New Morals for Old

After graduating from a fashionable finishing school and touring Europe with her father, Selina Peake returns to the United States, where her father is accidentally killed after losing his fortune in a gambling den. Selina is reduced to teaching in a high school in the Dutch community at High Prarie near Chicago. She boards in the farmhouse of Klass Poole, a dull-witted market gardener, and finally marries Pervus DeJong, a poor and backward farmer. She shares the drudgery of her husband's futile life and finds happiness only in their small son, Dirk, whom she calls "So-Big."

Kathleen, the daughter of a poor tenant farmer, dreams of her wedding with her beloved Terrence. The dream is interrupted when the Squire of the estate takes an interest in Kathleen and forces her father to allow him to marry her to forgive the father's debt.

This first cinematic version of the classic book is a part-talkie, although the only surviving print is silent (housed in the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY). It is a straight-forward telling of the intermingled lives of a group of strangers doomed to die in a collapsing bridge accident. The Art Direction, paltry and unremarkable, surprisingly won an Oscar over the far more remarkable work nominated in THE IRON MASK. The special effect scene of the lovers plummeting with the bridge into the chasm is unforgettable and remarkably done.

"Mismates" is the story of a wealthy youth who, against his mother's wishes, marries a poor girl and is disowned. At first determined to support himself and his wife, he soon craves the accustomed luxury and deserts his wife and child. On false information provided by the boy's mother and substantiated by himself the wife is sent to jail and the child kidnapped by the husband. This is where the drama kicks in.

Bryce Cardigan struggles to protect his Redwood inheritance from a railroad-owner, who is also the guardian of the woman Bryce loves.

An honest, talented and well respected attorney defeats a corrupt incumbent U.S. Senator. After a very good start he has to face the subtle temptations and innocent looking traps of Washington.

On a yacht sailing from Shanghai to the United States, the sailors, led by the megalomaniac steward, revolt and take control.

After a brief view of Edgar Allan Poe's family background, his grandfather, David Poe, Sr., an Irish immigrant to America, and his father, David Poe, Jr., the poet's life is depicted from the death of his mother and his subsequent adoption by John Allan, to his own tortured death in 1849. Expelled from the University of Virginia for incurring too many debts, Poe nonetheless courts and marries Virginia Clemm but is disowned by his foster father. While residing in Fordham, New York, Poe tries to earn a living as a writer but meets with little financial success. Overwhelmed by their impoverished state, Virginia dies and Poe sinks into a profound depression. Always a victim of alcohol and subject to hallucinations, Poe first imagines that his neighbor, Helen Whitman, is Virginia, then plunges himself into an elaborate delusion in which his wife's spirit, various other spectres and a raven finally drive him to his own death.

Kitty Lorraine has one purpose in life: turning her daughter Shirley into a star. Kitty controls every aspect of the girl's nascent career -- even blackmailing a stage manager so that Shirley can take a more prestigious gig. But Kitty goes too far when she breaks up her daughter's budding relationship with sweet artist Warren Foster. Heartbroken, Shirley sets off on a series of disastrous but profitable relationships.

Vantyne Carter is a playboy living in luxury off his father. Vantyne's cousin Teddy, meanwhile, leads a fine upstanding life -- or at least he appears to, so he can curry favor with his wealthy uncle, Vantyne's father. One day, the senior Carter, fed up with his son's antics, decides to play a trick on both Vantyne and Teddy. The old man and his lawyer go off on a hunting trip, and then the lawyer returns with news that Carter was killed in an accident.

Police Chief Jim Fitzpatrick is after gangster Sam Belmonte. He uses his police detective brother Ed to watch over Daisy who is associated with Belmonte but things don't go as planned.

A postulant falls in love with a flamboyant singer from a cafe next door to her convent.

Here with the Edison Company -- most notably Charles Ogle as the usurer -- we see a 'typical' case of the victims of usury. Although offered as a 'realistic' view of the effects of usury, it veers frequently into melodrama.

The villainous Dr. Fu Manchu races against a team of Englishmen to find the tomb of Ghengis Khan, because he wants to use the relics to cause an uprising in the East to wipe out the white race.

A horse with great potential is reluctantly sold by the breeder and by chance passes through multiple hands who do not treat him well.

A murder trial reunites a former chorus girl and her son, a grandson of an English aristocrat.