Jane Wolfe

A compilation of thirteen rare silent films digitized by the Library of Congress, selected for the 2022 Domitor conference theme “Copy/Rights and Early Cinema.” Drawn from nitrate and safety film, the program spans comedies, trick films, and dramas exploring censorship, invention, adaptation, and social rights. Titles include: Pruning the Movies (Nestor, 1914); Imperial Japanese Dance (Edison, 1894); Early Edison Camera Tests (Edison, c.1890s); Censorship and its Absurdities (Edison, 1915); In Wrong (Crystal, 1914, dir. Phillips Smalley); Tillie’s Tomato Surprise (Lubin, 1915, dir. Howell Hansell); Indian Land Grab (Champion, 1910); The Stolen Play (Falcon Features, 1917, dir. Harry Harvey); And the Villain Still Pursued Her (Vitagraph, 1906, dir. J. Stuart Blackton); The Doll’s Revenge (Hepworth, 1907, dir. Lewin Fitzhamon); The Disintegrated Convict (Vitagraph, 1907); The Mexican Joan of Arc (Kalem, 1911, dir. Kenean Buel); and Fads and Fashions of 1900 (U.S., 1940s).

Robert and Beth Bordon are married but share little. He runs into Sally at a cabaret and the Gordons are soon divorced. Just as he gets bored with Sally's superficiality, Beth strives to improve her looks. The original couple falls in love again at a summer resort.

Suspicious that his employers are diamond smugglers, soldier-of-fortune Myles Calthrope quits his job in the African mines and heads south, where he meets and falls in love with Joan Farrant. Joan, unaware that her brother Henry is in the diamond smuggling business, obtains Myles a position in the family firm. Myles is given an envelope of legal documents to deliver, but when he is searched aboard ship, diamonds are discovered in the pouch and Myles is imprisoned. After completing his sentence, Myles secures a job on the Prescott sugar plantation, where he once again meets Joan, who denounces him as a smuggler. Mr. Prescott, Myles's employer, determines to prove Myles's innocence.

A lovesick sheriff protects his town, embroiled in a feud between a crafty bandit leader and the family of the prospector he stole from.

Henry Carpenter and his wife Millicent are the envy of their exclusive suburban set because of their abundant wine cellar, a blessing in the face of the recent prohibition against alcohol initiated by the Volstead Act. In reality, Henry is down to his last few bottles, and, faced with an impending dinner party, he decides to save face by denouncing the evils of drink. His impassioned speech earns him the support of the Prohibition party for a Congressional seat. Henry is relishing his popularity when his aunt discovers twenty-one cases of rare wine in the cellar, forcing the candidate to choose between political and social success.

Disillusioned by the transience of wealth when her father's bank balance can no longer support his family's posh lifestyle, and when her fiancé Clay Wimborn admits that he has gone into debt to shower her with presents, Daphne Kip determines to become financially independent.

In Canada, a young woman of Indian blood marries an Englishman who sends her back to England to humiliate his family and the woman who once spurned him. But the man's brother shows her the ways of English civilization, and a great surprise awaits her husband when he returns to his homeland.

Molly is a young woman who out of desperation after failing to find work steals a pocketbook from a society woman, Blanche Armstrong. This act leads her into a legal conflict involving the District Attorney, Roger Hackett, who uses the situation to pursue his own lustful interests.

The "Firefly of France" is an elusive master criminal of uncertain loyalties. When the Firefly disappears from view with a satchel of important government documents in his possession, his sister Esme Falconer is suspected of beings in cahoots with him. Dashing aviator Devereaux Bayne believes in Esme's innocence and accordingly dons civilian garb and heads to Paris' Latin Quarter to get the low-down on the Firefly's whereabouts.

A silent drama film directed by James Young

A young man's fiancée believes he should sew all his wild oats before marriage, so he sets out to do it all in one night.

While visiting Alan, who works in Tokyo, she attends a festival with her Japanese maid while wearing a Japanese kimono. There she meets the wealthy Arai Takada, who is taken by the mysterious woman. Alan has dishonored and betrayed O'Mitsu, and her brother Arai plans a terrible revenge.

Lord Percy hires attorney John Stoddard to find the missing Brentwood heiress. Failing his mission, John rescues an orphan named Margot and passes her off as the lost granddaughter. As guilt drives them to confess, Margot’s former abuser arrives and reveals a shocking truth: he killed her parents, making Margot the real, legitimate heir.

When a young girl is placed under hypnotism, it's discovered that she has a split personality.

Living in the New York slums with her lazy father, Bessie takes imaginary voyages to "Dream Valley" on a "yacht" she has built in the backyard. Gilbert Byfield, posing as a poor man while completing his book, falls in love with Bessie and secretly arranges for her to spend a month at the Byfield country estate.

