Rolfe Photoplays

William Baldwin, ruined in business by his partner, John Blaisdell, implores Blaisdell's aid, and receives in answer a five-dollar bill across the face of which is written, "Spend this for a gun and use it on yourself."

Howard Sherbrooke, a wealthy senior at a law university, is infatuated with Ethel Stratton, a girl who is a favorite with the students. Dick Leslie, his chum, is also in love with her. Dick is from the west, working his way through college, and Howard has assisted him financially. Howard does not know of Dick's love for Ethel.

Young Jim takes over from his father, political boss Jim Gordon Sr. As ruthless and unfeeling as his dad, Young Jim blocks the efforts by a crusading newspaper to bring about reforms in the city's tenement district. But he comes to regret his intransigence when his father is ruined financially.

Big-hearted Prue, living in the slums, and Danny O'Maddigan, a reformed crook, want to buy a birthday cake for Prue's 75-year-old grandmother. They live across the hall from Ellen Rutherford, the destitute widow of Steven Rutherford, Jr., who was disinherited by his father, a wealthy candy manufacturer. Prue, who works at the candy factory, gives Ellen the money that was meant for her grandmother's cake so Ellen will be able to care for her son Bobby. Frustrated over the loss of the money, Danny steals the price of a cake from the factory's safe, leaving the safe's door open in his haste to depart.

Debutante Hope Merrill returns home one day to find her financier father Amos Merrill on the verge of committing suicide. Rather than reveal the truth -- that he has misappropriated funds from his own company -- Merrill claims that he has been ruined by young John Cook, Hope's sweetheart.

John Wheeler (Warren Cook) gets himself in some financial hot water and needs to prove that he is half owner of some land in Canada. But the only person with a copy of the deed is Jean Corteau (Edwin Carewe, who also directed), and Corteau has gone up to the property and decided to claim all of it for himself.

Cyril Hamilton is a chicken-hearted easterner who heads west. He makes up for his past misdeeds by rescuing a Cavalry colonel's daughter Marcia West from Mexican bandidos.

Broadway star Mona Mainard retires from the stage for marriage to rising attorney John Norton and watches his career climb. Over time she becomes concerned with his at times unscrupulous ways of getting convictions. When her brother is accused of murder Norton refuses to give up the case despite being aware of his innocence because a victory could land him the governorship. Mona takes extreme steps to bring him to his senses and exonerate her brother.

Artist Standish using his wife Mary as his model finishes a painting of the Madonna. When the Connoisseur and the Parishioner inspect the picture, the Connoisseur tells Standish that the model was a one-time paramour. Buying the painting they depart. Standish confronts Mary, who tells him that she believed herself legally married to the Connoisseur. Unbelieving he ejects her and their baby son. Penniless Mary leaves her boy on the steps of a monastery. Years later before becoming a monk the boy is sent to see the world. Wandering into a café he is seduced by Beauty as the other inmates of the place, Lust, Rum, Avarice and Passion dance around him. The proprietor enters; it is Mary. Recognizing the crucifix, she left with him as a baby she persuades him to go back without revealing her identity. After he becomes a priest Mary, now a bedraggled old woman enters his church. She recognizes him and just before she dies her son gives her absolution.

Clover Ames's life consists only of the drudge work that she performs at her Aunt Sarah's boardinghouse. No longer able to withstand her aunt's abuse, Clover runs away and obtains a job as a maid to a wealthy woman. Willed $7,000 by Pierre Dubois, a boarder at her aunt's house, Clover, inspired by a novel that she has read, poses as a duchess at a fashionable winter resort. There she meets and falls in love with Walter Gray, who is also traveling incognito as a ribbon clerk. When Clover's money runs out, her trick is discovered and she vanishes. Obtaining employment in Gray's department store, Clover learns that her ribbon clerk is actually the owner's son, who rushes her to the wedding bureau.

