David Miles

A nostalgic look at film clips from the Silent era.

A young man is tortured by a duke to force his beloved to marry the duke. The woman sacrifices herself, but eventually manages to discourage the duke's attentions. Her lover, released from his tortures, then leads her away, though her face is disfigured by the ordeal.

Americans arrive at their hotel in Cuba in a car, to make a movie. Romantic complications ensue while the cast and crew attempt to finish the movie.

A man arrives home late and drunk as usual. His wife reminds him that he's supposed to take their daughter out to a play. While watching the play, he's faced with his own drinking evils and how his life would be without them.

A gang of thieves lure a man out of his home so that they can rob it and threaten his wife and children. The family barricade themselves in an interior room, but the criminals are well-equipped for breaking in. When the father finds out what is happening, he must race against time to get back home.

Hidalgo offers his daughter's hand in marriage when he can't repay a loan to Manuella. But when Manuella overhears the daughter bidding farewell to her lover, he is so moved by their devotion that he cancels the debt.

A son leaves to seek his fortune in the city. Many years later he returns and checks into his parents' inn. They don't recognize him, but noticing his fat wallet, plan to rob him.

The amateur dramatic society chooses the Joneses' residence as the location of its next meeting, and both Joneses catch 'the acting bug' in this split-reel subject.

Mrs. Kendrick borrows a jeweled necklace from a friend for an important social event. The necklace is stolen, and Mr. Kendrick goes into debt to replace it. The thief discovers it's costume jewelry, but the Kendricks never learns the truth; Husband and wife struggle for years to pay off the huge debt.

A contest is being held in Cremona for the best violin, with Giannina's hand in marriage as the prize. Filippo is secretly in love with her, but is also ashamed of being a cripple, so he switches his superior violin with that of another apprentice, Sandro, whom Giannina loves.

"Fine feathers make fine birds", and handsome gowns make handsome women. Hence it is when Isabelle appears on the scene clad in a gown that is a masterpiece of the dressmaker's art she easily fascinates the male contingent, among whom is Enrico, the sweetheart of Veronica, a street singer. Enrico is so enraptured at the sight of Isabelle in her resplendent attire that he becomes her abject slave, casting aside the poor, peasant-clad little Italian street singer, who has loved him devotedly. Crushed almost beyond endurance the poor girl stands sobbing at the entrance of the park where the inconsistent lever left her. Her tears attract the attention of a wealthy young couple who happen to pass. In answer to their queries she tells them how contemptibly her sweetheart acted, and all because of the fascinating influence of a gown.

A woman is scarred in an accident and refuses to stand in the way of her lover's marriage to another.

As Poe's lover is slowly dying, he struggles to make money to care for her.

A disfigured violinist mistakes a token of appreciation for a love bouquet. When he realizes his mistake, he loses his mind.

Sisters guarding their house from a burglar set upon stealing their daddy's money.

A music teacher is in love with Helen, one of his students, but she rejects him. In his hurt he joins an anarchist group who plan to blow up a rich capitalist's house. When he realizes it's Helen's house, he tries to stop the plan.

One of the members of a suicide club learns he has inherited some money, but only after he drew the fatal lot and is expected to kill himself. Presumed to be a lost film.

After three years at sea, Edward returns home to find his sweetheart forced into an engagement with a much older man.

A man leaves his wife and two daughters for work in a carpentry shop. At work, he initially refuses a beer with lunch, then gives in. After work, two friends take a little while to convince him to go for a refreshing malt beverage, then to have another and another....

At the Italian boarding house the male boarders were all smitten with the charms of Minnie, the landlady's pretty daughter, but she was of a poetic turn of mind and her soul soared above plebeianism and her aspirations were romantic. Most persistent among her suitors was Grigo, a coarse Sicilian, whose advances were odiously repulsive. The arrival at the boarding house from the old country of Giuseppe Cassella, the violinist, filled the void in her yearning heart. Romantic, poetic and a talented musician, Giuseppe was indeed a desirable husband for Minnie.

To a reception there is invited a celebrated professor of hypnotism, and during the evening he obliges with an exhibition of his wonderful powers. Several of the guests are put under the influence and made to perform most ridiculous antics, to their embarrassment upon reviving. The daughter of the host is the last to be subjected to the professor's power, and she proves to be such a good subject that the professor at once resolves to make her his unconscious agent in a dastardly plot he at once evolves.

A new bride has made a batch of biscuits. Her husband pretends to like them, so she delivers the rest to his office. But one bite of these biscuits makes you violently ill, and soon all his visitors (he runs a theatrical booking agency), plus the workmen at home, are ill; when she shows up at the office, they all go after her.

Antonine, a worthless, good-for-nothing scoundrel, demands money of his cousin Galora, an energetic, provident husband and father. His demands are met with a positive rebuff, and when he becomes insistent be is forcibly ejected by Galora. As he leaves the tenement he vows to get even, and lies in wait until Galora has gone out on business. Climbing to the fifth floor, on which the Galoras live, he watches his chance, which comes when Mrs. Galora goes for an instant to visit a neighbor on the same floor. Darting into the apartment and raising the window he perceives the awful result of a drop to the ground, five stories below, and so evolves a plan that is dastardly in the extreme. Taking the infant child from the cradle, and placing it in a basket he lets it out with a short rope, the end of which he secures by letting the sash down on it, so that to raise the window would precipitate the baby to destruction.

Miguel casts out his daughter when she marries a poor man, causing his wife to leave him, too. After he is unable to find a reliable cook, he reconciles with his daughter so he can get a good meal.

Gertrude chooses Jim over Jack, which makes Jack very jealous. Later Jim dies, and Jack marries Gertrude. He finds himself once again very jealous of the late Lucky Jim.

