The story of "Curfew" tells of a soldier who deserted his post during wartime to keep a tryst with his sweetheart.
May 1912
Dec 1914
Harvy, the heavy, and Bella, the ingenue, of a cheap theatrical company are encumbered with an infant girl. The husband, a worthless, dissipated character, annoyed by the presence of the child and the care the wife is compelled to give it. deserts them both. The show then "busts" and the mother and the infant are left stranded in a small California town.
Oct 1915
When the Civil War was declared, it caused great consternation in the home of John Wilson, as he was of Southern birth, while his wife was a Northern woman, and she favored the Federal cause.
Jul 1912
Upon his death Jerry Livingstone, a wealthy convict, leaves his son Henry the sole heir of a considerable fortune with the provision of a larger additional sum if he marries Jerry's ward, Winifred Gale. Upon hearing this, Winifred writes to the young Livingstone that she will not participate in a marriage of convenience.
Jul 1915
Shakespeare's tragedy of the Scots nobleman whose ambition leads him to betrayal, murder, and damnation.
Jun 1916
Kaintuck is a big mountaineer. He loves his sweetheart, Sue, with his whole simple, honest heart. One day an artist comes to sketch in their vicinity. He is immediately struck by Sue's beauty and asks permission to use her as his model. Kaintuck is not pleased with the idea, but the girl consents. When the artist secures board in Sue's home, Kaintuck's jealousy knows no bounds.
Jun 1912
Miserly Roger Blake hides a bag of money behind a brick in his fireplace. He works his son Joe hard without payment and Joe feeling used tries to steal the money. Caught he is banished. Joe’s sister promises to beg their father to let him return, promising a light in the window as a sign of reconciliation. When two thieves break into the house, the bag of money spills, and one thief puts the lamp on the windowsill to light the room. Joe returns and saves the money.
Apr 1915
Miner John Walsh leaves his wife and baby behind on his barren claim taking their small store of gold to the settlement and gambling it away. He becomes embroiled in a fight with cowpuncher Burns and is killed. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Walsh, weakened by her attempt to work, her husband's claim collapses. The doctor declares only a transfusion can save Mrs. Walsh's life. Burns, now a fugitive, appears and volunteers. Mrs. Walsh's life is saved, but Burns, weakened by hunger and exposure, succumbs, happy in having made amends for his crime.
Jul 1914
John Howard Payne leaves home and begins a career in the theater. Despite encouragement from his mother and his sweetheart, Payne begins to lead a life of dissolute habits, and this soon leads to ruin and misery. In deep despair, he thinks of better days, and writes a song that later provides inspiration to several others in their own times of need.
May 1914
Named by historian Kevin Brownlow as “the first important suffrage film”, this melodrama follows suffragist May Fillmore in her fight to sway Senator Herman, whose vote could pass a key reform bill. After exposing him and his fiancée Jane Wadsworth to the dire living conditions of a motherless tenement family—unsanitary housing, child labor, and workplace exploitation—Jane turns against her negligent fiancé and joins the suffrage cause. Ultimately, both Herman and Jane’s father are persuaded to support reform, and the film ends with the characters proudly taking part in a suffrage parade. (Note: This silent narrative film is distinct from Edison’s Votes for Women (1913), a Kinetophone short that recorded real suffragist leaders delivering speeches.)
Secretly engaged to Bernice, Albert becomes infatuated with the gypsy Mina. The rich and jealous Renard is in love with Mina enticing her father to take revenge on Albert. A scuffle ensues during which Renard accidentally stabs Mina's father but allows everyone to believe Albert guilty of the crime. Bernice hears of the events and breaks off her engagement to Albert. He is pursued by the police until a last-minute confession saves him.
Jan 1916
Roman citizens celebrate their leader, Appius Claudius. However, Dentatus, an old general, expresses scorn for Appius's inexperience. The citizens attempt to attack Dentatus but a young Roman, Icilius, intervenes to save him.
A poor widow dies, leaving her two young children, Bob and Mabel, in the care of a poor neighbor, who later is forced by circumstances to give them to an asylum. Twenty years pass and Jack, who has been adopted by a good family, has now gone into business for himself and is a rising young broker. He has been searching the detective agencies for his sister, without success, for some years. Mabel ran away from the asylum and has been brought up by a poor family, is without education and is now employed as a servant, and on a certain day is hanging clothes on a roof nearby a large office building, in which Bob has his office, and a small boy is flying his kite from the same rooftop.
The fascinating game of bridge has completely ensnared Mrs. Willis, the pretty young wife of a Wall Street clerk, and money that should have been spent to pay household bills is squandered on cards.
Mar 1914
Biff Dugan, the eldest son of a poor family living in a tenement on the squalid East Side of New York, leads a gang of hoodlums, among whose members is his brother Porky. Their sister Jess is a consumptive whose health was ruined in a sweatshop. During a melee in a mission run by reformer Henry Davis, the Dugan gang encounters Billy Drew and his sister Cora, newcomers to the city. Porky saves Cora from the unwelcome attentions of Biff's rival, Spike Golden, and the two fall in love. Later, when Spike is killed in a gang war, Biff is wrongfully convicted of the murder and executed in the electric chair. Porky, who served a short term in prison for his part in the crime, comes back to the city to find that Jess has died and Cora has returned to the country.
Feb 1914
A feud between the families of Gourd and Fork Ranches
Apr 1914
A 1910 short directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Marion Leonard.
Nov 1910
Mary Jones, slavey, lonely and unloved, advertises in a matrimonial paper for a good man to marry her. Charlie Brown, village sport, answers the ad. He signs it with the name of "Silent Sandy," his bachelor friend, telling Mary to come at once and he will make her happy. Mary comes. Sandy, willing to meet her, she looks him up. The tender hearted bachelor, realizing from the grins of Charlie and his pal that this is a put up job of theirs, marries Mary out of pity. Mary discovers "the joke," and that Silent Sandy did not marry her for love. As she is very much in love with her husband, this nearly breaks her heart. Meanwhile, Charlie has become fascinated by Mary's beauty. He declares his feelings, begging her to elope with him. Mary, furiously unhappy, repulses him, and Sandy comes in just in time to finish up Charlie.
A 1914 silent Western short