J. Gunnis Davis

After recovering from injuries sustained in the mob attack upon himself and his creation, Dr. Henry Frankenstein falls under control of his former mentor, Dr. Pretorius, who insists the now-chastened doctor resume his experiments in creating new life. Meanwhile, the Monster remains on the run from those who wish to destroy him.

A trio of American crooks board a ship bound for Europe, intending to get rid of $100,000 in stolen dough. With detective John Wade breathing down their necks, the crooks stash the loot in the trunk belonging to vacationing schoolmarm Mary Smith.

A strange animal attack turns a botanist into a bloodthirsty monster.

In France during World War I, a charming farm girl keeps a squadron of English pilots in good spirits as best as she can. She falls for a handsome newcomer who is already engaged.

In Victorian England, Florence Nightingale's heroic measures slowly change the attitude towards nurses when it was considered a disreputable profession.

Having helped his father escape the law, Jim Curtis heads north with the Marshal chasing him. He and his pal Snicker elude the Marshall by changing clothes with two actors. Now forced to do vaudeville skits, Jim finds the man responsible for his and his father's problem working in the same saloon.

Circumstances make Helen think that Jack, the engineer and son of the road's auditor, is guilty of the theft of $50 that comes to light through a shortage in her accounts. Gypsy Joe, the real thief, gathers his followers to seek vengeance on the train crew for having thrown him off the train.

Jud Hendricks, foreman of the construction camp, is being blackmailed by Gypsy Joe, who knows of a dark page in the Hendricks' past. Hendricks and Tom Rasom are rivals for the favor of Helen, with Tom in the lead. The latter, an engineer, is about to take his train out when he finds Gypsy Joe hiding in a boxcar.

The shifting of the dynamite contained in a boxcar causes the latter to be cut from the freight and set out as unsafe. While this is being done, the Jones gang waylays Emerick, a cattleman who has just sold a herd of stock. Detectives are sent after the thieves.

Chilton, a crooked dealer in antiques, decides on a daring scheme to recoup his finances by defrauding the railroad. A car-load of cheap furniture is shipped with a valuation of $40,000 on it. Blanding, the tool of Chilton and his partner, awaits at Lone Point a telegram giving the number of the car.

Stallings' plot to spoil the demonstration of Dick Benton's newly invented safety stop for trains seems certain of success when the locomotive is sent running wild down the tracks. Helen saves the day by climbing out on a wire stretching across the tracks and dropping to the speeding engine.

Burkett, superintendent of the Western Railway, opposes his daughter's friendship for Dick Benton, one of the company's lawyers, favoring the latter's fellow-worker, Guy Warren. Warren succeeds in putting through a scheme which results in Dick's discharge. The lovers plan to elope and enlist the aid of Helen. But Eleanor's father learns of the move and wires ahead to police officials to board her train and arrest her while he follows in his special. By a daring leap from a handcar to the train Helen succeeds in warning Eleanor of her peril, but is too late, and Helen and Dick are forced to stand idly by while Burkett starts on the return trip in his special, carefully guarding Eleanor.

The new superintendent's first order on taking the post eliminates the men whom he terms old, which costs "Pop" Bates his job as Helen's relief operator. His next declaration is that active railroad work is no place for women, and Helen is also dropped from the service. While Helen is breaking the news to Bob Bates, the new superintendent is hustling about the road yard speeding up the work. "Put more snap into your switching," he tells the men. A minute later, while he is making an inspection inside a boxcar with defective air brakes, a switching engine rams the car. The force of the impact, heightened by the recent orders, throws the superintendent to the floor stunned, and starts the car on the down grade. In the few moments it is speeding along the road and there is consternation among the men for a washout down the road means that it is headed to certain destruction.

The smugglers seem in a fair way to escape on a stolen engine when Helen, unhitching a team from a nearby wagon, races down the road towards the railroad bridge from which a rope is hanging directly over the track. Standing astride the two speeding horses Helen leaps to the rope, and swaying in mid-air makes a perilous drop to the stolen engine as it dashes past.

"The Open Track" is a short action film from the action series of short films "The Hazards of Helen". This is episode 63 from a total of 119 weekly one reel films produced by Kalem. Helen's cleverness exposes a band of counterfeiters who later succeed in turning the tables on the railroad detectives and tying the two men to the cowcatcher of a train which they then start off down the grade. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2010.

"Red" Byrd and his aides succeed in learning that a large treasure is being shipped on a certain freight car under special guard. They overpower the relief operator at Helen's station and tamper with the signals so that the treasure train stops, while the crew runs ahead to investigate, leaving Spencer alone to guard the treasure.

Red Stanley's band has successfully robbed the express car and the members are making good their escape when they come upon Helen and her girl chum riding in the woods. The girls are set upon but they succeed by desperate riding in making their escape temporarily and, when danger seems near again, are saved by the approaching railroad detectives searching for the Stanley band. A running fight results in the capture of one of the band, but Stanley and his chief aide escape. Under cover of darkness, as Helen is working alone in the desolate station, the two enter and bind and gag her.

Agents of a foreign power are seeking to get possession of the plans of a new aeroplane motor invented by Dick Benton. Under cover of darkness they succeed in their scheme and are escaping in their automobile when it plunges over an embankment near Lone Point.

Helen, by a courageous leap from a motorcycle, reaches the burning boxcar in which the detectives are imprisoned and succeeds in applying the brakes in time to bring it to a stop and save them from almost certain death.

After robbing the bank at Orlock, Cherry and Newton make their getaway. When on the outskirts of Lone Point, the men cut the telephone wires. Helen, however, learns of the robbery. Never suspecting that the crooks are headed for the station, the girl is taken by surprise when Newton and his pal hold her up.