Wanting to escape from the drab life of the country, Helen Wayne moves to the big city and becomes a secretary for the Calder family. Just before beginning her new job, however, Helen meets a man who promises to take the hungry girl to dinner. When she goes to the prearranged meeting place, she is arrested and her name is put on the police record. Some time later, Helen and young Rand Calder fall in love. As they are about to announce their engagement, Martin Ingleton, the man who earlier had caused Helen's arrest, attempts to ruin Rand's business ventures. When all of the principals go to court to fight the issue, Ingleton recognizes Helen and tries to label her a woman of unworthy character. Instead of causing Rand to admonish her, however, Ingleton instigates Helen to tell the judge her story and she is exonerated.

Tamura, a Japanese man working as a gardener in America, saves his money to marry his girlfriend, Japanese-American Nume Rogers. His friend Watana works for a Japanese businessman named Motoyoshi so that he can get enough money to bring his wife Sat-Su and their children to America. However, on the day that Sat-Su is to arrive, something happens that changes the lives of everyone concerned. A lost film.

Captain Lanning and Lieutenant Osborne are stationed at an army post in the Philippines. Lanning conceives a deadly hatred toward Osborne when the latter wins Gladys, General Fields' daughter.

Olga Nelson, a Swedish maidservant, working at a boarding house that caters to college students, is particularly fond of one of them, wealthy Tom Gordon. When Tom receives word that his father has lost his fortune and he must quit school, he loses the remainder of his money in a poker game. Meanwhile, Olga inherits her Uncle Sven's fortune when he dies, but the will stipulates that she will receive the money only if she marries before her next birthday. She marries Gordon to get him out of debt but he spurns her affections because he thinks that she is socially inferior. They soon separate, and she goes out West where she falls into the clutches of nefarious fortune hunters who say that they will make a lady of her. Gordon returns to school and later, when she has become a "lady," they meet again. Through a misunderstanding they quarrel, but eventually Gordon realizes that she is being used by criminals and he saves her, after which they start their marriage over.

The scenes are laid in the Hudson Bay country in comparatively recent years and cover the life of a Hudson Bay factor, showing him as a young man assuming his business in the wilderness and, as was common in those days, taking an Indian wife that he had purchased of her father in Indian fashion.

An American heiress who goes to Ireland meets a bankrupt lord. She switches places with her maid to avoid fortune hunters.

Lindy, an innocent girl reared in a small town, accepts a letter for her friend Mrs. Bates from wealthy landlady Mrs. Cribbley. Believing the letter to be an eviction notice, Lindy postpones delivery, but soon becomes terrified upon learning that mail theft is a felony, and that her dog has destroyed the letter.

When her husband and sons are executed without trial by Colonel Cephis, Señora Talamantes vows revenge. She rallies a band of Mexicans and Indigenous fighters, joins the Insurrectos, and lures the Colonel into a trap. Captured and condemned by a drumhead court martial, he faces the same fate he dealt to her family. With justice served, the widow returns to her people.

A young boy foils outlaw "Bad Bill" from stealing a gold shipment in this classic Western short.

Ivi, the beautiful daughter of an Indian chief, has three suitors. A competition will decide who gets to marry her. The winner is not Panther, who was Ivy’s favourite. But after he manages to catch a horse thief, he does wind up marrying her after all.

A slave switches her light-skinned baby with her master's baby. The child grows up raised by whites.

When he loses both his father’s canning factory and his girl “Tiny” to Stephen Douglas modest Simpson Hightower goes to work in a New York provisions office along with stenographer Hope and office boy Jimmy. To impress the Danish consul who is proposing a large contract Hope and Jimmy persuade Simpson to return to his hometown posing as a successful businessman accompanied by his secretary "Pep" and valet Jimmy. It works! Simpson manages to get the Danish contract, buy his factory back and realize Tiny’s worthlessness while recognizing his love for "Pep."

A young man leaves Ireland for America, but doesn't forget home.

No synopsis available yet.

Young Kendall struggles for acceptance in the eyes of his wealthy father, who sees him only as a layabout.

When the third partner in their small Cape Cod trading business dies, Shad Gould and Zoeth Hamilton adopt his little daughter Mary-'Gusta. After several years, the two old salts decide that Mary should be properly educated and send her to an exclusive school in Boston, telling her that her father left her a large fortune. In Boston, Mary meets Crawford Smith, but their happiness together is threatened when she learns that he is the son of Edgar Fuller (alias Smith), a scoundrel who had run off with Zoeth's wife and stolen his money.

Jimmie, a small-town boy, visits a traveling circus passing through town. he falls in love with Pansy, the daughter of the circus' tightrope walker, after he saves her from a gang of thugs...

