playing the title character. Pauline has often been cited as a famous example of a damsel-in-distress, although viewers will find her character more resourceful and less helpless than the classic 'damsel' stereotype. Nine episodes (from a condensed 1916 re-release) survive to this day.

A 1916 movie serial.

Elaine Dodge is the beautiful young daughter of Taylor Dodge, president of the Consolidated Insurance Company. When Mr Dodge is murdered by a mysterious cloaked figure known only as the Clutching Hand, Elaine enlists the aid of Craig Kennedy to unmask the killer

The heroine had little time for romancing newspaper reporter Walter Jameson, what with Doctor X, alias Marcus Del Mar, threatening American democracy in general and master detective Craig Kennedy's designs for a new torpedo in particular. Whenever Doctor X has Elaine or Jameson in his grasp, they are inevitably saved in the nick of time by a mystery figure garbed in black.

A man is captured by Indians after swearing off all women.

Short directed by Joseph A. Golden.

A silent movie serial directed by George B. Seitz.

One of many Pearl White silent action movie serials. CHAPTER TITLES: 1. The Serpent Sign; 2. The Cryptic Ring; 3. The Watching Eye; 4. The Vengeance Of Wu Fang; 5. The Saving Circles; 6. Spontaneous Combustion; 7. The Ear in the Wall; 8. The Opium Smugglers; 9. The Tell-Tale Heart; 10. Shadows Of War.

The story tells of the adventures of an unusual young duke, whose father, the old Grand Duke of Kiev, coveted the wife of Count Dardinilis, his colonel of Huzzars; of the old Grand Duke's plot to get her for himself; of her accidental death at the hands of his Cossacks, and of the colonel's escape with his little daughter to America. The young Grand Duke, now an orphan, comes to America to complete his education.

Pearl White & Chester Barnett want to go on a date and have nothing to wear, so they borrow some clothes....

A young heiress of an American gun factory is threatened by a masked man after her father was murdered. This criminal might be a member of her family or a German agent, who wants to get information about the factory's products, perhaps his mystery has a combined solution - we will probably never know...

Only Episode 7, "The Hooded Helper," of this 20-Episode Serial is known to survive. All other episodes are believed to be lost.

Pearl's father disapproves of her sweetheart, Chester, and tries to use a mind-over-matter technique to keep him away. However, Pearl discovers the secret behind Chester's strange behavior and, with her own willpower, turns the tables, ultimately leading to a change of heart.

A maid and butler take advantage of their employers' absence and have a party.

Pearl White as a sleepwalking jewel thief.

Released as a split reel along with the comedy Almost a Winner (1913)

A beautiful young woman is a daring master thief. She meets the young millionaire Thomas Babbington Norton, while fleeing from the scene of her latest theft.

Mrs. Owing is fond of fine dresses, but she cannot pay her bills. The dressmakers, calling to collect from her, annoy Mr. Owing at his office. Determining to teach his wife a lesson, Mr. Owing disguises himself as a constable and hires two toughs to impersonate bailiffs.

Esoomgit tries to stop Red Doe from sacrificing herself for their tribe.

Adventures of an American Secret Service-girl in search of an important German secret during the war. Chapters: [1] “The Great Secret,”; [2] “Marked for Death,”; [3] “The Gas Chamber,”; [4] “Below the Waterline,”; [5] “The Acid Bath,”; [6] “The Unknown,”; [7] “The Betrayal,”; [8] “A Crippled Hand,”; [9] “Woes of Deceit,”; [10] “The Inn of Dread,”; [11] “The Death Studio,”; [12] “The Chance Trail,"; [13] “Wings of Mystery,”; [14] “The Hidden Way,”; [15] “The Secret Host"

Though Mr. and Mrs. Gray are supposed to be in comfortable circumstances, the husband has met business reverses and has been declared a bankrupt. It is after the wife has just completed a lavish social that he tells her. Disgruntled, she goes with him to live at a cheap apartment house. Pearl White starred in the Crystal FILMS short THE RING in 1914, just months before starting work at the Pathe studio on her break-out hit serial THE PERILS OF PAULINE.

In this tale of the South in the mid-1800s, Annabel Lee and Warner Richmond get married, but they keep the wedding a secret so that Warner can inherit the fortune of his misogynist grandfather. But after the grandfather's death, Warner dumps Annabel for an opera singer. Warner destroys the evidence of his first marriage so he can wed the singer, who then takes his money and leaves him.

A young girl is presented, on her birthday, with a beautiful pearl necklace, the oldest heirloom in the family. Her maid carefully locks it up in the bureau drawer; but the next morning the necklace is missing. Naturally, the maid is accused, but she denies all knowledge of the whereabouts of the necklace, and puts the blame on the washerwoman, who had called at the time she was locking the jewels up; in consequence, the washerwoman is arrested, and her little son, thrown on his own resources, finds employment with the milkman. Two or three days later, while delivering milk at a fashionable residence, he sees a young lady walking in her sleep, out across the lawn, and follows her to a hollow tree, where he sees her dig up the jewels, which she has hidden on a previous somnambulistic promenade. Of course, this soon leads to the straightening out of all the difficulty. This short is presumably lost.

A young woman calls in a plumber to fix her radiator, igniting a string of romantic complications.

Pearl mistakes a janitor for a member of the Black Hand.

Queen of the serials Pearl White gets herself into plenty of trouble up Klondike way as a young maiden named Tiger's Cub.