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Browse 28 movies from Popular Plays and Players Inc.
After the success of his painting "The Empress," artist DeBaudry (William Morse) takes his model, Nedra (Doris Kenyon), to a roadhouse and, unbeknownst to her, registers them as Mr. and Mrs. The roadhouse proprietor, who is also a part-time blackmailer, takes a photo of them together.
Mar 1917
The Vampire is a surviving 1915 silent film drama directed by Alice Guy and starring Olga Petrova. It is one of Petrova's and Guy's few surviving silent films.
Aug 1915
Inspired by a Robert W. Service poem, the story concerns a Parisian demimonde named Lucille who becomes the model of an aspiring artist named Robert. Falling in love with Robert, Lucille endeavors to spare him disappointment by secretly buying his "unsaleable" paintings. Luck of luck, one of his portraits of Lucille, "My Madonna," wins first prize in an art contest.
Oct 1915
Heroine Stella is not a "tigress" at all, but instead a loving wife and mother. All this changes when the despotic and rapacious Governor of Euturia, whose sexual overtures have been spurned by Stella, orders that her husband be executed and her child kidnapped.
Dec 1914
Bank official Hanlin Davis is ruined in the stock market. Desperate, he fails to rob the bank but kills someone in the attempt. His wife Thora goes to D.A. Hastings to plead for a light sentence which the corrupt Hastings agrees to only if Thora gives herself to him. Upon his release the worthless Davis learning of her sacrifice divorces and turns her into the street. An outcast she becomes "the scarlet woman.” When wealthy crusader Robert Blake institutes an investigation exposing D.A. Hastings he is disbarred and decides to revenge himself upon Thora, considering her the cause of his downfall. Blackmailing unscrupulous society woman, Paula Gordon, he forces her to introduce Thora to Blake as a naïve woman while deceiving Thora that he knows about her past. After they marry Hastings denounces Thora, she flees, returning to her old life, but Blake, seeing her worth seeks her and they reunite.
May 1916
Robert Armstrong, falsely accused of a murder committed thirty years ago in a western gambling hall, faces the alternative of imprisonment or paying blackmail. A letter from Tom Mason, formerly a miner, prepares him for a visit, at which time he must make his choice.
Apr 1916
Young mechanical engineer John Ashton is trying to complete the plans for a new submarine. Under pressure to meet a deadline he has been leaning on whiskey to handle the stress which his friend Robert Gray warns him against, but to no avail. His fiancée, Grace, telephones wanting him to take a break and attend a dinner party with her. Against his better judgement and still drinking he accepts but nods off while getting ready. What follows are booze infused visions of loss and degradation so horrifying that upon awaking he swears off "the devil at his elbow”!
Jul 1916
Young Martha Redmond, a poor girl from a small town, leaves to find a singing career in New York City. She doesn't find success as a singer, but finds a job as a model for a prominent artist, and soon becomes his mistress. When her lover throws her over to marry the daughter of a wealthy man, she becomes a "fallen women", a plaything for wealthy playboys. She meets Barrett, a millionaire's son, and begins to wonder if she might have a future with him, but it seems like he'll turn out to be just like "all the others".
Apr 1915
The Russian Czar sends his trusted confidant, Michael Strogoff, to warn his brother the Grand Duke of a Tartar rebellion that will be led by Feofar Khan and Ivan Ogareff. Calling himself Nicholas Korpanoff, Strogoff poses as a trader to journey to warn the Grand Duke. On his way he meets Nadia Fedorova, a young girl trying to join her father Wassili, a political activist who has been exiled to Siberia. Strogoff is captured by the Tartars, who don't believe he is a trader and threaten to torture Strogoff's mother Marfa unless he reveals his true identity.
Oct 1914
Steel mill owner Sarah Maitland has raised her two children, Blair and Nannie, to be honest and caring, however Blair disappoints her when he seduces the wife of his best friend and breaks up her marriage. No one is happy but it takes a near fatal accident to set things right.
Oct 1916
Persis Cabot, the daughter of a multi-millionaire meets young officer Harvey Forbes and falls in love but cannot marry him because of her father’s financial reverses. She enters a marriage of convenience, but her husband is a philander who makes her miserable. Despite his faithlessness he is possessive of Persis and driven by jealousy he attempts to kill her, but Harvey rescues her, and they are united at last.
Jan 1916
Story of a factory worker who is fired because she tries to protect one of her fellow employees from the lusty advances of their boss. She then joins forces with a crook and becomes his mistress. Although she winds up in jail because he stashed some of his stolen goods at her home, she escapes by flirting with the warden and then drugging him.
Aug 1916
Having made public her disdain for wealthy men, musical comedy actress Elaine Elton is nonetheless ardently pursued by a handsome young millionaire who, for her sake, poses as his own chauffeur. A romance blossoms, but Elaine cannot accept the handsome millionaire's marriage proposal; she has already promised to marry a powerful producer who has threatened to blacklist her from Broadway if she refuses to become his bride.
Mar 1916
This morality play of the starts off with Grace Vaughn running off with married man Dudley Kent (Wyndham Standing). While sailing to England, they meet Mr. and Mrs. Hargrove. Mrs. Hargrove tries to talk Grace out of ruining her life, but the girl won't listen. After a few months, Kent leaves Grace and she gets mixed up with a woman who runs a house of ill repute.
Apr 1917
When Mary O'Brien falls in love with Ernest Randall, the younger son of an English baronet, she gives herself completely to him and becomes pregnant. Her father (Robert Broderick), an Irish gentleman, finds this out and demands that she marry Randall.
Feb 1917
Pierre Felix, a couturier, makes a $25,000 bet with Ralph Courtland that he can take a girl from the streets, dress her appropriately, and within three months have her accepted into society.
The Ragged Earl was produced by Popular Plays and Players, a New York-based firm specializing in five-reel theatrical adaptations. Repeating his stage role, Andrew Mack essays the title character, a brawling Irish boy of a few centuries back. While swashbuckling his way through the Auld Sod, the Ragged Earl meets the aristocratic Kathleen Fitzmorris (Ormi Hawley), who is disguised as a boy to escape an arranged marriage with the wealthy but decrepit Lord Wildbrook (Edward Peil Sr.). Entering into the spirit of things, our hero disguises himself as Wildbrook, escorts Kathleen back home, and marries her himself, right under the noses of her unsuspecting parents.
Raised in the lap of luxury, Norma Russell is ill-prepared for her father's financial reverses. In exchange for a $25,000 loan, Norma's dad promises her hand in marriage to bank president Howard Dundore.
Nov 1916
Through a real estate purchase Daniel Gaynor acquires all rights in the waterway leading from Moose River to the mill. The original owner has never made use of his rights, but Gaynor, whose one thought is to get power, refuses to allow logs to be floated down the river running through his property. The men resent this injustice, and there is a fight between Gaynor and Bill Jackson, Bill representing the lumbermen.
While vacationing in America, Prince Adolph of Syravia meets Jo Sheldon and they fall in love. Wealthy Mr. Bote, a friend of Jo's family whose ambition is to become a baron, gives Jo's stepmother money to pay her creditors, in return for a forged note in Jo's name which promises that Jo will marry the prince and have him bestow the title on Bote.