Florence Turner

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.

Vivienne Ware is defended by her ex-beau when she's accused of killing her faithless fiance.

Amidst a backdrop of growing violence and intimidation, independent cab drivers struggling against a consolidated juggernaut rally around hot-tempered Matt Nolan. Nolan is determined to keep competition alive on the streets, even if it means losing the woman he loves.

Suave French actor Philippe Martin provokes a scandal when, in a darkened theater, he mistakes young Monique for his mistress, Yvonne, and tries to kiss her. Charged with assault, the quick-thinking Philippe claims it's French tradition to do as he did, and is let go. To his surprise, Philippe learns that Monique has paid his fine. As the tabloids exploit the situation, Monique dates Philippe, until a photo appears of him kissing Yvonne.

Wealthy playboy Sandy Benton falls for pretty but decidedly less wealthy neighbor Doris Lawrence. She rebuffs his attentions, but scheming golddigger Estelle has her own plans for Sandy. When Doris hears about Sandy's wild times with Estelle, she sets out to show him that she, too, can be a "modern" woman.

The Ridin' Fool presented the bantamweight star as Steve Kendall, a young cowboy saving gambler Boston Harry from being hanged by a group of vigilantes who accuse him of having killed Jim Beckworth. The fugitives hide out at Juanita's hacienda and while their mercenary hostess decides how to best fleece her guests, the posse arrives.

A bookish college student dismissive of athletics is compelled to try out sports to win the affection of the girl he loves.

When a pretty small-town girl with no talent goes to Hollywood, what could go wrong? She could get Stranded!

A controversial, low-budget drama about the life of a young teenage girl that goes on the "road to ruin." Sally is a 16-year-old New York City teen who, neglected by her parents, takes up smoking and drinking, engages in affairs with a series of older men, gets arrested by the police during a strip poker game, is sent home only to discover later that she's pregnant, and after getting an illegal abortion, the words "The Wages of Sin is Death" inexpliably appear over her bed in fire.

Exemplifying Kipling's adage, a white man falls to pieces when he is in the South Seas.

A silent film from the end of the silent era.

The plot is motivated by a pearl necklace, which has caused the death and/or ruination of all its owners. The second screen appearance of detective Charlie Chan.

No synopsis available yet.

Sally, a girl of the tenements, is being raised by three bachelor foster-fathers, a pawnbroker, an organ-grinder and a peddler, and is very happy preparing their meals and keeping the house, while the old men bask in the attention she gives them. However, this happy home is broken up when Sally wealthy aunt appears on the scene and takes Sally back to her luxurious penthouse in order to give her the advantages of money and social position. But Sally's heart is back across the river with her plumber sweetheart, Jimmie Adams.

Ellen's happy life is shattered when she discovers George is having an affair with Ardath Courtney, a "social butterfly" and vamp struggling to maintain a facade of wealth. To win George back, Ellen attempts to make him jealous by flirting with Wally Van Tine, the wealthy son of George's employer. Ardath attempts to frame Ellen by sending George to an apartment Ellen has rented for a poor woman, Mrs. Moran, making it look like Ellen's own secret flat. The misunderstanding is cleared when Mrs. Moran’s abusive husband, Jimmy, appears. George realizes Ellen was merely being charitable, thrashes Jimmy, and reconciles with his wife.

The Boatswain’s Mate, which appeared in WW Jacobs’ 1905 short story collection ‘Captains All’, tells of an ex-boatswain (Johnny Butt) who is eager to win the hand of the local pub landlady. He bribes an ex-soldier to stage a house-breaking, so that he can win her in a heroic last-minute rescue. The plan begins to unravel when the ‘burglar’ (Victor McLaglen) and his victim (Florence Turner) are instantly smitten. It’s the feisty shotgun-wielding landlady, who triumphantly puts the boatswain in his place. BFI

After his father refuses to lend him his car, jazz age youngster Smoke Thatcher 'borrows' a neighbor's car to take Patsy, his sweetheart, to a dance. A car-fight with a rival results in the wreck of the borrowed automobile. The garage to which the car is taken for repair turns out to be a gang's hideaway and a place where stolen cars are brought and fenced.

After inheriting a fortune from an uncle they barely and carelessly cared for during his last years, the Welbys become social-climbing snobs to the point of ignoring old friends and breaking off marriage engagements. A lost film.

When a famed matador is forced to become an outlaw, he seeks to get revenge on the dancing girl who betrayed him.

At a trading post in the Northern Dakotas, Hawk Lespard, an unscrupulous trader, is opposed by Jack Jessup, posing as a gambler but actually a scout for the Overland Stage Co., and Kunga-Sunga, a wizard with the lariat.

In Africa a typist is framed for killing a diamond smuggler who betrayed her father.

