Visionary Picks Drawn from the Same DNA as The Lost Express: Cult G...

Dir: George Beranger

John Fenton visits a fortune-teller to gain insight into his parentage. While there, a police raid occurs, and he climbs the fire escape to the apartment above. There he finds a girl standing over the body of a young man who has just shot himself. The girl, Belle Charmion, explains that her half brother, Gordon Brewster, had stolen some jewels from their uncle and, fearing that the police would capture him, had attempted suicide. Fenton conceals the brother in another room and impersonates him when the police arrive. Later, he and Belle take Brewster to his uncle's home. In the excitement, the jewels have been forgotten, and Fenton returns to search for them. By this time, the family butler, who is a member of an underworld gang, has tipped off his friends, who then steal the Fenton jewels. At the butler's home, a scuffle ensues; Fenton recovers the jewels and learns that he is actually a distant relative of the Charmions, having been kidnapped in infancy by a crook. With both mysteries thus resolved, Belle and Fenton become engaged.

Dir: Dallas M. Fitzgerald

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

Edith Sturgis, the daughter of a judge, returns from studies abroad to find her widowed father remarried. The new Mrs. Sturgis does not reveal that she has a son Dick, once unjustly jailed by Judge Sturgis, but now working as a reporter while still maintaining an association with the Brownlow gang. Quarrelling with her stepmother, Edith leaves home, meets Dick and falls in love. While Dr. and Mrs. Allen (whom Edith met on the steamer) are visiting in the Sturgis home, the doctor's valuable radium is stolen from the safe, and Judge Sturgis is found murdered. Dick, though with Edith at the time, is accused of the crime. Finally, an old shoemaker confesses that he entered the house to steal the radium, with which to cure his crippled son, and witnessed the judge's slaying by the Brownlow gang. Dick is freed and finds happiness with Edith, and the doctor helps the crippled boy.

Dir: Marcel Perez

Ralph Barr refuses to lend more money to Trent, who has been rejected by Judith Reynard and is now engaged to Barr. When Trent insults Judith, Barr threatens to kill him. Then Trent calls on Barr, threatening to kill himself and make it appear that Barr killed him if Barr will not lend him the money. Later it seems that Trent has committed suicide and Barr is suspected of the murder, but disappears. A series of complications follows which make it appear that Barr did kill Trent, but it turns out that he was killed from a shot behind the portieres. Another murder takes place and more mystery develops. Finally it is determined that Barr is not guilty, and Judith's loyalty saves him.

Dir: Charles Raymond

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

A magician helps outwit a Chinaman's gang.

Dir: J.P. McGowan

Episode 1: "Helen's Race with Death" Helen Holmes, age three, accompanies her father, General Holmes, president of the C.W.R.R., to the beach depot each morning as he departs for his office. The nurse takes her to the park, and while her erstwhile guardian chats with the family chauffeur Helen forms a chance acquaintance with a stray dog. The pup, unused to affection, runs away and Helen goes in pursuit. Nearby is a miniature railroad and Storm, an orphan newsboy, seeking to learn the mysteries of the small engine, has struck up an acquaintance with the engineer. Storm is ambitious; he has dreams of operating a real locomotive when he grows up. The miniature train pulls out with its load of passengers. The pup, with Helen in close pursuit, runs in front of the train. Throwing aside his newspapers, Storm dashes forward, and seizing Helen, throws her out of harm's way. Helen likes her rescuer and he tells her of his great ambition to run a big locomotive just like his father before an accident ended his life. Meantime the nurse and chauffeur gather Helen up and she waves a farewell to her new-found friend. The years roll by. Helen, raised in luxury, has developed into a beautiful young girl, in whom is centered all her father's affections. She receives a message from her father, telling her to meet him on No. 19, and that he is bringing home his nephew and a friend of the latter's. After years of disappointments and hard work, Storm has become a fireman on the road presided over by General Holmes. On this day he pulls out on No. 245 over the Black Rock Pass. Half way over the grade the air pump on his engine breaks. The long train is brought to a stop. Connecting up an emergency telephone, the conductor, talking to the dispatches receives orders to "bring on train by hand brakes." With the crew on decks, No. 245 is again in motion. Passing the summit, the crew realizes it can no longer control the long drag of cars, for the freight's speed has put it on the schedule of No. 19, the passenger aboard of which is General Holmes. The crew decides to cut off the caboose and escape, but Storm doggedly insists on sticking to the engine. Writing a message on a white signal flag and wrapping it around a wrench, the conductor hurls it through the window of the first telegraph office they pass. The operator wires news of the runaway to the next station, but it is too late; No. 19 has left. This put the passenger in the path of the runaway. Helen learns of the danger from the operator, where she is waiting. She rushes out and mounts her pony and rides for the bridge, but reaches it just as it is raised to permit the passage of a battleship. Digging her spurs into her mount, she makes a wild attempt to reach it, but fails. Into the river go horse and rider. As she rises to the surface Helen strikes out for the opposite shore. The two trains are drawing closer together. Arrived on shore, Helen mounts her pony and resumes her race with death. Down the track she gallops to a switch, the lock of which she breaks with a stone. Seizing the lever, she throws the switch as the head end of the freight thunders into the passing track. The hind end just clears the switch as the passenger tears by. At the far end of the passing track three box cars are standing. As Storm, still at his post, see the impending collision he jumps to safety. Helen rushes forward and picks up the gallant fireman. She has repaid her debt to her newsboy hero.

