The Girl Without a Soul

Famous playwright Paul Worden decamps to a country bungalow to work on a new play, rehearsing with his leading lady, Marjorie Sinclair, who is staying nearby. Going riding one day to relax, Paul rescues his neighbor, teenager Diana Ardway when her horse runs wild. The pair clash initially, as she does with Marjorie, but after a series of misunderstandings true love triumphs.

Feodor Turov, chief of the Russian Czar's secret police, orders his Cossacks to attack a village he believes to be infested with rebels. The Cossacks attack the village and massacre almost everyone, and the young Katerina is whipped to death. Before escaping to England, her sister Darya swears to avenge her sister's death. Years later--now one of the world's most famous prima ballerinas--she returns to Russia. Turov falls in love with her and manages to secure a meeting. She coyly asks him to take her to see a prison first. As it turns out, what he has planned for her is nothing compared to what she has planned for him.

The film opens in Ireland, as a dying Patrick McNairne tells his daughter Jerry to go to New York and look up Norton Burbeck, a wealthy young man whose life Patrick had saved some time earlier (the surviving print, largely complete, lacks the second page insert of a letter explaining the full background). The affable Burbeck is due to inherit his uncle’s fortune provided he’s married by November; if not, the inheritance will go to his cousin Howard Curtis. An adventuress, Beatrice Gaden, and her husband Dick are in cahoots with Curtis: Beatrice pretends to be single in order to string Norton along up to the November date, at which time Curtis will come into the money and give a share to his unscrupulous partners.

Annice Paisch and her friend, Edna Lawson, almost despair of finding husbands in their dull hometown until Annice is struck with the idea of strewing tacks over the heavily traveled road that passes her house. New Yorker Vance Duncan promptly has an accident and is forced to recuperate in the home of Annice's father, the local doctor. Vance sends Annice to the telegraph station to wire his uncle, Mike Darcy, and there she meets detective Robert Cord, who informs her that Vance is a hopeless alcoholic. Uncle Mike arrives and Annice immediately falls in love with him, while Edna longs for Vance. Cord has Vance imprisoned in Dr. Dumbbell's Sanitarium for Drunkards, but Annice, masquerading as a patient, smuggles him out. They arrive home to find someone else's "Uncle Mike" chastising the detective for tracking down the wrong man, and the four young lovers finally are left in peace.

Another of a successful string of Metro features directed by the vastly underrated John H. Collins, Riders of the Night was set in Kentucky hill country. Collins' wifeViola Dana stars as Sally Castleton, a country girl in love with a brooding and idealistic aristocrat. When her sweetheart joins a night-riding vigilante organization, Sally is temporarily dismayed but resolves to hide the man from the authorities.

An illegitimate child of the slums comes to faith. Later, she chooses to labor in a canning factory in order to investigate its poor conditions, not realizing she has a significant connection to the cold-hearted factory owner.

June, a young orphan, is befriended by Perry Bascom when he shares his lunch with her on the road to Rising Sun. They soon fall in love and marry, only to find out that a woman in Perry's past has come to town to make trouble. Teaming up with the local political bully, the schemers set out to make Perry's life miserable, but June sticks by her husband to the end.

The young Ruth Travers, left an orphan after the death of her father financially ruined by Mortimer Reynolds, is welcomed at home by Jimmy Carter, a young millionaire who becomes her guardian. Ruth's winsome qualities gradually win Jimmy's heart. Meanwhile at a Charity Ball, Ruth meets Mr. Reynolds, who is contriving to ruin her virtue.

To avenge her sister's disgrace and death, Audrey Graham leaves her theatrical engagements in New York, and in one of the caravans of the early '70's seeks Hell's Paradise, a mining camp to which Steele, the betrayer, has gone. The caravan nearly perishes in Death Valley, and Audrey, disguised as a child, goes to seek relief from a band of outlaws. Her subterfuge is perceived and she is given her liberty only on condition that she bring Steele to the bandit, who married a woman Steele deceived. Audrey keeps her word but turns aside the happiness within her grasp for the sake of the other woman.

George Anderson, a struggling author, works in the daytime as a clerk in the office of Emmet Standish, the publisher, and at night writes on his novel, "The Mortal Sin."

As a baby, Patsy Smith is kidnapped by her father following a bitter quarrel with her mother. After her father dies at sea, a seafarer named Captain Barnaby places Patsy at Mrs. Duff's boardinghouse. She grows up working as a domestic drudge, deeply unhappy with her life. Inspired by Captain Barnaby's storytelling about Aladdin, Patsy sets out to find an old Oriental lamp that once belonged to her father. She learns that Mrs. Duff sold it to a junk peddler and goes to buy it back. Patsy rubs the lamp, unleashing a Genie. The Genie helps Patsy by providing her with fine clothing, exposing her abusive boardinghouse mistress, and eventually reuniting Patsy with her long-lost mother. With her life transformed, Patsy also finds romance with Harry, a young man who resides at the boardinghouse.

Dr. Claude Drummond, a young English doctor in India, saves Ameia, a young girl, from being sacrificed to the priests of the temple of Krishna by buying her as his wife. Returning to England upon the death of his elder brother, who was the heir to the estate, Claude finds that his father has arranged a marriage between himself and Olive Dennison, the daughter of the Major-General. To please his father, Claude is about to submit to the marriage, although neither he nor Olive love each other, when Ameia arrives from India. Discovering that her existence is a barrier to her husband's advantageous alliance, Ameia takes poison but is saved by an antidote administered by Claude. It is then discovered that Ameia is actually the daughter of Major-General Dennison, by a native wife whom he had deserted. Thus, Claude finds it possible to be true to his love and to his father's wish that he marry the general's daughter.

Evelyn and her boyfriend William Bard are members of a small Shaker community. They rock the community one day when they announce that they want to get married and have children, in direct opposition to the Shaker prohibition against marriage and procreating. The Shakers drive the couple out of town, but before she leaves Evelyn gives birth to a daughter, Eve. Shortly afterward Evelyn dies, and the Shakers inform William that their daughter Eve has died also. William leaves town, but vows to take his revenge on the Shakers, whom he blames for the loss of his family.

Echo, the orphaned "flower of no man's land," has been raised by an Indian foster father, Kahoma. Then, when opera singer Roy Talbot goes West to recover his health, Echo falls instantly in love and forgets all about Big Bill, her cowboy sweetheart. Roy marries Echo and takes her back East, but soon after returning to his adoring public, he loses all interest in her. Finally, Echo leaves Roy and goes back to the wilderness, where she discovers that Roy had already been married when they met and had deserted his wife years before. For so deceiving his adopted daughter, Kahoma tracks Roy down and kills him, while Echo forgets about her big-city unhappiness and returns to Big Bill, with whom she makes plans to marry.

Viola Dana plays Eleanor, a minister's daughter who comes to New York to visit her older sister, a successful businesswoman. Eleanor manages to get a job as a nurse in a major metropolitan hospital. One night, she is called upon to look after a drunken tourist, who turns out to be her hometown sweetheart Roger (Pat O'Malley).