Doña Aguila, owner of a vast ranch and a valuable emerald mine in the Argentine, longs for her lost daughter, Conchita, and is victimized by her manager, Emilio Tovar, who is secretly stealing gems. Tovar goes to New Orleans to dispose of some emeralds, and persuading cabaret pianist Inez Remírez to impersonate the dead daughter, he schemes to divide her inheritance. Dan Prescott, a stranger, forces himself into their confidence and accompanies the couple on their return voyage. Doña Aguila's kindness causes Inez to repent and to refuse to carry out the plan; Tovar and his men attack the rancho to acquire an emerald necklace, and Inez rides for aid. Prescott, revealing himself to be an insurance agent, wins the heart of Inez, and Doña Aguila adopts her as her legal daughter.

Young farmboy leaves for the big city to get a job and find his sister; both of them get involved with drug dealers and become opium/cocaine addicts.

A woman leaves her husband to run a Paris boarding house, and reunites with her sister after the war.

A typist threatens to expose her lover when he prosecutes the divorce of a woman he means to marry.

Mary Jane is a girl born out of wedlock whose mother, Alice, attempts to offer her respectability by marrying a wealthy old colonel. As a young adult, Mary Jane meets and falls in love with reclusive writer Walter Butler. They are about to marry when he is revealed to be her natural father.

Filmed on location at Monterey, CA, and starring exotic stage dancer Mlle. Doraldina, this long-lost South Seas romance featured Stuart Holmes as a vicious plantation overseer who poisons his boss (W.A. Bainbridge) in order to possess both the unfortunate man's estate and his daughter.

A pulsing drama of modern life centering about a young war-widow and her son.

In the small farming community of Spring Valley, young Aurora Lane has caused a scandal by bearing a son by townsman Lucius Henderson, who refuses to marry her or even admit that he's the father. Shunned as a "sinful" woman by most of the town, she turns over her son, Don, to be raised by Miss Julia, the town librarian, who tells the boy that she's his "aunt". Don grows up and goes to college, and when he comes back home the town gossips begin a rumor-mongering campaign. When the town policeman tries to drive Aurora out of town he is found murdered, and Don is arrested for the crime.

The first of a series of three reels. This reel depicts the escape of Eliza and the removal of Uncle Tom from his old home in Kentucky. According to an article in Film Index (16 Jul 1910 ), the scene depicting the escape of Eliza was filmed in the early spring, when the ice on the Ohio river had started to melt.

Mrs. String, sitting under the rose bushes with her baby, Helen, on her knee, is approached lovingly by her husband, who lovingly speaks to his family and then shakes the rose bushes over their heads, causing the white leaves to fall upon their heads in a shower of rarest sun tints.

Billie and Dollie are very much in love with each other, and they declare their love under the cherry trees. In later years Billie receives news of his appointment as a cadet at West Point: he promises to return to Dollie as soon as he graduates and claim her for his wife.

Bent on having a summer’s vacation, two working girls hire a tent and pitch their camp on the shore of a beautiful lake. As fate would have it, two farmer lads, living with their widowed mother and their pet border collie Jean, unexpectedly come onto the tent of the girls.

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.

Garment manufacturer Sergius cuts his workers' wages, prompting a protest led by two Russian sisters, Olga and Vera. Sergius's affluent daughters, Hattie and Helen, decide to support the workers' cause, moving into the sisters' tenement and joining the workforce, much to their father's dismay. In a dramatic turn, the daughters bring their work to the factory and confront Sergius. They make a final appeal to him in his office, where he eventually relents and agrees to meet the workers' demands. Following this victory, Hattie and Helen decide to return home to their father, and the good news is shared with all the factory girls, ending the story on a note of general rejoicing.

Tired of being sought only for his money, a rich man goes on a fishing trip.

Two nice young people become acquainted at the beach; A romance develops.

Daisy and her husband both go in for a face-pulling contest, but when the big day comes she is unable to attend the competition, and her husband wins instead. When the next opportunity comes around, she is determined to win -- but gets a little over-enthusiastic on the way to the contest and finds herself in trouble! She is most ungrateful for her rescue; fate, however, catches up with her that night…

Virginia Jameson, a girl of lovely disposition, is wooed by a man much older than herself whom she very much dislikes, but who stands very high in the favor of her parents. She might have married another man had not fate decreed otherwise. She meets and accidentally escapes the man she could have loved and would have married; she stooped to tie her shoe-strings, diverting her attention from him. Had their eyes met, both their lives would have been different. Leroy Farley, the man favored by her parents, prevails and she marries him. Her life is unhappy, notwithstanding his great riches and social prominence.

An early film version of the Charles Dickens classic about the French Revolution and its subsequent Reign of Terror.

From his apartment, where he lives a cheerless widower's life, overlooking Washington Park, Alan Dale sees a refined, but poverty-stricken old gentleman on one of the park benches. Calling his butler, he instructs him to go down and tell the old man he would like to see him. When the butler approaches the elderly man the old fellow is somewhat skeptical, but finally consents to go with him. Alan receives his guest cordially and tells him why he has requested him to come and invites him to dinner. During the meal the old man tells his life's story: how he married a young woman, and after the birth of a little daughter, she died. How his daughter had married a young fellow and gone to live in New York, and how he had lost his money. The last news he had received of her was of her death.