Rustler Pete Sontag kidnaps Merlin Warner after he kills her father. Pete, a drug smuggler who uses his saloon as a front, coerces Merlin though beatings to become the dancer Mexicali Mae. She meets and falls in love with morphine addict Joe Blanchard but Pete frames Joe for a murder that he committed, forcing Mae to hide Joe in a homestead in the hills. After many struggles, Joe is cured of his addiction and proposes to Mae. She accepts, but when his mother and fiancée Eleanor arrive, they offer her money to leave, Mae refuses the money but becomes convinced that she is not good enough for Joe and writes to him that she is returning to the saloon. Joe learning of his mother’s plot arrives at the saloon and in the resultant fight Pete is killed. Mae and Joe are reconciled.

The story of a Virginia judge who sternly hands down severe sentences while in court only to later help the families of those he condemns

Lewis Vickers accidentally kills a man and goes to Central America. Here he meets Robert Lee, who bears a remarkable resemblance to him. Lee is a worthless young chap whose father is anxious to have him return to the United States. On his death bed Lee turns his papers over to Vickers and begs him to assume his name. Arriving in New York, Vickers goes to the Lee home as Robert Lee, and discovers that the dead man has willed him a badly blotted past that includes a wife and two children and a large collection of debts. He also finds a beautiful adopted daughter in the Lee household and promptly falls in love with her. The only way he can stand any chance of winning the girl is by telling the truth about himself.

Bill is discharged from Bar K Ranch and in his desperation decide to turn train robber. On his way to town he rescues Myrtle Mulligan, who has been driven from protection to the high branches of a tree by a vicious bull. Arriving in town Bill applies to the superintendent of the railroad and secures a job as track walker. Pinto Joe, a friendly Indian, learns of Bill's train wrecking plans, and tells Myrtle about it. Hearing Bill intends to dynamite the bridge the plucky girl decides to take a hand in the game. Arriving on the scene just after Bill has lighted the fuse she fearlessly picks up the cartridge and throws it where it can do little damage. Rushing up the bank to the track she flags the oncoming train. When the passengers and trainmen cluster about her to learn the cause of the explosion she tells them that Bill saved their lives by finding the burning fuse just in time to prevent the blowing up of the bridge.

Jailed unjustly for a murder he did not commit, a young man uses his amazing powers of escape to free himself and pursue the actual killers, who hold his fiancée captive.

A piece of lumber projecting from the side of a freight car picks up the mail sack hanging from the crane at Bell Station. Two hobos find the sack and rifle the contents. Morrison, postmaster at Bell, has been systematically robbing the mails and benefits by the mail sack's disappearance. Mary Gates, daughter of an engineer, supplies the Post Office inspectors with the first clue. The detectives blunder, however, and arrest Billy, Mary's sweetheart. Chance leads them on the trail of the tramps. The hobos are arrested after a desperate battle. Later, as the result of Mary's clever work, Morrison is brought to bay, while Billy wins his freedom.

A short romantic crime drama in which a wealthy American tourist is robbed and taken hostage in the mountains of Italy, but is then rescued thanks to an organ grinder.

Young clergyman Edwin Revell receives the appointment as minister at the Church of the Village of Fairbrook.

Leonie Sobatsky (Laura Hope Crews) belongs to a ring of international thieves, headed by Bechel (George Gebhardt). She meets English crook Nevil Trask (Thomas Meighan), and they fall in love -- however, neither one knows of the other's criminal ways.

Masha, a young Russian emigrant traveling to the U.S., is saved from an officer's advances by civil engineer David Harding. Upon landing in America, J. J. Walton, a self-made political boss and contractor, pursues Masha and hires her as his maid. She leaves after the first night, but becomes his mistress after Walton promises her an education and marriage. A lost film.

No synopsis available yet.

Henry intends to leave his wife for Mrs. Lenning but seeks to retain custody of their son, leading to a situation where they attempt to force Mrs. Jackson to run away, allowing him to secure a divorce.

A young engineer, Tom Morley, is building a railroad through Imperial Valley. Tom's father also wants the job, and tries to persuade his son to give up the work, but Tom refuses. Tom falls for a society girl named Alice Hale, who marries him to bring prestige to her family. Initially, Alice plots against Tom, but Tom wins her over and they work together to defeat those who are plotting to destroy Tom's work.

Rose Jorgenson, a poor tenement dweller who lives with her daughters Rose and Norma in a slum and whose husband is in prison, finds out that he is to be electrocuted. Distraught, she commits suicide. The children are adopted--Rose by the wealthy Judge Keith, who brings her up in the lap of luxury, and Norma by a poor neighbor, who raises her in the squalid tenement she was born in. After they reach adulthood Norma is hired as an assistant to the shady hypnotist Caistro, who also knows Rose and notices the strong resemblance between the two. Complications ensue.

An Englishman who has made his fortune in America decides to return to England.

At the instigation of Sybel, an adventuress, Black, a society parasite, steals a valuable diamond brooch. He turns the jewel over to the adventuress, who then throws him over. Black flees from the city to escape arrest. Shortly afterward, the young man meets and falls in love with Mildred.