Wealthy clubman Richard Dorian is a lighthearted soul who can't seem to take anything seriously, including his wife. Even when they decide to divorce, he meets the lawyers with a smile. When one of the attorneys suggests a charge of brutality, Mrs. Dorian points out that it is ludicrous. Dorian offers to have a party on his yacht, during which he will try very hard to be brutal to her to give her grounds for the divorce. Among the partygoers are Mrs. Dorian's guardian and Morgan, a smuggler who is buying the yacht. The guardian, who has squandered Mrs. Dorian's money on the stock market, kills himself. Dorian thinks that his wife killed him, gallantly takes the blame himself, and dives overboard. He becomes a tramp and is shanghaied by Morgan's men to become a stoker on his former yacht. Dorian's steward, Puck, is still onboard, and he tells Dorian that the guardian committed suicide.

Thrown out of his dad's house without a penny to his name, playboy J. Dabney Barron is told not to return until he has proven that he can keep a job for an entire month. After several false starts, our hero is hired to keep flighty heiress Betty Arden out of trouble. He not only succeeds but manages to get his hands on a valuable jewel that has long been coveted by his father.

Neil Dacey falls in with loves Peggy Desmond. Terence O'Malley, nephew of Squire O'Malley, is anxious to win Peggy. Terence and his uncle have a quarrel because Terence cannot win Peggy, and the squire is killed. Terence does the killing with Neil's gun, so Neil is held for the murder. Peggy, to save her fiance, dresses as the will-o'-the-wisp.

Herbert Grayson has timber holdings in a Southern state. One of his mills is burned, and he accuses Len Mathis, a young mountaineer. In trying to avoid arrest Len is killed, and old John Mathis, his father, swears to shoot Grayson or any member of his family on sight. His young daughter, Renie, makes the same vow. Grayson is anxious to gain control of lands owned by Mathis, Grayson's nephew, Eric Southard, volunteers to effect the purchase.

While touring India, noted English criminologist Richard Duvall saves the life of a Buddhist priest who rewards him with the presentation of a wonderful crystal globe. By gazing in it the priest demonstrates that Duvall can fall into a cataleptic state and his astral body is released and is free to roam at will. Shortly afterward he uses the orbs powers to help his lady love Grace Ellicott solve the murder of her aunt and restore her fortune.

Miriam Monroe and John Conrad are two young scientific workers who, independently of each other, have discovered a chemical called exonite. Miriam discovered it while searching for a cure for cancer, while Conrad used it as a basis for a powerful explosive.

Rich, spoiled social butterfly Pamela Sayre lives the good life with her two maiden aunts. Bertie Holden, the somewhat slacker son of a wealthy couple, is in love with Pamela, who seems to prefer muscular, daredevil-type men, which Bertie definitely isn't. Pamela flirts with the wealthy but much older Charles Van Gordon in order to make Bertie jealous, but her plan seems to backfire.

In this action-packed serial, government agent Quentin Locke infiltrates a corrupt patents company, only to run into the gleaming terror of its robot protector, the Automaton. In order to save the beautiful Eva Brent and find a cure for the dreaded Madagascar Madness, Locke suffers an inhuman array of tortures and physical restraints. He is chained, tied with barbed wire, padlocked in a crate and thrown in the water, tied beneath a descending elevator, strapped to an electric chair, and bound in an elaborate Oriental torture chamber.

Sylvia Mason, a mysterious girl, lives in a cabin by herself and sells her bead work to the visitors at a large hotel nearby. At the hotel, Sylvia meets Easterner Henry Hilliard, who falls in love with her, but she refuses to marry him and will not explain her reasons. Thus Henry returns East without learning that Sylvia's father had been murdered by his private secretary Jack Leslie in revenge for her refusal to marry him. One night after Henry's departure, Leslie, now known as the outlaw "The Shadow", breaks into Sylvia's cabin. There is a struggle that leaves Sylvia unconscious, and when she awakens she finds a note claiming that because Leslie has violated her, she must marry him.