Writing

William H. Clifford

Born — Died

1877-06-27 — 1941-12-23

Place of birth

Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

Known for

Writing

Credits

23 titles

Known for

The Man Of The Forest poster
9.0

Ailing ranch owner Al Auchincloss (Harry Lorraine) sends for his two nieces, Helen and Bo Raynor (Claire Adams and Charlotte Pierce), who are his heirs. Milt Dale, who lives in the forest (Gantvoort), comes down to help round up the cattle, and a romance springs up between him and Helen. This does not please Harvey Riggs (McKim), who is trying to get control of the ranch.

The Man Of The Forest

1921

Granddad poster
5.5

Mildred is staying with her grandfather, Civil War veteran Jabez Burr, when she receives a letter from her father. Her father has re-married, and will be bringing his new wife home soon. But when Mildred's stepmother finds out that Jabez drinks, she takes a dislike to him, and begins to resent his closeness with Mildred...

Granddad

1913

The Wrath of the Gods poster
6.2

An American sailor falls in love with a fisherman's daughter and convinces her that Jesus is more powerful than the gods who have cursed her.

The Wrath of the Gods

1914

Out of the Drifts poster
NR

An Eastern drifter stakes a claim near Boiseville but spends his nights gambling away his gold. Moll, one of the owners of the gambling hall, tries to help him quit the habit. When is neighbor, Peter Gardner teams up with Moll’s partner, Dick Weed, to try and steal the claim, Moll (who is secretly the drifter’s mother) and Gardner’s daughter, Kate, who is in love with the drifter, attempt to stop them. Gardner nearly succeeds in winning the drifter's claim in a card game, but an amnesiac named Crazy Oby suddenly regains his memory, recognizes Gardner as the man who robbed him years ago, and shoots him. Before dying, Gardner confesses that Oby is Kate’s real father. With the villains defeated and the truth revealed, the drifter and Kate find happiness together and prepare for their wedding.

Out of the Drifts

1916

The Spider poster
NR

Valerie St. Cyr, seizes a chance for excitement and money, deserts her infant daughter Joan and her impoverished husband and runs away to Paris with the Count Du Poissy. Years later, without knowing that they are mother and daughter, both Valerie and Joan fall in love with artist Julian St. Saens, who rejects the former but becomes engaged to the latter. Enraged, Valerie convinces the count to kidnap Joan, but after she is captured, Joan stabs the count to death. When Valerie learns that Joan is her daughter, she takes the blame for the murder and goes to the guillotine while Joan, still unaware that Valerie is her mother, makes plans with Julian for their marriage.

The Spider

1916

The Harvest of Sin poster
7.0

Jim Neal, the proprietor of the "Halfway Saloon," located between Tucson and Gold Creek. A local minister discovers Jim selling alcohol to the Indians and asks him to stop. Jim refuses, telling the minister to mind his own business. The minister then appeals to Jim's wife, Mrs. Neal, pointing out that the saloon is an unfit environment for their young daughter. Realizing the truth in the minister's words, Mrs. Neal decides to take their daughter and leave the area to visit her sister in a distant settlement. Tragically, while enroute, Mrs. Neal and her daughter are attacked by a group of the same Indians who had been incited by the "firewater" sold to them by Jim Neal, demonstrating the consequences of his actions.

The Harvest of Sin

1913

Behind the camera

The Man Of The Forest poster
9.0

Ailing ranch owner Al Auchincloss (Harry Lorraine) sends for his two nieces, Helen and Bo Raynor (Claire Adams and Charlotte Pierce), who are his heirs. Milt Dale, who lives in the forest (Gantvoort), comes down to help round up the cattle, and a romance springs up between him and Helen. This does not please Harvey Riggs (McKim), who is trying to get control of the ranch.

The Man Of The Forest

1921

Granddad poster
5.5

Mildred is staying with her grandfather, Civil War veteran Jabez Burr, when she receives a letter from her father. Her father has re-married, and will be bringing his new wife home soon. But when Mildred's stepmother finds out that Jabez drinks, she takes a dislike to him, and begins to resent his closeness with Mildred...

Granddad

1913

The Wrath of the Gods poster
6.2

An American sailor falls in love with a fisherman's daughter and convinces her that Jesus is more powerful than the gods who have cursed her.