A Duke's daughter is loved by a gallant knight, but her father wants her to marry another. With the help of his friends, the knight hatches an elaborate scheme to marry his sweetheart.

A bored Lady Helen goes slumming as a domestic in a boarding house. There she falls in love with a sensitive young musician. The other women in the house are jealous, and accuse her of trying to steal the musician's violin. Lady Helen retreats to her own home, and arranges a position for the musician which allows them to be together.

Nekhludoff, a Russian nobleman serving on a jury, discovers that the young girl on trial, Katusha, is someone he once seduced and abandoned and that he himself bears responsibility for reducing her to crime. He sets out to redeem her and himself in the process.

A haughty politician, on seeing a satirical cartoon in a newspaper, rushes to the paper's offices to shoot the cartoonist. On discovering the cartoonist is a pretty woman, he falls instantly in love and wastes no time in trying to woo her.

Two thieves, Ned and Mike, scheme to rob a pawnbroker, Mr. Einstein. Ned seduces Einstein's daughter Rachel to aid their plan, but during the attempted burglary they tie up both victims and set a candle to burn the shop. Rachel frees herself and courageously overpowers the thieves and restores her father's honor.

Two boys, twins, leave the old homestead to seek their fortune in the world. They go divergent roads, and are soon widely separated one from the other, but they grow lonesome and try to find each other's whereabouts, without success. We lose sight of Bill and Dick is seen up against it good and hard. For him the future looks like a chalk ring on a blackboard, until he happens to saunter along the Bowery, where the manager of a dime museum offers him a job to play the gorilla. It looks good so he accepts. It is pretty sort until the astute impresario decides to pull off an innovation: that is, a gorilla and lion in the same cage. Of course Dick objects most strenuously to this arrangement, but his objections are quailed with a treacherous looking run, so he is forced to share the same menagerie hallroom with the lion.

A girl from the New York slums falls in with crooks. After her love is arrested following a barfight turned deadly, her life seems directionless-- that is, until she's saved from the streets by a band of Salvationists. She enrolls, and soon afterward encounters her former love in the same bar. Her faith is real, and strong, and her former love doesn't like this.

In desperation at her mother's illness and their need of money, a young girl determines to go into the underworld in quest of relief, but a woman of the world, touched by her innocence, stops her in time, rebukes the villainous libertine who is about to claim her, and leads the girl back to her home. The act of virtue is rewarded, and the girl obtains work and is about to wed an honorable young man, when the villain learns the fact and stops the wedding with a false accusation. But the worldly woman again comes to the rescue and with a revolver forces the extortionist to retract.

Nellie flees her old life and goes east to become a nurse, where she marries a doctor. One of her old colleagues finds her and tries to blackmail her. When the blackmail plot is exposed, Nellie's husband expresses his complete faith in her.

Seven years after the death of their first child, a couple has grown apart and decides to divorce. Their second child asks a question about who will keep the first child's most cherished toy after they separate. This leads the couple to reconsider their actions.

Henry and Marion have a lover's quarrel and part in anger. They do not reconcile, and ten years pass without contact. Marion becomes a society girl and spends her time at parties with her friends. Henry has become very ill and wishes to see Marion one more time. He writes asking her to visit. When she recieves the note, she laughs and tosses it on the floor, but, later, on a whim, decides to take all her drunken friends with her to visit him. When they arrive, Marion finds Henry dead, clutching her portrait in his hand. She sends her friends away and falls to her knees in remorse. Mary Pickford's debut!

It's Bob Allen's twenty-first birthday. His mother and his brother Jack, a policeman present him with a cap, personalized with his initals in the lining. Jack then goes to work and Bob goes out also. Later in the evening, Jack is called to the scene of a robbery, where he finds the cap with his brother's initials. Dismayed by the idea that his brother is a thief, he goes home and confronts Bob with the evidence. Though it breaks their mother's heart, Jack does his duty and leads his brother out in handcuffs.

A girl is being shipped off to Europe with her aunt to break up her romance. Her suitor dresses himself as the aunt and manages to fool everyone long enough for them to elope.

Bob Spaulding, a manly fellow, meets Dr. Rankin and his wife on the street while they are engaged in a violent tiff. The doctor is about to strike his wife when Bob interferes, incurring the resentment of the doctor. During the flurry Mrs. Rankin drops her card case. From a card inside he learns the address and goes there to return it. They meet, and it is a case of love at first sight; but she is a wife, and beyond his reach.

A father wants to marry his daughter to a rich man, but she's in love with someone else. She borrows a tramp's wooden leg, pretending that it's hers, and the disgusted suitor rejects her.

Countryside lovers Hank and Cynthia plan to elope against the girl's father's wishes. A meddling tramp interferes with their secret meeting and, dressed with Hank's garments, takes the girl with him. Now it's up to Hank to retrieve Cynthia and her father's trust.

A household cook named Margie has a sudden mental breakdown and attacks her employers, the Holland family. After being briefly restrained, she escapes the house and later sneaks back in. Driven by a "fiendish idea," she takes the Holland's infant baby from its crib and hides the child in the kitchen oven before starting a fire beneath it. The parents unknowingly begin to use the oven, but the baby is rescued just in time when the parents discover the plot during a struggle with the cook, who is then arrested by police.

“The Biograph people tell an excellent story in this, and tell it so strongly that it grips very close. The scene where the husband gets into the room to find his wife bending over the dead body of a man is very strong, though perhaps not materially stronger than the one where the girl’s first husband deserts her. Technically the film is excellent. All the little details are worked out to precision and the characters act naturally, as real people might be expected to do in similar circumstances.” --Moving Picture World

An unscrupulous tourist plots to steal the famous diamond, "The Light of the World," tricking a young woman into helping him. She is caught and imprisoned, while he prepares to sell the diamond and make his getaway.