Making the best of her genteel poverty, our heroine prepares to attend the dance to which she has been invited, and, after surveying the general effect of her plain and somewhat passé attire, goes on her way with a painful self-consciousness to the home of her friend.

Oniatare, a young brave of the tribe of the Hurons, and Kowa, a chief of the Mohicans, are in love with Ethona, or "The River Flower," an Indian Princess. The Hurons and the Mohicans are sworn enemies. The young brave and "The River Flower" meet from time to time. Kowa notices this and in plaintive song would lure the fair Ethona to him. But it is of no avail.

Romantic comedy in which a woman who no longer wants to marry her fiance when it turns out he doesn't have an inheritance. After his father is deceased, Stephen Fiske travels to New York, where he learns that his father has left him nothing. His fiancée Doris now refuses to marry him because he is not rich. Doris has, however, an old aunt, whose last wish is that Doris marry Stephan.

Alice is in an unhappy relationship with her fiance. She falls for a new man, but he goes swimming and starts to drown. Can Jean save the day?

Dolly Dillard jumps at the conclusion that George Gordon is playing her false, as he affectionately greets his sister at the train when she comes to pay him a visit. Dolly, who is not acquainted with his sister, sends back her engagement ring. Sad and disconsolate, she saunters to the cliffs overlooking the seashore, trying to forget her imagined wrong. As she is climbing down the side of the rocky prominence, her foot slips and she falls into a narrow crevice. She finds herself helpless with a sprained ankle. Remembering George's returned match-case, she tears a piece of cloth from her skirt; writes with a burnt match a note, telling of her accident. She ties it around her shoe and throws it over the cliff to her collie dog Jean, who carries the missive to George, who at once, after summoning aid, goes to her rescue, accompanied by his sister.

The daughter of an old friend is staying with Dr. Laurence. Sylvia is a naughty girl; she puts sneezing powder into a bunch of flowers to make everyone in the house sneeze. After the doctor introduces her to the son of a friend, the two fall in love and get engaged. Dr. Laurence is also hopelessly in love with Sylvia, but keeps it a secret. After a ball he gets smallpox. Sylvia takes care of him and falls in love with him. She breaks off the engagement.

Hugh gives his dog to Nancy while he goes to sea. When Nancy's father runs out of money, he must return to the sea with Hugh.

When Viola and her twin brother Sebastian are shipwrecked and separated, Viola dresses in her brother's clothes and becomes a page in the palace of the Duke of Orsino. Thinking Viola is a boy, the Duke sends her with a message to Olivia, whom he loves. A series of complications begins when Olivia falls in love with the page 'boy'

A political crime film in which a militant, anarchist father allows his political ideals to prevail over human dignity. The father uses his young daughter to carry out an attack on Princess Louise. After his wife foils the attack and he is arrested by the police, he steps back from his fanaticism and repents.

In this Vitagraph short, anarchism threatens to ruin lives and families. Luigi and Rosa are a couple with an adorable child, but trouble is afoot – Luigi has become an anarchist!

An unfortunate twist of fate provides the opportunity for a reporter to demonstrate the depth of his love for a beautiful actress.

Lieutenant Troyano, a young Italian officer, bids his sweetheart, Marie Petrini, a fond farewell and then rushes to war. In reading a detailed newspaper account of the battle, Marie sees an appeal for Red Cross nurses. Leaving her luxurious home and arriving at Tripoli, she takes up the duties assigned to her. She is beloved by all who require her services

A comic one-act film featuring the character Bunny, which takes place in an office.

An early film adaptation of the Bard's comic fantasy.

A rich merchant, Antonio is depressed for no good reason, until his good friend Bassanio comes to tell him how he's in love with Portia. Portia's father has died and left a very strange will: only the man that picks the correct casket out of three (silver, gold, and lead) can marry her. Bassanio, unfortunately, is strapped for cash with which to go wooing, and Antonio wants to help, so Antonio borrows the money from Shylock, the money-lender. But Shylock has been nursing a grudge against Antonio's insults, and makes unusual terms to the loan. And when Antonio's business fails, those terms threaten his life, and it's up to Bassanio and Portia to save him.

A handful of short tales of love, framed by leaf masks.

The story centers on a gregarious but rather undependable man whose attentions to a young gypsy woman lead to complications for them both.

Vitagraph production of Shakespeare's Richard III.

A girl who works in a textile mill suffers unwanted advances from her boss. Her boyfriend, who also works there, sees it and knocks the boss down. In retaliation, the boss hires two thugs to beat up the boyfriend, but he outwits them. Instead, the boss fires him. As the boss is forcing his attentions on the girl again, a fire breaks out in the mill...