The Wrath of the Gods

1914

Out of the Drifts poster
NR

An Eastern drifter stakes a claim near Boiseville but spends his nights gambling away his gold. Moll, one of the owners of the gambling hall, tries to help him quit the habit. When is neighbor, Peter Gardner teams up with Moll’s partner, Dick Weed, to try and steal the claim, Moll (who is secretly the drifter’s mother) and Gardner’s daughter, Kate, who is in love with the drifter, attempt to stop them. Gardner nearly succeeds in winning the drifter's claim in a card game, but an amnesiac named Crazy Oby suddenly regains his memory, recognizes Gardner as the man who robbed him years ago, and shoots him. Before dying, Gardner confesses that Oby is Kate’s real father. With the villains defeated and the truth revealed, the drifter and Kate find happiness together and prepare for their wedding.

Out of the Drifts

1916

The Spider poster
NR

Valerie St. Cyr, seizes a chance for excitement and money, deserts her infant daughter Joan and her impoverished husband and runs away to Paris with the Count Du Poissy. Years later, without knowing that they are mother and daughter, both Valerie and Joan fall in love with artist Julian St. Saens, who rejects the former but becomes engaged to the latter. Enraged, Valerie convinces the count to kidnap Joan, but after she is captured, Joan stabs the count to death. When Valerie learns that Joan is her daughter, she takes the blame for the murder and goes to the guillotine while Joan, still unaware that Valerie is her mother, makes plans with Julian for their marriage.

The Spider

1916

The Harvest of Sin poster
7.0

Jim Neal, the proprietor of the "Halfway Saloon," located between Tucson and Gold Creek. A local minister discovers Jim selling alcohol to the Indians and asks him to stop. Jim refuses, telling the minister to mind his own business. The minister then appeals to Jim's wife, Mrs. Neal, pointing out that the saloon is an unfit environment for their young daughter. Realizing the truth in the minister's words, Mrs. Neal decides to take their daughter and leave the area to visit her sister in a distant settlement. Tragically, while enroute, Mrs. Neal and her daughter are attacked by a group of the same Indians who had been incited by the "firewater" sold to them by Jim Neal, demonstrating the consequences of his actions.

The Harvest of Sin

1913

The Ruse poster
NR

"Bat" Peters, reformed gunfighter turned prospector, travels to Chicago to collect on a business deal with a mine promoter who turns out to be crooked.

The Ruse

1915

In the Sultan's Garden poster
NR

Lieutenant Robbins, a young naval officer, sees Haydee the favored inmate of the sultan's harem and is smitten by her charms. She is also interested in the handsome young American. She manages to write him a note that is delivered to him on the deck of his warship lying at anchor in a harbor and implores him to effect her rescue,

In the Sultan's Garden

1911

No artwork available
NR

Bill Evers, a gambling house keeper, is in reality the "Desert Scourge," an outlaw.

The Scourge of the Desert

1915

Nearly a King poster
NR

A crown prince doesn't want to marry a foreign princess, so he asks an actor to take his place.

Nearly a King

1916

Denny from Ireland poster
7.0

Denny O'Hara marries Eileen O'Connor. He learns his elderly mother has been evicted. He finds her dead and sets out to kill the landlord and finds him already dead. A local priest urges him to flee to America fearing he will be accused of landlord's death.

Denny from Ireland

1918

Denny from Ireland poster
7.0

Denny O'Hara marries Eileen O'Connor. He learns his elderly mother has been evicted. He finds her dead and sets out to kill the landlord and finds him already dead. A local priest urges him to flee to America fearing he will be accused of landlord's death.

Denny from Ireland

1918

The Confession poster
6.7

A priest hears a murderer's confession but can't reveal the truth, even though his brother is being tried for the crime.

The Confession

1920

No artwork available
9.0

The mother of a dead Union soldier attempts to convince President Lincoln to pardon a similarly condemned Confederate soldier whose unjust conviction was the result of her vindictive scheme.

