Rare Cinematic Gems Exploring the Legacy of Penny of Top Hill Trail...

Dir: Richard Smith

Two female candidates for Chief of Police live across the hall from each other, and their political rivalry follows them home, leading to plenty of hi-jinks.

Dir: Arthur Berthelet

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Chaperon perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Jim Ogden, secretly engaged to Madge Hemmingway, wealthy heiress, becomes sensitive over his lack of money and breaks the engagement. In a moment of pique she marries Count Van Tuyle. After six months she returns from Europe, minus her husband. Trying to forget her error, she goes to the country. Richard Coombs is the nearest neighbor of Madge's aunt, and he finds it necessary for his wife and himself to hasten to the city. A chaperon is needed immediately for their four daughters. By necessity they are forced to take Madge, who is still the runaway Countess Van Tuyle. Jim Ogden is on a canoe trip through the lakes and stops at the Coombs camp. This is the crowning embarrassment for the chaperon. Up to the time the cook, butler and chauffeur have quit and each one of the girls has opened a summer flirtation. However, Ogden persuades Madge to take a canoe ride. Their craft strikes a rock and the two are marooned on a little barren Island. Meanwhile the Count has followed his wife to America and with Madge's mother arrives at the camp. Becoming suspicious, he goes up the lake the next morning and finds his wife with Ogden. Madge escapes in his boat and leaves the two men to fight it out. Mrs. Coombs returns to find her four daughters engaged, the chaperon a sorry sight after her night on the lake and half of her servants gone. However, Mrs. Hemmingway solves everything and promises that she will effect a settlement with the Count to enable her daughter to marry Ogden.

Dir: Arthur Berthelet

Richard Craig and Paul Hessert, who work in the same office, are great chums. Both are in love, however, with the stenographer. Craig is successful in winning her heart and they are married. The rivalry does not break the friendship of the two men. Instead Craig is so happy in his new home he invites Hessert to come and live with them. Craig becomes engrossed in his work and fails to see that his wife is lonesome. He stays away from home more and more in the evening and Mrs. Craig is thrown much to the society of Hessert. Finally, a love springs up between the two. Craig is called away from the city on business and his wife finally yields to Hessert's importunities. Craig returns unexpectedly and finds the two together. The wife confesses her love for Hessert and tells her husband to shoot them. He, however, calmly tells her that he will get a divorce so that she can marry Hessert, if they will consent to let him live in the house under the same condition as Hessert had. They agree. Craig then sets about to win back the love of his former wife. He promotes Hessert in the office and throws temptation in his way, believing he will prove himself a scoundrel. Hessert finally steals a large amount of money and is about to flee from the country. Craig tells the woman of his theft but she will not believe it. Just at the moment, however, Hessert enters the house and when confronted by Craig, confesses his guilt. Instead of having him arrested, Craig tells him to go and never to show up again. The wife is overwhelmed with remorse and asks Craig what she can do to atone. He takes her back to the office as his stenographer.

Dir: Arthur Berthelet

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Havoc perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Uncle Woolwich, an eccentric millionaire, wills that his fortune be divided between his nephews, Barry Owen and Walter Woolwich, in proportion to the amount of money that each shall have saved at the time of their uncle's death. Walter, a broker, is prospering while Barry, a reporter, is penniless. With his three-legged dog Pod, Barry starts out to make his fortune. Along the way, he meets Faith Fanshawe, whose car has broken down. Faith gives Barry fifty cents for repairing the machine, and he keeps the money in remembrance of the beautiful girl. Next, Barry meets Jeffery Jarvis, a writer, who gives him shelter. Barry tells the writer his story and Jarvis takes him to his country club. Here Barry again meets Faith and rescues her from drowning. Their friendship grows into love, but Barry is too poor to propose marriage. This situation is remedied when Uncle Woolwich dies at the time when Walter is swamped by the market and is half a million dollars in debt. By the terms of the will, Barry inherits a fortune, and with his new found wealth, marries Faith.

Dir: Charley Chase

A young married couple volunteer to take charge of several orphans after the asylum has burned down. Of course they find their hands full with their troublesome charges.