Dick Benton is making a game attempt to start life all over again, after escaping from prison where he was confined for a crime he did not commit. "Peeler" White, who was really guilty, and who aided Benton to escape without telling the reason for his interest, stumbles across the young man who is now an express messenger. "Peeler" threatens to disclose his knowledge unless Benton aids him in a fake hold-up. The young man pretends to be a willing victim, but really warns the railroad detectives and "Peeler" and his companion find themselves in a trap on the train the following day.

A college boy's prank imperils the life of the railroad president's son who has worked his way up to engineer in his course that starts "from the bottom." Tied to the engine, the son is speeding on a runaway engine toward the Flicker Creek bridge which has been swept away by the floods.

Film 104 in the Hazards of Helen series

The vote stands a tie on the railroad bill that will mean ruin to the Western line should it pass the State Legislature. By getting Senator Brown, who is aboard a liner quarantined in the bay, to the Capitol the day will be saved. The road superintendent takes a daring chance and aboard a motorboat succeeds in smuggling the Senator ashore and to a Western special which speeds off towards the Capitol of the neighboring State.

The film is directed by James Davis from a story by Edward T. Matlack. In this episode Helen Gibson performs one absolutely breathtaking stunt, which just shows how dangerous it was to act for silent film pioneers, especially for stuntmen and stuntwomen. There is a twist to the plot, and Helen Gibson not only has to save her governor from mortal danger, but also the life of somebody close to her, who has been sentenced to die without guilt.

Hume and Frintz, while riding in a boxcar, see a trunk in the unguarded baggage car of a passenger train. By a daring leap from the freight to the passenger, Hume steals the trunk, throws it into one of the boxcars, and then leaps back. The trunk is missed and the loss reported from Helen's station.

Learning that the driver of the Comet car has been disabled on the eve of the big race, Sinton, a gambler, bets heavily on its rival. But his plans go awry when Gordon, the owner of the Comet car, meets Naroche, a celebrated French driver, and engages him to pilot the racer.

After binding Helen to prevent her from stopping the express train to have it await an armed guard, crooks board the train, disable the messenger and dynamite the safe. Helen later takes a short cut in an auto and overtakes the train, but the crooks leap from the speeding train into her car before she can warn the engineer and train crew.

The 84th film in the Hazards of Helen series

Helen, discharged by the superintendent without justification, comes to the rescue when a flat car, loaded with dynamite, is tearing to certain destruction down the grade, bearing the mischievous son of the superintendent.

Confronting Helen at the Lone Point Switch Tower, Denning and his pal imprison the girl in a clothes closet and then steal everything of value. In making their getaway, the crooks accidentally upset a lantern and set the tower afire. Helen, by picking the lock in the door with a hairpin, barely escapes death in the flames.

Escaping after an early morning bank robbery, Gentleman Joe and his pal succeed in boarding a freight train headed toward Lone Point. Fearing rightly that a warning has been sent down the line, they secrete their loot in a box car, and, after noting its number, alight and seek cover until after the pursuit has cooled.

Steve Nelson, a clever crook, arrives at the little station where Helen is operator. He lives quietly at the village's little boarding house preparing for a coup when Helen receives instructions that lead her to suspect Steve.

Film 101 in the Hazards of Helen series

Through an accomplice the band of conspirators preying on railroads succeed in having the boxcar loaded with auto tires sidetracked at Lone Point instead of being taken on to its rightful destination. They are getting away with the valuable shipment when Helen takes a hand in the affair. While each of the trio carries a load of tires back to the autos which are in a sheltered spot, Helen hurriedly climbs the side of the boxcar and releasing the brakes the car, with its heavy load, starts down grade at great speed.

Borden, who nurses a secret grievance against Helen, awaits an opportunity for revenge. The girl telegrapher receives a message which informs her that the freight of which Easton is conductor, is to wait at Workman until the Fast Mail passes.

Billy Warren, timekeeper on the construction job, arouses the enmity of Brent and Easton when he resents their bullying of the other men. Pay day finds the men celebrating in riotous fashion, and Brent in a crazed moment breaks into the station and attacks Helen. Her cries bring Warren, who trounces the bully.

Dawson, a newcomer to the division, meets Helen while the girl is riding in the freight engine with Star, his engineer. Helen ignores the fireman's offensive stares, knowing that trouble would instantly result, if she reported the matter to Star. The following day, Dawson approaches the girl telegrapher and, seizing her in his arms, kisses her.

#61 in the Hazards of Helen series

The new superintendent scoffs at the men's fear of Engine 3615, and declares that it must be put into service at once. Engineer Kent, a veteran of the road, refuses to take the throttle and is discharged. Dick Benton, a young engineer, is induced to take the engine out and "kill this talk of a hoodoo."

Following the wreck of the pay-car, it is rifled by a band of conspirators. All but one of the band later succeed in making their escape from the town by automobile, but this one is forced to jump aboard a freight train to which is attached the wreck train and huge crane.

The Hazards of Helen is an American melodramatic adventure film serial of 119 twelve-minute episodes released between November 7, 1914 and February 24, 1917. Most episodes of this serial are presumed lost.

Tony, a half-breed Mexican is kicked from pillar to post, but he grasps a chance for revenge on society when he peers through the station window and sees Helen, the operator at Lone Point, opening the express company bag containing a valuable shipment to a local rancher.

Disguised as baggage man, Burgess and Whelan board the train to which is coupled the special carrying Nina Mallotte and her theatrical troupe. The thieves plan to steal the actress' gems.

The story is built around the rivalry of two railroads, and the record run that is to decide the awarding of large mail contracts.

In this episode everything goes wrong. Helen ends up on the rear observation deck of a runaway express train with the door to the inside closed, with the air-brake of the engine damaged, the engine itself full of steam and inaccessible, and the train speeding ahead on the wrong track.