When Lincoln Paid

1913

The Eternal Grind poster
NR

Louise (Pickford) is a sewing-machine girl in a sweatshop in New York City. She lives together with her sisters Amy (Loretta Blake) and Jane (Dorothy West) and are all deprived by bad conditions at work and sickness. Louise tries for the three of them to survive and regards herself as the keeper of her sisters. Meanwhile, she stands up to her bosses and complains about the dreadful circumstances they work in. When Amy is seduced by the son of the shop-owner, Louise butts in and stops the romance. He eventually abandons Amy and becomes seriously injured in a cave-in. Louise has a secret crush on the son herself and tries to rescue him, hoping he will admit he loves her. The film is inspired by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which took place in 1911. The only version of the film is a nitrate print in the Cinematheque Francaise, but only the first half remains.

The Eternal Grind

1916

In the Tennessee Hills poster
8.0

In an impoverished Tennessee hill town, Jim cares for his dangerously ill mother in a run-down shack he rents from the ruthless landlord John Calhoun. When Calhoun comes for the rent, Jim goes out to borrow the money. While he is away, Calhoun forcibly evicts Mother from the shack and leaves her dying in the dusty road. Jim, on his return, takes up his gun and begins to track down John Calhoun. - Harpodeon

In the Tennessee Hills

1915

The Bargain poster
5.6

After the bandit known as the Two-Gun Man Jim Stokes robs the stage, he is wounded in his flight from the scene. Recuperating at a ranch, he falls in love with a local settler's daughter. Now wishing to go straight, Stokes encounters trouble when the Sheriff-- not entirely incorruptible-- Catches wind of his location.

The Bargain

1914

A Timely Repentance poster
7.0

A lost film. John Crawford, an honest mechanic, and Wilbur Robinson, a young man of leisure, both love the same girl. She marries Crawford and they have a baby. Crawford is engaged in perfecting an invention and money is short leaving the wife dissatisfied. Robinson notes this fact and lures her away. She goes with him deserting the baby, leaving a note for her husband. While awaiting the train to leave the city they visit a picture house. The story thrown on the screen is identical to their own experience. Unable to witness the closing scenes and filled with remorse, Mrs. Crawford begs to leave and hurries home, hoping she may get there before her husband returns.

A Timely Repentance

1912

No artwork available
NR

Sisters Helen and Ruth Fiske work in a department store and live in an East Side tenement. While Ruth is satisfied with her "regular fellow," a mechanic, Helen yearns for fine clothes, wealth, and attention. Ruth marries the mechanic and they struggle for a modest existence. Helen leaves her squalor to be the mistress of wealthy John Ward, despite Ruth's pleas. As the years pass, Helen goes from one man to the next, looking for more luxuries. When James Kellerman, who really loves her, proposes, she laughs at him.

The Cup of Life

1915

No artwork available
NR

Through the efforts of the Rev. John Drummond, who comes to a small western mining town with his little boy, all the saloons are closed. Jim Howe and his daughter, Nell, being unable to carry on a liquor business in the town, move to the mountains, where he runs an illicit still and continues to supply whiskey to the Indians. The sheriff gets on his trail and he is soon placed in the custody of the law. Nell, determining to avenge herself for the capture of her father, fires n shot into a party of hostile Indians, secreting herself in a bush as she does so. The Indians, seeing the soldiers coming, and thinking that they fired the shot, rush at them, but are defeated. This plan of revenge having failed, she makes her way to the minister's home, but is prevented from doing any harm to him by the maternal instinct which rises in her when she sees his little boy praying for his mother in heaven.

Past Redemption

1913

The Sagebrusher poster
10.0

A friend of a Montana sagebrusher advertises for a potential wife for him.

The Sagebrusher

1920

Threads of Destiny poster
NR

Ivan Mussak, the head of the Russian secret police, is responsible for the murders of thousands of Jews and the forced exile of thousands more. Isaac Gruenstein and his infant daughter Miriam are the only members of his family to survive one of Mussak's massacres, and Isaac is exiled to Siberia. Miriam, however, becomes Mussak's ward and is raised by nuns in a convent. Eighteen years later Isaac dies in Siberia, but before he does he writes a note to his daughter and gives it to fellow prisoner Rachel Shapiro, who manages to escape and, by chance, finds Miriam. However, circumstances have changed in the past 18 years--and Miriam is now Mussak's mistress.

Threads of Destiny

1914

No artwork available
8.0

No synopsis available yet.

A Modern Noble

1915