Dir: Unknown Director

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Golden Idiot perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

The Judge needs a present for his wife's birthday, so Harry suggests a new corset. They go to the shop, but he's so embarrassed to ask the saleslady he hides in a phone booth.Harry goes in, but finds a GUY wearing one, and runs out.They both dress as women to get back in, but Mrs. Rummy gets there and chases him out.

Dir: Arthur Berthelet

Believing that over-civilization was destroying the race, Eli Tapper, an eccentric millionaire, took two unrelated orphan children, a boy and a girl, and placed them in a wilderness, there in the care of an old tutor, David Winters, to grow up as a new Adam and Eve, and become path-breakers of a better race. In delightful simplicity and educated as much as they could be without contact with the world, the children attain the age of nineteen years. Mrs. Tupper-Bellamy, society leader, lives in costly splendor against the day when she hopes to inherit her brother millions. She plans to marry her daughter, Clarice, to Seymour Purchwell, society idler of standing and also an attorney. Purchwell makes it plain that the marriage can occur if Eli Tupper's fortune goes to the girl and her mother. When Tupper dies the sister and her set learn for the first time of his odd experiment. His will provides that the sister must take Adam and Eve into civilization in order to win an annuity of $50,000 a year. The orphans are heirs to the rest. Purchwell sets out to find them. He locates the Eden of the boy and girl and old Winters, and is literally the serpent in the garden. Winters resents leaving, but a clash between Adam and Purchwell decides him. Plunged amidst the whirl of social affairs Eve is delighted. Adam is disgusted with the sham and deceit of society, and pleads with her to return to Eden. She refuses. Winters takes him to Paris to study. Purchwell, seeking the Tupper fortune, turns his attention to Eve. Clarice is in a frenzy of affection spurned, and after finding the two alone she accuses them before the whole house party. Eve, in her innocence, does not readily grasp the meaning of the charge. When it dawns on her she faces the guests, and in her bitterness denounces them as tools of passion and greed, and announces that she will give up all and return to Eden. With old Winters, she returns. Adam is recalled from Paris, and the girl and the boy, now awake to their love, together with their beloved guardian, give up the world.

Dir: Arthur Berthelet

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Kids Is Kids perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

The story of six affairs of the heart, drawn from controversial feminist author Mary MacLane's. None of MacLane's affairs - with "the bank clerk," "the prize-fighter," "the husband of another," and so on - last, and in each of them MacLane emerges dominant. Re-enactments of the love affairs are interspersed with MacLane addressing the camera (while smoking), and talking contemplatively with her maid on the meaning and prospects of love.

Dir: Arthur Berthelet

Rosiland, whose papa is rich, first meets David Noel when she is about 10 years old. He is a shivering little beggar boy who is seeking the scant warmth emitted from a sidewalk grating at her home. Rosiland, with childish generosity and sympathy, takes off her shoes and gives them to the beggar boy. Those little shoes were David Noel's guiding light. They spurred ambition in him, the ambition to become rich and then make the pretty little donor his wife. Years pass; the two children see each other no more, and David wins the first step towards his ambition's goal. He becomes rich in Costa Rica. Then he returns to the great city wherein dwelt the girl of the little shoes to achieve the final step. Time has wrought a great change in Rosiland's life: her papa has lost his wealth and she, now grown, faces destitution. Thus David, finding her at last, is enabled to repay twofold the gift of the little shoes. She wins him and his fortune.

Dir: Arthur Berthelet

Rev. Paul Manson, pastor of St. Mark's Church, is ordered to the country for his health. While he is sojourning in a lumber camp with Wilks, his guide, he reads of his "sudden death" in his home-town newspaper. Rev. Manson has longed to clean up the slums of his city, and decides to return incognito and do so. Upon his return he is met by a street urchin, Sid Farley, who recognizes him as his missing father, Joe Farley. Rev. Manson is recognized by the boy's mother, Mary, also, as her husband, and he does not deny it. Under the guise of Joe Farley, Rev. Manson begins the work of uplifting the slum district. Though he does not live at Mary's home, declaring he is tired of her, Manson gradually recognizes her good impulses and falls in love with her. Manson has just triumphed over an evil political ring in the slums when he is recognized by Mrs. Sewell Wright as the supposedly dead Rev. Manson. But having attained his ambition in the slums he remains there, marrying Mary.