Dir: J.P. McGowan

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

Thomas Emory, manager of a local branch of the Buckhorn and Antioch, finds one day that he is minus a position due to his negligence in office. In his place is appointed temporarily his former assistant, Gordon Holt. Later, on an unexpected trip to the branch office, General Coming, the president of the B.&A., and his private train are narrowly saved from accident by the act of one of the minor superintendents along the division, Dan Oakley. In reward for the deed of daring which shows to the company's president of what stuff the young mechanic is made, Oakley is made manager over the head of Holt. With the introduction of new blood into "the works" the old regime of banker's hours and shiftless work is dealt its death blow. As a consequence the radical young manager incurs the enmity of the editor of the Antioch Herald and the leader of the Labor Party, one Griffith Ryden, who stirs up the men against him. But in spite of opposition the new manager "makes her pay." Due to the activities of the Labor Leader, a strike is called. Although the subsequent turmoil, hunger and dissatisfaction among the strikers is distasteful to the fighting manager, he stands his ground and keeps up his record by means of the men who remain loyal. A personal bitterness grows up between Ryder and Oakley since Constance Emory, the daughter of old Thomas Emory, the former manager, has evinced an interest in both which sways from one to another as her father's sympathies vary. The strike culminates in the cutting of the pipes leading to the water tanks, which results in the explosion of an over-heated engine boiler and a fire. The journey for aid to the next town to get the fire-fighting apparatus through a roaring forest fire which threatens to lick up the puny train with its tongue of flame, falls to the brave young manager. On his return he has won not only the hearts of his men, but that of the beautiful Constance, who promises to become his partner for life.

Dir: J.P. McGowan

Two rival mountain clans that have been feuding for years begin a new battle over the moonshine whiskey trade. A young man and a girl from each of the different clans try to end the feud, and wind up falling for each other.

Dir: J.P. McGowan

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

Whispering Smith is a virile, fearless type of the true American whose theory of life is to give every man a chance to show what is in him. There is nothing of the bully or braggart about him. He is just a man who knows instinctively what is right and never falters in his steps to see that justice is given where it is deserved and crime punished on the same basis. Whispering Smith loved Marion, a carefree, beautiful Western girl. His love was that of the strong, clean-living man, who knows no physical danger, but is reticent and bashful in his love affairs. Lacking as a suitor the characteristics that made him esteemed and feared among his fellow-men, he was beaten out for her hand by Sinclair, a dashing devil-may-care sort of fellow among the women, but an unscrupulous and vindictive man at heart. Marion's life with Sinclair was not all joy and happiness. Slowly he was killing her love for him, but in the manner of his kind he believed that harshness was the way to rule women. When the story opens, Sinclair, who is foreman of a wrecking crew on a mountain section of a transcontinental railroad, is living in one of the company's cabins in the small division terminal, "Medicine Bend," a typical Western railroad and mining town. This town was located at the foot of a steep declivity, noted for the frequency of the wrecks occurring there, particularly among freight trains. The officials of the road were worried at the great number of the wrecks, but were more concerned with the robberies that took place after each collision. No trace of the thieves could be found. The railroad detectives had about given up in despair when Whispering Smith was sent to "Medicine Bend" to put an end to the robberies. Sinclair was never suspected. Smith, however, discovers soon after his arrival that Sinclair is the brains of the gang engaged in looting the freight cars. Smith, to save Marion the disgrace of having her husband branded as a thief, does not expose him, but causes the division superintendent, McCloud, to discharge him. Life for Marion soon becomes unbearable and she leaves him. This arouses to frenzy the desperate man, who plans to get revenge on the railroad by burning the "Smoky Creek" trestle. Assisted by several of the band who had been engaged in looting the cars, Sinclair sets fire to the trestle, causing a disastrous wreck. Smith, determined to capture the men responsible, discovers that Sinclair is at the bottom of the plot. Again his love for Marion induces him not to expose her husband until he talks with her. He effects a reconciliation between Sinclair and Marion and upon the former's promise to lead a better life and to leave "Medicine Bend," Whispering Smith lets him go with his wife, and the girl he still loves.

Dir: J.P. McGowan

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: J.P. McGowan

A train that is carrying the formula for a valuable form of granulated gasoline disappears before it reaches its destination. Railroad investigators and the authorities try to determine where it is and who took it.